totchipanda

I'm going to cut this one 'cause it's long, but rest assured, these is much romance, fighting, and feasting fun in this one ;-) (and a little bit of my own cardinal sin - you have been warned!!)

Friday after work, Mum and I took in Pride and Predjudice :D movie = oh yay! Mr Darcy was adorably sullen and the costuming was omg yum and it was all around quite good. I'd heard that it was a pale comparison to the BBC mini-series with Colin Firth, so if I enjoyed the movie that much, I should like to see the series ;)

Saturday morning we all got up around 8 (I was one of the last ones up) and packed up and headed off around 9:30. it took about an hour to get to the site. Most of the day was pretty boring; they took away our tables so that the roped off area for the fighters could be made reasonably large and still have room for spectators. Cause really, it was TOO DAMN COLD OUTSIDE to have any events out there; the archers were freezing their fingers off. The wind was brutal.

sooo... Shelley and Mum and I nabbed a table from soemwhere and had many games of triominos. The hall was quite crowded. Finally things were ready to get going, but first, we had to have Court. The King and Queen were there, along with a former royal pair, Prince Einar and his Princess (whose name is cool but I cant spell and won't print until I can check it) with a second prince to be determined in the following tournament. I can't remember half of the events... really, court is boring, even though its more interesting now than it was 10 years ago. Some people got some special awards (which are important, but don't mean much to me 'cause I don't know what they are yet) and then Their Majesties summoned all the people of Borealis (Edmonton) to them. So there I was up in court on the floor kneeling with everyone else, and they named Borealis a shire no more, and elevated it to a barony. W00t! Then they named the new baron and baroness, only now they are viscount and viscountess...

At the end, King Uther had all the men who had a lady to kneel before him and commanded them all to do something romantic before the evening court XD This was hilarious in and of itself... even funnier was having Maxwell come up and give Mom a great big kiss halfway into one triomino round XDDD as well as a few other romantic little things during the feast that just cracked me up. Already, I think we have a wonderful King.

After court, I was on my way outside for some fresh air and Nicole's SCA mom caught me (I had seen Peter earlier) and she was like "hi! I didnt see you out there shooting" and i was all sad that I'd missed most of the archery tournament :( I hadn't realized that the giant tent out there was where the archers were shooting from. Poop. I went out anyway to catch what I could. The wind was cut by the walls of the tent, but it was still damn cold and I had to get the cloak I was borrowing to be out there for very long. I arrived in time for the last three rounds.

Now, I was terrified of seeing Allister again after the kind of goodbye we had at Vinfest *cough* ahem. No idea what I was going to say or do, and I didn't want to even guess at his reactions either. When he saw and recognized me, he gave me a rather gracious nod of his head. I was like whew, first step is over. A few minutes later, he excused himself to "give a proper greeting" and we hugged XD Le yay. He was cold, and thats when he said that he'd been there since 8 am, putting up the tent and running the archery. This was at like, 2, 2:30. then he said "If I may..." and kissed my hand.

funny that something that was so embarassing at 15 isnt as bad at 25.... (if you don't recall, I used to attend events about 10 years ago, and getting my hand kissed was a huuuuuuuge deal ^^;;; so embarassing. I only remember that he was called "your grace")

anyway, the rounds were over pretty quick and he had to go back in to find the last three archers who hadn't finished their rounds, and escorted me back in. Teehee. Later on, the thrown weapons (knives over 6" and axes only) would be held after the fighting tourney was over inside.

I rejoined shelley and mum for more triominos (the table was far too small for dominoes) and watched the rest of the fighting. Man it was loud in there, and those fighters.. i'm amazed some of them got up at all. It was probably about another hour before that was over, with Halti the Wonder Viking falling to a man from Regina and he and his lady became the new prince and princess (I think; they were given small coronets and had to sit with the other royals later, at feast and court) ( later found out that he is the gorgeous greek god Nicole wanted me to look out for and i forgot to do ^^;; although I must say, I can certainly see why she was stalking him :O)

thrown weapons wasn't too much fun as a spectator sport... we had to stand far back, and the heater was too close to the line to stand in front of to see, and tall people were crowded around it. Aerina and I left to watch a bit of the squires fighting outside, but man on man, it was just TOO COLD and we went inside. That was supposed to be 20 minutes on, 10 minutes rest, 20 minutes on again, but it only went for half of that, I heard later.

