The First of Many Awesome Events
It's taken a whole week of recovery, but now I finally have the energy to sit down and tell you all about our wonderful weekend at Timeline Festival!
We were all really nervous about the weekend. We'd been before as general public, but we had no idea what was in store for us as reenactors.
We had to use the mattock to try to dig a hole for our banner, but even that would only dig so far. The banner stayed up all weekend, we later found out that it was because the spike the banner was fixed to had gotten lodged between two rocks when we drove it in! The mattock gave in when we tried to dig a hole for an armor stand though, so we have the handle a proper Viking burial: On the Fire!
Despite all the things that didn't quite go right or to plan, our campsite necessities got set up without tears. We joined our Dubh-Linn Viking friends for some of Louise's delicious cooking and went to bed pumped for everything still yet to come.
I woke up at Sparrow's Fart (my tent offered little in the way of light dampening) and so began the task of laying out all the bits and pieces to make our encampent come to life! Jarrah emerged from his tent like a zombie from the grave, and Lauren quickly darted off to fix her veil and wimple (I still don't know how she does it). We established early on that Kraki should not be allowed around my tent until he's had coffee, because he kept tripping on my pegs and guy ropes and let many a profanity loose. The chest was nearly dropped on someone's foot, I managed to get the front of my tunic drenched and despite the forecast telling us there'd be no rain, it started to spit. Luckily, our little comedy of errors had settled down and everything found it's order just as the public started to trickle in. It was really fantastic to see so many kids getting really into it, some of them knew more about some things than we did! The jousters were a huge hit with a lot of the people we spoke to, and so were the AMC fighters. We had a great view of their fighting area from our campsite and watching them go at it always had us on the edge of our seats (or chests, as the case may be)! One of the great things about an event like this is being able to meet new people and catch up with friends. Some of the friends I had made at Gumeracha Medieval Fair in South Australia earlier in the year, from the NVG Magnaura garrison, made the trek over the border for the weekend. They stopped in to our campsite and gave us some of our sanity back, while we helped them wrangle their fly in the evening as it tried to fly away! We sold, bought and bartered with other reenactors, practice our casting and crafting, learned new skills and shared a few, too. We watched the fights, Kraki competed in the archery tournament, we shared food and when the gates closed, drank our fair share! Day two was more of the same shenanigans, with just as big a grin on our faces. As the public left and the sun started to sink we headed into the castle for the speeches, presentations and thank yous.
It was really a sight to see almost all the reenactors in one place. You don't quite realise how many there are when they're spread out over the whole site. Many much deserved thanks were given to the Keith and Chase and the whole committee for all their efforts in organising the event, it really is a great job they do for us all! The awards for the AMC fighters were given out, the award for best fight display went to the NVG (they sure were the loudest if nothing else) and we thought it was time to pack up and head out. BUT there was one more award to give out.
When Keith read it out, we were all absolutely gobsmacked, and it was definietly amusing as half the others sitting around us had no idea who on Earth it was that had gotten the award.
He read out, the winners of the Best Encampment award: The Fyrd!
Then I watched the moment that it dawned on Jarrah that, as President, he had to go up and receive the award for us. I will remember that expression for a very long time indeed! :D
After many hugs, congratulations and farewells, we packed down our tents and piled our gear into cars, and set off home. Even after an hour long shower, I couldn't get rid of the smell of smoke. Can't wait for the next event!
