Rain and Cars

We have had a bit of tooing and froing with the volvo, first being told it would be written off, then told they would repair it and finally yesterday they told us they were definately going to write it off which is a result as we have already bought the VW.

It has been raining for ever (or so it seems) - certainly the only good weather that we had was the weekend of Tewkesbury, which is now pretty much cut off by flooding. Today the rain finally eased off around lunch time and the sun came out and it was gorgeous so I set out for the park with the monster. When I got there, this is what I found:

So once Sherb had ambled round the park, and pootled in the shallows, I headed back to the house to get Thai and grabbed my camera. Thai LOVED it and dashed around like a maniac while kids played in the water too. At one point we wandered along the tree line and Thai fell in the ditch and, despite the fact that her head was above water, she began to panic. So I had to wade in and rescue her and I ended up SOAKED.Luckily the weather was SO gorgeous it wasn't cold and I wandered round for a bit longer before finally ambling home. It was one of those werid occurances that was just magical and the lake was gone by the next day.

Dissapointing end...

We had arranged to meet Ben and the kids and go on the battlefield walk in the morning, but we over slept and my head ache was still there so I opted to go get some breakfast and then head home. This decision was augmented by the fact that my shoulders and face could been seen from space as a bright shining red blaze. Firefighters kept being called in to try and put me out. So we drove home and, despite a small detour, we had quite a good run - very little traffic unlike the other direction. When we got home we split the stuff in the van between Kris's car and the house and then she headed off, while I slept on the sofa curled up with my hubby.

SO Tired

OK Carrying on some time later so this may not be very accurate as my memory is appaulling though I'm sure my sister will let me know if I get it wrong. Next morning we felt better despite appearances...

... and the most uncomfortable bed EVER!!!! We vowed to put the inflatable mattress on top of the futon mattress for the next night.

We pop on our jeans and popped to the pub that we were camped behind for breakfast. They did a very passable cooked brekkie and we felt a lot more human after it. We vowed to drink more water today and filled bottles with squash and then got changed.

We ambled round to meet Cas, Ben and the kids and wandered via a shorter rout than last night, up to the field. I had wanted to hear the druid blessing and the fayre opening but they hadn't finished eating breakfast so we missed it. Kristy gave the girls a masterclass in poi'ing while we waited for the washing up to be done.

We ambled round the fair looking at the stalls and at some point got parted from Cas so it was just Ben, Me Kristy and one of the kids. Kris bought a basket for a pittance - it needs cleaning up but looked nicely authentic.





As you can see, Kris was wandering round as a lady of the night as I had her Coif and she was going to buy a new one but didn't see one that she liked unti the second go round.
Having had a quick look at the stalls we headed to the beer tent and watched the dark morris for a bit before entering the tent for a quick cider. Kristy carried on teaching poi's to the girls.
This is the only photo I manged to get of the girls poiing as they were very camera shy.



Finally we managed to find a coif for Kris - not one ofthe more expensive ones but far better quality than most and we sat at the "druid's garden" - a bunch of pots and a fence with flowers and dreamcatchers woven in.




After another wander around, and Kristy whinging the whole time about how it wasn't as good as last year and not really wanting to do anything, I insisted we go see the battle. I really enjoyed it, though it did go on a bit and would have been far more enjoyable if the tannoy had been working properly so we could have heard what was going on! I took loads of photos but this is just a few :

It was unbelievably hot and so we wandered back to the van to rehem the damn kirtle and get kristy some trousers for under her skirt and then headed to see the "beheading". Unfortunately, I had got the time wrong and they had already left so we decided to wander down to the town to see if we could catch up and see the medieval compline in the Abbey. When we got to the Abbey there so no sign of the angry we mob and it wasn't long until compline started so we decided to go into the abbey and wait. I am so glad we did - it was calm and cool in there and you could definately identify with a medieval peasant, awed by the magnifacnce of the Abbey. I had a slight probably bought on by heatstroke as both Kristy and I were looking a trifle pink, despite the sub screen we had slathered on previously. As we sat, resting our poor feet and fighting against dozing off, the sun began to set and turning the whole church and particularly the church ceiling, the most gorgeous golden hue. In the peace of the church we heard the hue and cry outside of the beheading (must have been round the back of the abbey) and then medieval peasants and lords quietly filed in, filling the abbey.

Very soon after, the monks filed in and then compline began. It was beautiful, the golden glowing abbey combined with the serene singing was enough to move me to tears a couple of times. Almost enough to inspire me to religon, but I think god himself would have to put in an appearance before that happens. Having said that, Kristy and I before felt both physically (due to the sit down) and spiritually refreshed when the service finished and we almost relucantly left for the walk back to the field for some food.

