Little pieces of lace...

So... Last weekend we had an AscendancyLRP event at Unstone Grange, where I played several NPCs and largely avoided combat where I could. Richard has already done a write up, including some photo's of me, with more photo's on the website here. I was horribly tired most of the event and really worn out most of last week, hence the lack of an update here. What brain power I had left, I reserved for work!

I was very relieved when RichS's tip about breaking out the Clearisil to remove green makeup proved to be true, as I'd made myself up for one NPC and spent the rest of the weekend wearing a faintly green beard that no amount of wetwipes would completely eradicate! Alas, no photographs of the NPC but please take my word for it that she looked very impressive.

This weekend we had nothing planned, which was good considering we'd had two events back to back!

I got to horrify Dave by mentioning the 'C' word and procuring a magazine covered in baubles and packed with patterns for angels, snowflakes, Rudolf, snowmen, etc...



This is an American publication that I found in the one newsagent (Hamilton News) in town that sells such things, while hunting for the elusive Vogue Knitting (or Designer Knitting as it is apparently renamed for the European Market). Admittedly, Crochet World is neither Vogue or knitting, but the contents caught my eye and seem to be nothing but patterns with very little editorial content.

Apart from the sight of Christmas decorations in August, the reason this magazine caught my attention was the sight of a few doily patterns, because I'm on a bit of a doily kick right now.

Despite having been crocheting since I was a child, I've never actually made a doily, with my efforts initially being focused on more practical things such as blankets. But just recently, thanks to the extensive pattern library on Ravelry, I began to see the possibility of doilies. I've become intrigued by these little pieces of lace and have started wondering about how they'd look if I used proper yarn rather than thread with much bigger hooks?

Never having made a doily before and having quite a bit of cotton thread in my stash, I thought I'd give it a go. I trawled Ravelry looking for a free and preferably old pattern that might suit this initial foray into the art of little lace coasters before settling on the Between Meals Centrepiece (Ravelry Link). This is an old pattern, circa 1917 and I originally downloaded this from Annie's Attic, but it doesn't seem to be hosted there any more and I can't find where it's moved to... I did discover some very pretty alternatives though at Free Crochet.

This is no ordinary doily. It is a huge doily which should measure around 30 inches (or 75 cm) across by the time I'm done! A few weeks ago, it looked like this...



While this weekend, after 35 rounds of stiches and with another 25 to go, it looks like this...



I've included the row counter to give some idea of scale, although I haven't measured the doily as of yet. I'm expecting the stitches to open up a little when I get around to blocking it, but otherwise I'm very pleased with my progress so far. It's slow but definitely getting there!

Walk like an Egyptian...

After a washout of a week, this weekend we've actually had glorious weather, which was fortunate as yesterday we headed up to Shining Cliffs (also affectionately known as Shining Death) in Derbyshire for a spot of LRP. This was a closed AscendancyLRP player event and someone's birthday bash, so I'm hoping they enjoyed it.

I wrote most of this one, so had a fair understanding of what was going on and had a couple of enjoyable moments. I got to shout at the birthday boy and set him up to embrace a nightmare, so I think I did my bit. I'm sure Richard will do a writeup and post some pictures when he gets a moment.

Today we stayed at home and did lots of things that we didn't get a chance to do yesterday because we were running around the woods being scary. This mostly involved housework, laundry, ironing, more fleece washing and this...



I actually dusted off my sewing machine and made costume.



This is a kalasiris, or an Egyptian style robe inspired by the one in Patterns for Theatrical Costumes, which incidentally is a great book and one I highly recommend - providing you have some dressmaking or costuming experience and know how to construct your own patterns. It is a brilliant resource but doesn't hold your hand, do much in the way of instructions and assumes that all you need is the basic shapes and can pretty much do everything else for yourself.

