*sigh* The house is quiet and empty, after a long, busy, stressy weekend.
Friday I did a lot of cleaning and prep work for the event, houseguests, and the Strawberry Party, plus a run out to site to drop off banners, the high seat, and miscellaneous other critical items. (I did not get to quite everything I had wanted to do but since we had lost power on Thursday night I was somewhat behind on my chores to begin with.) I made experimental sourdough bread and sloe cheese as I was waiting for folks, and they turned out acceptable, if not quite what I was looking for, but such is the nature of experimental cooking. All the expected guests got in safely and we even had some folks who were staying at a local hotel drop by for awhile for a Scotch tasting. Once the guests were back at their hotel or abed downstairs, I made a quick run out to the grocery store, showered, and then hit the hay myself around 2AM.
Saturday morning came entirely too early - I started getting "can you bring..." texts and emails about ten minutes before my alarm went off, and that set the tone for the day - things were busy-busy-go-go-go!, but that was probably for the best anyway. I'd planned to get on site by 8AM, figured it would be more like 8:30, but finally got there around 9AM. The first part of the morning was consumed with dropping off requested items then setting up the A&S and getting the entrants settled. I had set up four 8' long tables, thinking that would be one more than necessary, but by the end of the afternoon, all the available space and some of the windowsills were full! Somewhere I have a complete count of all the entrants, but we easily had thirty very high quality entries, so I was mightily pleased. When HrRM's champion was not on site right before court, for a brief, shining moment, it looked like I might be able to carry the axe into court, but then he showed up at the last moment and the axe was wrested from me again. (*pout*) Ah well, Coronations involve enough up-and-down for me anyway - between being called for the end-of-reign thanks, the creation of a new Pyxis, and the oaths, I spent a lot of time pacing the aisle. :P
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goldfrog and R's last court was simple, but touching - I'll miss having them on the throne, even though I'm sure S&A will do a fine job themselves.
After court, I checked in with A&S again, got only a few moments to chat with friends from near and far, then went to investigate lunch. I was hoping to fight and so decided to pass on the Scotch egg and instead settled for a granola bar for lunch before hitting the rapier field. The Queen Mum's tourney was a lot of fun, but I am still woefully out of practice and so slooooow and messy. :/ However, I brought out the pretty buckler for the first time in about two years, so there were a lot of folks who had not seen it before and I got a lot of compliments on it. I got to play with Duke T,
fencert , and some other fun fights before having to bow out of the tourney to attend the WW meeting. The meeting went well, with nothing earthshattering, but some good groundwork laid. Then I had about 20 minutes free wherein I went to go check on
dread_ex and was hoping to see
cass_lee 's pelican-y business, but I had to go attend TRMs at the A&S before the principles were able to be collected. As part of the A&S display, I had all the entrants who were able attend their work at 4PM for the opportunity to discuss it directly with TRMs. I think it went over well and gave TRM the chance to meet some of the artisans and learn a bit more about their arts. After TRMs departed, I met with a small panel of peers to choose the Peer's Prize winner and counted all the beans to determine the Populace Prize winner. Right quick, it was time for court prep and evening court. There were some very pleasing bits of business on the docket, but many of them are confidential for now, so I'll keep them to myself. I can report that the winner of the Populace Prize was S for his wire weave, the winner of the Peer's Prize was
rezansky for his handsewn and embroidered tunic, and the winner of the Royal Prize was G for his multi-item entry. It was a near thing in almost all of the categories, though, since there were so many really excellent entries - both TRMs and the Peers had to discuss at some length before making a decision and the choice was in part dictated by HrRM's wish that each category have a different winner.
Following evening court,
valkyr8 and I discussed new bags for the Jara High seats as the ones that I made simply are not working. I got the car partially packed and then headed down for feast. Wow! Feast was one to remember and
arebekah really outdid herself! In addition to the truly tasty set menu, over a dozen guest cooks presented a dish to the head table and one of the lower tables to be judged on taste and presentation. The lovely and talented
relativelylucid's pudding won for taste (yum! and I usually don't like that sort of thing) and the E&A team won for presentation. I do have to say that
tcsumner had a really marvellous hyppocras, though - I'm afraid that coming so late in the feast, it may have suffered from sensory overload. :P I packed up with all haste and headed home, where the Strawberry Party was already in full swing. I quickly put to rights the few things that still needed to be set up or corrected (the original plan for set-up crew had been foiled by car trouble but things had gotten more-or-less rolling anyway) and then started pouring the frilly drinks.
cass_lee and one of the party guests kindly went out for more ice and strawberries when it became obvious how much had already been eaten by the time I got in. However, they returned quickly and the sweet freezy drinks flowed freely. Usually, I outlast my guests' energy, but between being sore from fighting, the giant dinner, and otherwise it having been a very taxing day, I shooed out the last of the guests around 2:30 when I simply could not stay awake any longer.
I was out so completely, I never even heard
katrionans and her brood leave, nor did I hear
iarroganti moving about and once again being so helpful with the party clean up, nor did I hear
corvusjoyous come in and drop off my oven, roaster and other assorted things lent to the feast. :P Thanks for your assistance, folks, and I'm sorry I was a bad hostess - I finally came to sometime around noon and then with barely enough time to have lunch with the last of the guests and see him out the door.
The rest of today contiinues to be busy - more clean up, dinner to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday, then General Meeting. Ooof. Off I go!
satisfied
tired
productive
excited
7 (12.3%)
curious