On the walk back, we spotted what looked like a shrew in the bush - I tried to get my camera off my belt to take a photo so we could identify it, but I couldn't undo the knot quick enough and a few people came along on their bikes, scaring it off. We wandered for a bit to get some food and got a text from Cas saying "We are at ades tent - got chocolate cake. We didn't know who Ade was so sent one back saying we were by the beer tent, eating, and when would they be down? Having finished our jackets pots etc I suddenly realised that ades uses the same keys on a mobile as beer so we had a quick wander round and soon spotted them. Luckily they had kept us some chocolate cake and we sat and drank lots of fuilds, in Kriss case cider in mine water as my headache was getting worse. The bands weren't very good (it was open mic due to some contraversy regarding the band from the previous year) so after a while, when it was getting dark, we headed off home to Ben's tent to chat - my headache was awful but it didn't prevent me from trying the strawberry vodka and vowing to make my own on the way home.

We headed to bed to try and sleep off my headache.

Medieval Madness!

We set off for Tewkesbury late as both of us were so knackered we had problems getting up and getting going. It was a long trip, about 3 hours and Kristy, after being subjected to J and I's travel bingo game, fell asleep for the last section. It has a bit hairy for a while when we took a side route to get petrol and ended up going via a long incline and I think I boiled the brakes as things went a bit spongy for a while.

When we arrived, the camping field was PACKED! The fields that they usually use were still too muddy, having been underwater the previous weekend, so we they were using new, smaller fields and some of the authentic tents had to be set up on the plastics site. We eventually got set up and immeadiately got to sewing as we hadn't had time to hem K's kirtle and so we just tacked the edge up, as we did all weekend - the damn hem didn't stay up for more than a couple of hours. Tiredness and silliness meant we were almost hysterical with laughter most of the time, though I can't for the life of me remember what we talked about except the "safe for TV" version of Hot Fuzz. Mother huggers...



We soon got a phone call from Cas who wasn't far from arriving and went to join her and help put up her tent. I haven't seen her since our Grandad's funeral about 11 years ago so almost the first words out of her mouth "when did you inherit your mother's voice?" were a tad annoying, as were the bitter comments about the piano that was her grandmothers and my mum rescued from being thrown out by my misery-guts-grandad and which is now mine.

We then headed back to the van, finished the kirtle and headed off to find the beer tent with Mike and Mikey (I think I have that right). We managed to find the longest possible route - about a 20 minutes walk as it is - but finally Mike's beer homing radar won out. We split up then as Kristy and I needed Tea and Mike needed Beer. We had crepes (ratatouie and cheese and msuhrooms and cheese) and then headed to the beer tent. A not-that-great band was playing and I had mead and Kristy had cider. We stood around and chatted and K soon found her toes and fingers tingling - we had another cider split between us and K, who was "ver ver Tired, doncha know" was very quickly giggly. We then walked the road way back to the campsite, having helped three blokes with their droopy armour, giggling all the way.

Having got back to the van, we realised that we really should have put the Thermo vats up on the windows of the van BEFORE we left so I put them up while Kristy struggled to stay awake while she undressed. We eventually hauled our asses onto the uncomfortable futon matteress and turned ou the light. "L, have you locked the doors?", K was heard to utter. "Yes", I replied. "OK... <>". Please note : the ellipses in the previous sentence may have over emphasise the gap between OK and the van shaking snore.

I got up about 5 am to go the loo and it was gorgeous but FREEZING out. The sky was beeeeeutifully clear and sparkley and it was kinda weird as I wandered to the loo, meeting a guy in full medieval garb and cloak coming out of a portaloo. (Which reminds me - I saw LOADS of willies over the weekend due to a portaloo that was a urinal - I had never seen one of those before and you couldn't help but sneak a peek while queueing for the loo).

And I am being told it is bed time so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

Medievalling like monkeys...

Well K and I had a busy week last week. As I said in an earlier post, we are going to Tewkesbury Medieval Festival at the weekend and we needed to make her a kirtle and shift so I can borrow the set that she had originally borrowed from our second cousin, Cas. We tried to get a pattern but it hadn't arrived by the time we started so we had to make our own pattern from the borrowed kirtle. Kristy made a fine job of this so we used an old bedspread to cut out a mock up and sewed it together, adjusting it to fit.



Look at how fast she is moving :


She is SO proud!


Hot fuzz in the back ground. Mother Huggers...