Anyway, I was after a simple robe that could be worn in a variety of ways and would stand me in good stead for crewing. I went stash diving and found this piece of linen which I'd purchased back when I started sewing. It's one of those lengths of fabric which I fell in love with (it was the colour), went "oooh linen" and it fell into my shopping basket. I feel good about making this costume as it was using up stash fabric and I only added thread and ribbon.

Last weekend, I washed the linen and spent a whole afternoon ironing it (while also washing fleece) and then I drafted out my pattern.



I cut, edged and sewed the main seams through the week, leaving today for the finishing touches - namely adding trim and making a belt. This is the first time I've sewn ribbon on with a sewing machine as I normally hand finish everything. The lack of time available meant that this time I decided to have a go at using the machine and I don't think I made too bad a job of it. It was however very fiddly and while faster, I think sewing ribbon on with a machine is a lot harder than doing it by hand!

Naturally, any Egyptian outfit needs a cat in shot and Missy was determined to get in on the action. In fact, there was no shifting her so I think I can say that this robe has Missy's seal of approval.



The robe itself is a very simple garment. In its most basic form, a kalasiris is nothing more than a big rectangle of fabric with a hole cut in it for the head. The sides are then sewn closed with holes left for the arms. The whole thing is pinned or belted in place to form a sort of dress and can be worn on its own or with an underdress of some sort (i.e. a tunic or shift would do it).

In this case, I'm sporting it over a t-shirt and modern skirt but hopefully you get the idea.

Modifications on the basic idea... I decided to add in a back seam and cut at the shoulder seams. This was for ease of cutting and drafting since I was handling smaller pieces of linen. The linen in question creased if I looked at it funny and anything that helped me to keep it flat while I drafted and cut was a good thing.

I decided to split my kalasiris up the front to give me more future flexibility in how I might use this costume. Then I decided that ribbon was needed at the neck and sides to make the whole thing gel properly, so the whole thing look like a proper garment rather than a big piece of linen. The ribbon, in red and gold as a good match and I'm pleased with how it looks now its in place.

The final mod to the basic idea was to curve the sleeves or sides slightly as they fell towards the hem. This was mostly so that if it ever gets worn open, they don't drag on the floor quite so badly!



Overall, I'm pleased with this one and hope to get lots of use out of it.

Indulging in a little retail therapy

The weeks seem to be flying past again after a few months of every day dragging by slowly and I can hardly believe its been over four weeks since our holiday in Yorkshire. Last weekend, we were in Murton Park again for a core AscendancyLRP event and it was our first since we officially moved over to permanent crew (rather than the on and off crewing/writing we've been doing for the past few years).

Richard has already done a fair write up here. I was strictly non-combatant but managed to play four character NPCs through the weekend with a particular liking for my outing as 'Tsunami'. No pictures of me in costume alas, but I did take some very nice action shots using Richard's camera though, some of which are over on the Ascendancy website and viewable here. My favourite is the one of AndyL being 'shot' as it captures Andy reacting to the gunshot and shows a little puff of smoke from the cap going off in the gun. :)

After a hard week at work and not much chance of it letting up next week, this weekend was about trying to chill a little. Yesterday we headed into town with a few bits of shopping to pick up, but also intending to drift around the shops and engage in some retail therapy of the lightest kind.

Both of us treated ourselves to some things. In Dave's case it was orcs who I'm reliably are in the process of having their arms and legs hacked off, to transform them into orks.

I picked up...



Yes... That's more yarn, picked up from Busy Fingers with making something for me in mind. I've used the Brett Marble (Ravelry Link) before and love the way the colours come out; it's not at all expensive as yarn goes being an acrylic so is a cheap buy really. I'm hoping to turn it into a waistcoat and possibly a jumper or cardigan for me... I shall have to see how inspiration hits.

And then I picked up these.



Typically I haven't had more than a few minutes to myself to browse through these, but I spotted a new UK based sewing magazine called 'Sew' in Smiths. This is issue two, issue one having come and gone completely unnoticed by me, with a cover price of £5.99 which is a tad pricey. As is the tendency these days, it was wrapped in plastic so I couldn't get a look at it in the shop and I like to support new craft magazines and buy at least one issue, so I picked it up.

