catching up
Jun. 29th, 2010 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyThis weekend I went to Eplaheimr for their Heraldry Feast. This was my first trip to Ireland -- I flew to Dublin and then took the bus to Roscrea, where Hilke met me at the bus stop and toted me back to the event sight, which was a lovely old-fashioned house with outbuildings and everything a SCA household would want. Given that it was a relatively small event, they were able to put most of the attendees up in crash space in the house -- which for me included a room and a bed to myself! Lovely. The grounds were populated with numerous very friendly cats, all of which clearly never got any attention whatsoever, and so were perfectly happy curling up on laps or on shoulders the entire weekend. Very nice. Friday there were only about 10-12 of us around, and after dinner we repaired to the gambling hall where my ankles and wrists managed to gain me enough escutos to be able to participate in both cards and dice. Saturday I did something I haven't done in nearly 8 years if not more, and that's pick up a bow. There were a large number of other new archers so I didn't feel terribly inadept, and I even managed to shoot in both the morning and afternoon events without once snapping the bowstring across the inside of my arm, which means that something of what I learned from the little archery I did back in Jararvellir has stuck with me -- rather like riding a bicycle, if you once hold your arm wrong and snap your bowstring against it (which usually results in some amazing bruises), you don't do it again, ever. The morning was mostly practice for the afternoon competitions, and I was pleased that 1/3 of my arrows hit the foam the target was affixed to, and the other two generally made the right distance but were too low -- I only lost one arrow from shooting too high and too far and we never found exactly where it went. After lunch I, being that it was a feast of heraldry and I'm something of a herald :), gave a talk on banners and standards, based on de Walden's Banners, standards, and badges, from a Tudor manuscript in the College of Arms, which I conveniently discovered is available on the web in full-text downloadable PDF about a week before the event. It was mostly a "show and tell" talk, but I think people enjoyed it and found it interesting.
After lunch there were three different archery shoots, the bear hunt, the heraldry shoot, and the "turn your bow so that it's horizontal to the ground instead of perpendicular and then shoot really high so that the arrow goes up over a really tall tree and goes about 100 yards if not more" shoot. That was awesome. None of us were any good at aiming for the foam head we could just barely see, but wow can you get some height and distance that way! I enjoyed myself so much in all three shoots that that was fun enough for me -- so I was shocked when during feast when they announced the winners, it turned out I'd won all three! Completely by accident -- definitely for the bear shoot, where I managed to hit the 10-point circle which indicated the bear's heart, and the reason I knew it was purely by accident was because at a distance of 20 yards, which is what we were shooting from, I couldn't even see that circle, much less aim for it. But anyway, that was great fun, and I hope I can borrow a bow again at Raglan and shoot some more.
Saturday night there was fun at the bardic circle until at least when I went to bed, which was about 1:45. My alarm went off at 4:30 so that Hilke could bring me back to Roscrea to get the 5:15am bus to Dublin airport -- luckily I slept through all that, and then slept an hour on the floor of the airport, and on the flight from Dublin to London, and from London to Lisbon, so by the time I arrived in Lisbon I was doing OK sleep wise. (Though having to sprint from terminal 1 to terminal 3 in Heathrow, including going through security twice, and then just barely making my connection didn't do much for my relaxation).
So that was the weekend -- I've been in Lisbon since Sunday night, and will try to catch up on that later...time to check a few things and then go to bed.
After lunch there were three different archery shoots, the bear hunt, the heraldry shoot, and the "turn your bow so that it's horizontal to the ground instead of perpendicular and then shoot really high so that the arrow goes up over a really tall tree and goes about 100 yards if not more" shoot. That was awesome. None of us were any good at aiming for the foam head we could just barely see, but wow can you get some height and distance that way! I enjoyed myself so much in all three shoots that that was fun enough for me -- so I was shocked when during feast when they announced the winners, it turned out I'd won all three! Completely by accident -- definitely for the bear shoot, where I managed to hit the 10-point circle which indicated the bear's heart, and the reason I knew it was purely by accident was because at a distance of 20 yards, which is what we were shooting from, I couldn't even see that circle, much less aim for it. But anyway, that was great fun, and I hope I can borrow a bow again at Raglan and shoot some more.
Saturday night there was fun at the bardic circle until at least when I went to bed, which was about 1:45. My alarm went off at 4:30 so that Hilke could bring me back to Roscrea to get the 5:15am bus to Dublin airport -- luckily I slept through all that, and then slept an hour on the floor of the airport, and on the flight from Dublin to London, and from London to Lisbon, so by the time I arrived in Lisbon I was doing OK sleep wise. (Though having to sprint from terminal 1 to terminal 3 in Heathrow, including going through security twice, and then just barely making my connection didn't do much for my relaxation).
So that was the weekend -- I've been in Lisbon since Sunday night, and will try to catch up on that later...time to check a few things and then go to bed.