Inside again... whatever was going on in there wrapped up pretty fast (actually, it was at least half an hour) and the tables were brought out to start setting up for the feast. It was well after 5 by now..

The feast was deeeeeelicious too :3 It started with nuts and pomegranate. Second was bread and butter, and a bowl of squash soup with the consistency of commercial applesauce and tasted tons better with a bit of butter cut into it. Third came rice and some cinammon veggies that were so tasty, and the BEST ROAST BEEF EVAR. It was in a mustard beer sauce and done to absolute perfection. Fourth came a pork roast, also done to perfection, with turnips, and saffron bread. (which wasnt too tasty). Last of all was desert, which came quite late and I actually missed it's first round. So much tasty, tasty good food. We also managed to nab several pomegranates from other tables that didnt want theirs XD yummm.

IN between meals, some people sang, one man answered the King's challenge to be romantic by asking his lady to marry him, the archery awards were presented. After the first four courses of dinner, the auction was held and then Court was held and it was looooooooong! at one point, Aerina showed me her watch and it was already 10:30. At some point, the romantic challenge came up and we started teasing her about a boy she apparently was quite friendly with (though it was suggested that he was over so much because they had video games and a wide-screen TV) and she got so embarassed that she started to cry, so I took her outside for some air.

lessee... well, when court was finally over, we started packing up. But oh no, it wasn't over yet. Prince Einar and Princess Ifatahyo had a small court to hold too. All I really caught, someone got named Baz the Rockstar, which drew such laughter and caused King Uhter to come down and say WTF???, that when they were finally allowed to continue, the herald merely said "the name that I just said" XD Then at the very very end, King Uther had such love for Avacal that he had everyone, and i mean everyone, line up to give him and Queen Angharad hugs XD When it was my turn, I said "thank you, your Majesty" and i meant it, because he really made the day fun for me just by issuing his romantic challenge. To everyone, he said "thank you so much for coming, im having a graet time!" and gave us shiney silver tokens on strings. Men got one from Her Majesty too, but they weren't on a string.

Then we kept packing up and slooowly got ourselves out the door and on our way. at nearly midnight ^^; We had to drop Shelley off first and got in around 1:30. We all went straight to bed. Mum and I did the dishes in the morning, and we came back into the city to drop Alayna off at UofA and me at Shelley's for the Grey Cup party she was holding later in the afternoon - Eskimos won XD yay!!

Other stuff that happened at random times but their order is mostly forgotten:

-Hug total: 15 (or so) 1 from his Majesty, 7 from Kintair, 6 from Allister, 1 from a girl in the archery tent who shared her cloak with me before i got mine. No idea who she is ^^;;;
-one hug from Allister came after he'd gotten one from Her Majesty and mum commented on my getting hugs even being in line.
-scored a pepsi from Kintair. It sure helps being cute XD
-one hug from Kintair earned me a pinched bottom. AFTER Aeirna tickled my ribs during hug. gah! I swear I'm not ticklish >.>
-during Prince Einar's court (which was after the Kng and Queen hugging), Allister dragged a chair over and sat with his arms around me.. and he smelled my hair >.> (remember that episode of Friends? I didn't believe that guys really did that until Gerard did it... Dzi will know whow that is and how long ago that was ;) )
-pretty soon after that, I had to chase him down to exchange emails cause we were leaving, whereupon having scored said email, I got another hug XD also got about... 3 cheek-kisses? over the course of the evening.
-Kintair makes funny sounds when he hugs people. LOL. Then I did it later >.>
-finally had everything in my hands ready to take outside, Allister came over and offered help if needed, snuck in one more hug and a kiss. Nothing like Vinfest though

and now I have email from Allister sitting in my inbox :3 I was worried about having to take the first step there, cause I would have had no idea what to say O-o;;;

I am happy to be home with my kitties :-) but I had a most amazing weekend.