Then we have Jane Austen's Sewing Box by Jennifer Forest, which isn't a book as purely based on sewing projects as the title might suggest. Instead it's a collection of projects, some sewn, some knitted, some netted inspired by Jane Austen's collected works. It's a book to read as much as a pattern book, with references to the books with each pattern along with historical information providing context. I had a gift token left over from Christmas and considered this to be a lucky find which I'm looking forward to reading.

Not a bad haul I'm thinking.

Piratical goings on in Derbyshire

The past couple of weeks since I last wrote have been busy ones, with last weekend seeing us travelling off to Shining Cliffs again, for another closed AscendancyLRP event. I'd mostly written this one, so last week, what spare time I did have was spent preparing for the event. Kit needed to be gathered, specific plot details thrashed out so they made some sort of sense and folks needed briefing. Dave contributed a couple of scenes and AndyL did his usual excellent job of throwing in a few extra scenes so that this one off event tied into the main campaign.

We had loads of crew, which meant the speaking named parts could be divided up amongst us making it easier all round. There was the usual amount of lugging stuff around the woods though and we had a some of complete newbies to LARP, both on the crew and playing. Another Dave, who was experiencing his first ever LARP as crew seemed bemused by the whole thing, especially when I donned dreads and facepaint, to become a voodoo follower of The Baron.



Don't I look... distinctive?

More photo's here if you want to take a look.

The plot itself was aimed at beginners. I kept it as generic and easy to relate to as possible, rather than going for something that was going to require lots of gameworld background knowledge to understand. It seemed to go down well and the couple of experienced players who't tagged along to show the new players how it's done seemed to have fun too. So all good methinks.

In the evening, we went back to Richard's for supper, before driving home.

Sunday was spent mostly doing housework and unpacking from the day before. I did get the spinning wheel out for a couple of hours in the afternoon and plied up the two bobbins of Blue Faced Leicester I'd spun the previous weekend. Again, I kept going until I ran out of bobbin, leaving a small amount of singles unspun... I'm beginning to think I need to put less singles on the bobbins in the first place, so I can ply the lot in one go.

Easter scarecrows

Happy Easter to anyone reading this!

Dave has headed off to Maelstrom this weekend and reported in this morning, so I know he is still alive. He hasn't been eating though and was duly told to take time to have meals, preferably with proper breaks, involving a kettle, sitting down and actually stopping to catch his breath. Whether he'll take any notice of course is another thing, but at least he's not in danger of keeling over from heat exhaustion or sunstroke this weekend.

With Dave out of the way, I drove up to Derbyshire yesterday to crew for a closed event being run by Ascendancy LRP. A closed event is one being run for a specific group of players, rather than an open event which anyone can book onto. We were running around Shining Cliff Woods (also fondly known as Shining Death), which involves a lot of hiking up and down hills over rough and boggy terrain. It isn't always boggy, but there has been a bit of rain lately and indeed, there were some heavy showers while we were there yesterday.

Crewing also meant lugging heavy bags all over the woods and I even threw myself into combat encounters. Suffice it to say that today I ache; however, I'm fairly happy as even though my limp had returned by yesterday afternoon, I am moving fairly well today. Or at least I am so far.

I spent Thursday sewing up a few scarecrow masks for the event, which came out something like...




Or to show them in situ and dressed with suitably scarecrow like kit...



I'm pleased with the result and think they look pretty effective.

The masks themselves are simple bags (of linen/cotton) with holes cut for the eyes. I then crudely over stitched the eyes and seams with a linen thread, making the stitches big and obvious, to give a hand sewn effect. The over sewing also stabilised the fabric around the eyes and seams, making the masks easier and more comfortable to wear - I hope, as that was certainly the idea.

