This post is a bit of a combined one as I haven’t written in a while.
You may ask, what have I been doing, where have I been? The real question is, where haven’t I been?
First, I drove up to River Haven for Fencing Fest. Adelaide – Ipswitch took me back to back 12 hour days of driving solo each way for a total of 48 hours+ on the road over the weekend. It was a good challenge, but as much as I want to drive solo for a while.
I did have the pleasure of enjoying a bunch of the Harry Dresden audio books along the way which made the trip very fast, compared to past years road adventures.
Along the way I stopped to see the CSIRO Dish in Parkes, if you’re ever there, it’s worth the look.
At Fencing Fest itself, I got to take classes in Spanish fencing, some of which still hurt my brain to put into practice, I got to participate in three journeyman prizes and a Guild of Defence tournament as well as do some marshalling. I got to meet new people, get to know others better and had a really relaxing time, even if my fighting was fairly crap. I learnt a lot and had fun doing so – which made the trip worthwhile for me.
I also plied several characters with dubious quantities of booze. Good times.
Finally this weekend I attended La Prova Dura here in Innilgard. I only managed to make it for the one day, in between doing Taxi for wayfarers and a bad case of hayfever I didn’t feel up for a whole weekend – but I got to see some really cool fights, excellent displays of heraldry and armour and a lot of courage. I really admired the three gentles who took to the field with polearms – it showed a lot of flair, was excellent to watch and lead to some really amusing moments.
Photo: H Taylor
I had the pleasure of stepping down after two years as Baronial Seneschal (not pictured: the bottle of Gin their Excellencies gave me among other tokens of thanks). Haven been given the symbolic alcoholic sock, I escaped court a free elf, only to be called back up by their Majesties…
Photo: H Taylor
…Who apparently saw fit to admit me into the Order of the Golden Tear. It was an honour to receive and I hope I do it justice. There was a bit of turnaround to the whole experience as I received my AoA two years ago at the last La Prova Dura when King Steffan and Queen Branwen reigned, to receive another award from them at this La Prova Dura was a nice touch of follow on.
It feels like just yesterday I was stepping up as Baronial Seneschal, but at the same time passing it on with the Office and Barony in good standing feels like a weight off the shoulders. There were tough times and fun times and overall I learnt a lot and can only hope the process hasn’t made me too bitter and jaded.
That’s it for now, I should hopefully have some more updates to this website soon, I’m reworking all my A&S and looking at developing some basic rapier guides – no promises on a date but stay tuned.
