Headspace

We spent the past weekend in Hämeenlinna attending the medieval fair, M organising our part in that (SCA, Humalasalo’s own spot, craft-demos and the worky stuff that needed to be done). I taking care of her, filling in on the ticket-sales when needed and heralding for our dance-performances and tourney (on saturday only, lost my voice and had to find replacements for sunday). Prior to the weekend I really disliked the idea alltogether. The idea of the things to come didn’t feel good and I would have much rather stayed home for some R and R. Good things to look forward was meeting special people, whose company I really appreciate.

The scheduled departure from home was 7.40 saturday-morning, picking up people 8.00 from the Tampere railwaystation. We were late from that, but not too badly. Not so surprising was the thing that I ended up sleeping only 5 hours before leaving, due to my own sleep-cycle. Needless to say this didn’t particularily improve my mood. The saturday was hectic, but… my mood improved and on saturday evening, when we got ourselves to Aurora’s and Mika’s place I felt good. They whipped up a pizza that was gorgeous, showed us Lilo and Stitch which was good and generally treated us to an evening of quiet nice that was just the thing the doctor ordered.

So on sunday it seemed very nice, especially after it came obvious that my voice was gone there were good alternative heralds for both fighting and dance (my thanks to Vesa and Halla for this, note to anyone looking for a good field-herald, pick Vesa he is good). We bought jewelry for both of us (M got herself a nice chain and as an early b-day present irish-love-earrings) I got myself a ren-styled cross.

Looking back to the actual fair after some much needed rest and with an uplifted mood some things came out rather strongly.

1. Our display was better this year
   • Raconzay’s sign was very good
   • Display tables were laid out nicely and we had showy and fitting things for sale
   • Craftshows that Johanna and Tofa did on our display worked extremely well and captured a lot of intrest. It really pays of having the craft-shows with the rest of the display
2. Our little tourney was a darn good one. This yar we had an actual tourney, with lady protector, introductions of the fighters, nicely laid out field… The fights were for the most part (note: I watched through the thing only on saturday) showy and we managed to create some feeling in the audience as well. (For the showiness, extra thanks to Mikael Karhu, the axe thingy really worked). For a minute I pondered if the audience actually knew sir Edmund that big was the cheer when I introduced Thorstein as the said knight’s squire
3. Our dancing shows were truly magnificent. Adrian had managed to herd out ten dancers, who performed courtly dances from all across the Europe from the the courts of England and France through Italy all the way to the far Island of Rhodos. They gathered a lot of audience and obviously were able to suitably impress the gathered commoners. My congratulations go out for them all
4. Besides all the spectacle and showing off, we also had the braves of Humalasalo, who took the most thankless, but no less important (could even say that the most important if I was thinking only financially) task of doing ticket-sales on the northern gate to the castle, which we as a local society had agreed to handle. This is a rather thankless job, but the organisers had finally made it a bit easier by posting permanent security staff on the gate to check tickets. I filled in on couple of shifts and my heart goes out for anyone who did it more.
5. The value of the coffee-tickets granted to us had increased from last year significantly. Now we had the choise of taking coffee/tea/grandi with a sandwich(big and good)/sausage/flapjack with jam, where last year this was coffee/tea with a small pastry or sweetbun(the latter was dried and tastless). This was a thing to be really happy about. The actuall food on both days was something I didn’t like, but then again I’m rather picky when it comes to food

There were other things too. I know we had an archery show, I saw it gathered audience and that the target was a very qute bambi. I didn’t see the show, but it must have been good, right?

In the end the best part was seeing and spending time with friends, even if shortly. What I’m most grateful was the lodgings and care gotten from very good friends. Thanks guys, because of you, I consider attendance next year as well. Hugs to all, who like that and pat to back for those happier with that.

(To be edited)