Not bad for a few hours work.

Finally, a group shot of some of the crew kitted out as dwarves.



Admittedly there are some very tall dwarves there, but look at the cool steamtech gun built by Richard!

Not a bad way to spend an Easter Saturday, but today and tomorrow will hopefully be more relaxing!

Quick update

Last week was spent locked away in a little room, absorbing information about the httpd daemon, which didn't really leave much time or brain power for anything else. I did see the internet briefly; twice at lunchtime for a few minutes at a time as a wireless hotspot flickered into being as the wind blew in the right direction and once for about half an hour at home as I dealt with necessary bills.

Incidently, am I the only one who went into shock after receiving her gas bill this quarter? I was so stunned by the sum being demanded I checked gas used against last year, only to find that we've been really good and nearly halved the amount we've used, but the bill was up by approx 75% on the same period last year. Ouch!

But I digress.

Friday, freshly released from training, I packed Dave into the car and headed to Murton Park for the first Ascendancy LRP event of the year.

We were lucky with the weather as it stayed dry throughout, but it was very cold at night and even with my four season sleeping bag and six blankets, I couldn't get warm in bed. The gas cans for the stove were problematic first thing in the morning as it was too cold to get any decent pressure, which meant it took half an hour to boil water for a cup of tea!

Fortunately, once the sun got going the day warmed up nicely to the point where I reached for the sun block.

The hut we stayed in was in the process of being refurbished by the volunteers who maintain Murton's dark age village. They'd already replaced a lot of the boards and added a huge loom, as yet not set up but just leaning on the wall. The couple working on our hut showed up around nine in the morning to work on the fence and garden and didn't go home again until it got dark. They also had the cutest ferrets with them.

The event itself was based around a diplomatic meeting so was relatively low combat, which is always a good thing as Murton Park doesn't lend itself well to full skirmishes. None the less, there were combats, including a dawn raid on a 'neighbouring encampment' or the on site Roman Fort at about 10:30am which equated to dawn in LARPer time! Lots of new plot was introduced, which was good for there were a lot of first time players as well, so they didn't have to rely on a lot of background knowledge.

Which about rounds up the weekend I think.

A day out up north

Yesterday we were intending to go the Foreign Fields, LARP Fayre in Bristol but unfortunately it was canceled at the last minute by the venue's Health and Safety people. With all the snow and ice, they decided it was too dangerous for the event to go ahead and pulled the plug. This caused quite a bit of disappointment in our household, especially since it's Dave's birthday today and the trip was part of his birthday plans.

After a bit of head scratching, Richard suggested we go to the Royal Armouries in Leeds, which Dave has been angling to visit for a while. I briefly weighed it up against a Butterfly Farm and a Sealife Centre, but lots of swords, guns and armour won out. So yesterday, we headed off to Leeds along with Richard and Nat - after carefully scrutinising the weather forecast, which promised the day would be cold but fine (it was) with no expected snow (they were right this time, thank goodness).

The building didn't look like much from the outside but once we reached the stair case and looked up... All I can say is wow, I have never seen so many guns, swords, bayonets, knives, maces, armour and miscellaneous weaponry in one place, let alone hung from the wall as it was.

So started a day of looking at more and more weapons and absorbing information about the history of warfare. It was a long, bloody history and the european section made me feel rather sad as it does seem we've spent a long, long, long time working out the best way to kill one another. Thought provoking, sobering and very interesting stuff.

After lunch we headed into the Oriental section (the birthday boy's choice and a good one) which was more of a feast for the old eyes. Impressive diorama's had been set up like these...







And can you imagine this War Elephant charging towards you?



I was particularly intrigued by the craftsmanship that had gone into making the items on display. Faded and worn they might be, but each piece of armour was as much for ceremonial purposes as anything and were works of art in their own right. Each piece was carefully decorated while the armour was covered in heavily embroidered and beaded fabric, so that what you had was clothing which happened to contain armour.