We then took the big step of cutting out the pieces out of the very expensive fabric that Kristy bought from Herts Fabrics - a gorgeous chocolate brown and a nice olive green. Once we had got the brown stitched together and right we then did the same with the brown.

We then stitched together the two around the top seam, unstitched the shoulder seams again when I realised I had mucked up and it couldn't be turned right way out with them stitched and finally we cut out and made a shift. When I say we, I really mean K as I am useless at sewing by hand or by machine as I don't have the patience.

I did, however, go on interweb and find out about medieval fingerbraiding so then I could make all the cords for lacing up the dress and tying the shift. I was quite please with how they turned out with a basic round braid for the front of the kirtle and to tie the sleaves on (we never made the sleves btw) and a flat braid for the lacing of the shift collar and cuffs.

All of this sounds pretty straight forward, however it took the best part of 4 days to do. Throw in the fact the Sherb had to have yet another operation on yesterday (another £600 down the drain when we really can't afford it but he is already much happier than he had been so it is worth it) and a temper tantrum from J and basically by Thursday, we were pooped.

A new addition to the family

Well, after the sheer chaos of fitting floors and car accidents, last Sunday we bit the bullet and went out to find a replacement for the Volvo. John had spotted a Type 25 VW minibus advertised on a "non-vw" website for a pittance and, looking at the multitude of pictures the owner sent us, it was close to immaculate. Unfortunately, it was immaculate in Wales...

So Sunday we took a 3 hour drive down to Wales to check it out. After a while, boredom set in, particularly as John will not listen to the radio unless the signal is 100% clear and so turned it off so we stopped at a gas station and bought pen and paper and we made a list of bits and pieces to spot along the way and each time one was crossed off the list you got a point. I won. :D

It wasn't as immaculate as we originally though but it wasn't far off and what is more although it showed as having 3 owners since new, the first and third owners were the gentleman we were buying it from and the second was his father-in-law (sold to him as the first ownership was under lease but there was something about the leasor not being able to buy it direct from the company so it was sold to his father-in-law for a year). It was obviously well looked after and the owner was very sorry to see her go but was off on early retirement to tour round Europe and had a brand new VW camper van coming for just that purpose.

So, K and I are off to Tewkesbury this year as reenactors and we decided we would take the van and sleep in that so this weekend John and I (mostly John) built a bed unit for it.

It basically went well but there were a few problems. Firstly, we cut the base board so that it taered towards the boot, but failed to take into account the fact that the van tapers inwards towards the roof so it wouldn't fit. Having retrimmed, we put the board in place and screwed the legs into place.

It looked great and was very solid, buttttt... we then realised that we wouldn't be able to get to the engine bay when it was in and that, because John had cut it so accurately, we could get it out again.

After much swearing and cursing, and cutting the edge off...

...we got it out, cut it dow so it could be easily removed to get to the engine bay and then - voila! it was done.

(The piece of wood stood up at the back sits on top of the folded down seats to make one long bed and there are boxes with castors under the bit in the boot so the space isn't wasted.

There is a still a little to do - we need to build an extension down beside the second row of seats as J is freakishly tall and won't fit in as it is, but it will be fine for me and K. We also need to put a couple of metal supports on the rear of the boot bit for the other board to rest on and pop a couple of handle on the sliding board to make it easier to put away. We plan to put the air bed on top as cushioning, however we have two and can only find the one that is WAY too big at the moment. Ah well, I'm sure the other one will turn up.

So after all that we have a bed. Shame my nice clean kitchen on managed to stay that way for a week! Everything is now lost under a thick layer of sawdust.

Anyway, now I am pooped - I took Nan and Grandad to the airport this morning (in the new van which they both admired being ex-lorry/van drivers themselves) and we left really early due to the extra security measures, thinking we would have to queue for ages but as it was there was no traffic and we drove straight up and parked right outside with no problems. There was, of course, tons of traffic on the way back. Hopefully it will be like the first journey when I pick them up on Thursday.

This afternoon K is coming over so we can start constucting a shift and kirtle for the weekend. K will wear the new one and I will wear Cas's old one which, hopefully, will fit. Our dressmaking abilities are severly limited as I have only ever made a Star Trek uniform, a boob tube and a Jebi robe and K hasn't made any garments (but is probably better with the machine as she used to do quilting whereas using a sewing machine generally just results in me swearing a lot). To see the jedi robes in actions (one went better than the other) see Trinity Wars.

I will take photos to map our progress and hopefully we will get loads done today as we then only have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning to finish it off!