I'd have liked to have seen more costume on display, but that could just be my costumer's eye needing to be satisfied. I did take lots of pictures, but the lighting and position of the cases meant that if you took one photo, you also got reflections of everything else nearby.

It was good nonetheless, although by the end of the afternoon I was exhausted, not just from all the walking around but from information overload.

To sum up, the museum is definitely worth a visit and don't expect to see everything in one day. Pick which exhibits you'd like to see and plan accordingly. If you like history and have an interest in events which shaped the world we live into today, I think there'd be something here for you.

When we were done, we headed back to Richards before going out for a bite to eat. I think we may have bored poor Richard when we unexpectedly started frothing about our time in the Cam. While the bureaucracy may have sucked the life out of it for me in the end, there were definitely good parts about the game before it all went sour and last night, the good memories flowed. It hasn't been mentioned in our house for years, so I've no idea where all the enthusiasm came from but gosh did we froth. Sorry Richard!

The journey home was very quiet and I do mean very quiet. The M1 at 11pm on a Saturday evening is not usually busy, but last night there were sections of the journey when we were the only car on the road. When other traffic did pass us (I'm a slow driver who observes the speed limit) it was one or two cars and that was it. Wierd. Perhaps the snow had scared all the other drivers into staying at home!

A quick catchup

Christmas is only a week away now, can you believe it? Although I've been knitting throughout the year in preparation, I'm still shocked that it seems to have crept up on me, I mean where did Autumn go?

It's been all go for me the past week, which is of course why I haven't had time to update here. I did make an effort and post to the Knit-wits blog last week, having remembered to take my camera out for our Christmas meal (well I just about remembered, as we were about to leave the restaurant). Richard commented that there hadn't been anything posted there for a long while so I was stung into action... We are after all still meeting up regularly, we just have our own lives to get on with which means we don't always have time to post on blogs.

I also had my team Christmas Lunch last week, which saw us going to the Coconut Lagoon in Kenilworth. I didn't take my camera along as that would have gained me some odd looks I think. On route to the restaurant, I did spot a wool shop on Kenilworth's high street, which I'm going to have to return and have a proper look at when I get a chance.

Last weekend was the AscendancyLRP Christmas bash, held at Unstone Grange in Derbyshire. It was the first time we'd used that site, so I approached it with some trepidation. As it was, I needn't have worried - the house itself was a quirky, sprawling maze of rooms and staircases with a decent sized kitchen, heaters in each bedroom, central heating downstairs and blazing open fires in the main sitting rooms. The place seems to be run as a communal project, mostly maintained by volunteers and run on a shoestring budget. It's a lovely old house though.

I did have one mishap, in the form of mistakenly placing my boots at the end of my bed on Friday night as the heavens opened outside. As it rained and rained and rained, I slept on oblivious but in the morning, when I went to put my boots on I discovered they contained an inch of water! Closer inspection revealed the carpet and the dresser at the end of the bed to be rather soggy as well, so although I didn't see any drips the roof was obviously leaking. No one else had a similar problem, so I must have been really unlucky with where I chose to put my boots that night.

Fortunately, we were indoors and in a warm house with large radiators... I found a radiator in an out of the way place and my boots spent the morning drying out. By early afternoon they were dry and I had nice toasty toes.

The event itself was an interesting one; not at all upbeat or cheery in the way traditional for a Christmas party. Moral dilemma's abounded and I'm still not sure I fully understood what was going on.

I did however drink lots of tea and sit by the fire a lot. And I got some knitting done... Very unusual for an event, but I can sit and talk while I knit, which is what I spent quite a bit of the time doing, so in all it was a pleasant and relaxing weekend for me.

At least it didn't snow...

It's Armistice Day already and I'm wondering how it got to be the middle of November already? I had a moment of panic on Sunday night when I realised how few 'free' weekends I have between now and Christmas, with the same sense of panic intruding everytime I look at my diary at work. The end of the year is creeping up on us with frightening speed!

The weekend just gone was spent at Murton Park, in York playing in an AscendancyLRP game. It was the end of a mini campaign and a good event, if a little upsetting for my character who's family came under fire again (honestly, they're not exactly the luckiest bunch). There was also an odd moment when a big, gribbly type was throwing his weight around and I stepped back looking for the usual suspects to leap in there and deal with him... Only to realise none of the usual suspects were with us and *I* was going to have to step in in their stead!

The main problem of the weekend, as far as I was concerned at least, was how cold it was. The huts at Murton are very roughly put together and far more drafty than my garden shed with the added limitation of the dark ages lacking 'glass'. This meant that to be able to see inside your hut, you have to open windows which in turn means letting the elements in.

When there's a brisk, freezing cold gale blowing out there opening the window is a brave option and results in your contact lenses blowing off your finger tips before you can put them in your eyes... So perhaps it would have been better to try to put them in using torchlight. A lesson learnt there methinks.

Thermals were a must under my costume and four season sleeping bags combined with a stack of blankets meant we were warm enough at night once we were in bed. Meanwhile, my feet were cold all weekend, particularly my poor toes which I lost contact with on Sunday despite wearing proper walking boots and two pairs of socks. My fingers faired better inside their double insulated gloves, although one crew member did comment on how cold my hands were when I was administering 'medical' assistance.

On the plus side, I did make friends with a goat during the weekend, who apparently decided I knew how to scritch him just in the right place. More photo's here courtesy of Richard who made it to the event despite having a cold.

Fluff ordered...

I've just bitten the bullet and placed my first order with Wingham Wools for some Bluefaced Leceister fibre in 'Humbug' which looks like a very pretty blend of natural browns. I wanted something I know will be easy to spin (in theory at least) and from the tiny bit of BFL I've spun on my spindle, I know it should be nice stuff... Besides which I've had a personal recommendation from Mandy.

Not that I've done much spinning lately, although I did get my spindle out for ten minutes on Monday as I drank a cup of tea before rushing into work. I'm beginning to wonder if I need a bigger spindle... I like my little spindle but it doesn't hold much yarn before it's full and I've no idea how heavy it is. When I bought it I didn't know I should worry about such things.

Not much has happened on the knitting front either, although I am plodding away on the second of a pair of manly socks and fast approaching the heel. This is all part of my ongoing aim to finish projects before I start any more. So far so good, I've resisted the lure of casting on... Although it's getting tough to hang in there.

The reason I haven't made much progress was because we headed off on what is my last purely camping LARP event of the year with AscendancyLRP. Not my last event of the year, but at least things start to calm down a little, which is good as work is frightening at the moment.

The event itself was fast paced and structured more like a linear than usual as we moved from site to site in character. We'd traipse off through the woods, while the crew re-invented the dutch barn on site as a new location. What was more the weather was kind to us and it did NOT rain!!!! The clear skies meant it was cold at night but dry, with the mud underfoot steadily drying as the weekend progressed. We even got to use the storm kettle, which has sadly been underused this year due to the miserable weather.

The slugs were still very much in evidence though, including a fat orange one that I caught trying to limbo under the lid of the food box on Friday night. Yuk!

No other news, except that Richard passed us a cardboard tank (i.e. a cardboard box shaped like a tank) for the cats to play with. Dave spent all of Monday night figuring out how to assemble it but once it was put together we realised that the manufacturers had woefully underestimated how big a cat can get. With the turret on, I don't think Charlie could get more than his head inside and Missy would have to do some sort of gymnastics unbecoming of her dignity to manage it.

There was nothing for it but to seperate the turret from the body of the tank, so the cats can at least get inside. We've draped it with cat toys but so far they're avoiding it, preferring their paper bags... But I shall persevere, I think they need to be lured into it with a cat nip laced dangly thing (otherwise known as a fishing rod toy). If they take to it, there may be photo's later.

Rain, rain and more rain

I'm back in the real world once more after eleven days of camping in a very wet South West Wales on the annual 'weeklong' Ascendancy LRP event. It rained every day, varying from light showers, to heavy persistent rain, to torrential downpour. We did get occasional breaks in the weather and even saw the sun every now and then, but mostly the theme of the week was rain.

This led to a reduction in biting insects, but saw our tents and cooking area become a shelter for wasps looking to get out of the rain, while we were inundated by invading slugs. It became standard practice to check for slugs before sitting down, putting anything down, picking anything up, climbing into bed, or eating anything. Slugs got into everything, included sealed storage boxes and zipped up tents!

One poor unfortunate who arrived for the last weekend hadn't learnt to keep his eyes open for invading slugs and discovered the need for caution the hard way when he made himself a nice cup of slug tea. Yuk!!!

We did consider warding food boxes with salt, but another camper tried it before us and discovered the salt doesn't keep the slugs out. They crawl over the salt and then explode in the least convenient of places.

Enough said methinks!

As usual we were well equipped and prepared for rain, with a shelter for cooking in and decent sized tents, so coped well enough. Lots of hot drinks and good food saw us through, and I'm happy to report that the newly installed dutch lacing on my bell tent worked well. While there was a reluctance to go outside, play continued, plot got out there and there was even stuff I'd written along with Richard out there for players to get involved with. It was fun, but tiring with the gloomy weather seeming to draw all of the oomph out of us.

I'm back home now, still in a sort of brain fog and trying to cope with a mountain of laundry. Everything I took with me is damp, although fortunately the rain held off (except for a few spots) while we took down the camp. The showers did arrive as we left site though, so we timed it just right I guess.

I collected the cats yesterday and was relieved to see that Charlie was OK. We started the 'weeklong' with an unexpected trip to the vets as the great lump got into a fight the night before. Dave witnessed it and said it was a serious set to which started when the other cat surprised Missy, forcing her to take refuge in a tree.

Charlie waded in in her defence and took a serious beating. He appeared to have been either kicked or bitten in the jaw, and had a bite on his right front leg as well as numerous scratches/bruises to the rest of his body. All of which meant he was feeling very sorry for himself by the next morning and needed antibiotics, pain relief and anti-inflamatories for the duration of his stay in the cattery.

Now the swelling has gone down, I can see definite puncture wounds along his jaw and he's still limping slightly on that front leg even after eleven days of rest, but other than that is in good spirits. In fact both cats are happy to be home and are being very attentive. It was very comforting to sit on the sofa last night, knitting a sock with a snoring cat draped over my lap.

It huffed and it puffed...

This weekend saw some pretty impressive storms hit Wales and since it was a Bank Holiday, naturally we were camping for the duration at an AscendancyLRP event. Things didn't start too badly, with showers on Friday but nothing too severe. Saturday though, the winds picked up dramatically, so much so that the roof of the gazeebo we use to house our camp kitchen suffered a puncture when a very sharp bit of tree fell through it!

After that, the theme had been set for the weekend with heavy showers and gusts of wind which weren't going anywhere. Things weren't too bad and we coped with only some slight mishaps on Monday morning, although we did hear of others tales of woe as their tents collapsed. The weirdest thing, from my point of view at least, was lying in the tent at night, with the inner flysheet billowing around me and listening to the integral groundsheet lifting off the floor. It sounded for all the world like someone was walking around the bed!

Other than the weather, the weekend was an OK one I guess although rather marred for me since my shoulder was playing up. I hurt it a couple of weeks ago and it had been on the mend, but after a little light sword play on Friday night I woke up on Saturday morning to agony. Even breathing was an issue. Fortunately, a first aider with some skill in massage was available to look at it so after pain killers, half an hour of manipulation and sitting out for the morning I could move again without wincing, but needless to say I was being careful for the rest of the weekend and the sword was put away. Ho hum.