Tom the weaver

Last year at the Abbey festival Tom had a go at back-strap weaving and thought it was the best thing ever.

At Abbey last year.

Being skeptical types Adam and I refused to fork out $65 for a weaving kit for a 6 year old.

A year later, when we said we were heading up to Brisbane for this year's Abbey Medieval Festival, Tom's immediate response was "Good! I can get my back-strap weaving kit!"

We figured that if he was still wanting to do it after waiting a whole year he must be serious. So one of our first stops at the festival this year was the back-strap weaving tent where Tom bought a kit and arranged for a 10:30am beginner's lesson the next morning.

Tom's new kit set up and ready to go.

Ha! He's wearing the same t-shirt. No wonder the weaving lady remembered him from last year.

Just getting started.

Last but not least, some video of the action - He's a weaving natural!


Not a bad effort from a small boy with a lurgi who spent the rest of that day fast asleep lying on a sheepskin while his dad went around to every crafting display picking people's brains.

The piece Tom started at the festival is slowly growing, next time he's working on it I'll take a pic and share the progress.

Holiday snippets

We've just got back from a trip up to Brisbane for Abbey Medieval Festival and then back via Armidale where we stayed for a few days at Cruickshanks Cottage.

While we were away the following things happened:

• Adam took up spinning.
• Tom finally got his own back-strap weaving kit (he's been waiting a whole year).
• I finished reading The Handmaid's Tale and was somewhat underwhelmed.
• I re-read Native Tongue 3 just in case it wasn't as bad as I remembered. It was, if not worse.
• We acquired a pleasing collection of stuff to add to our re-enactment gear.
• Tom got bitten by a horse.
• Tom engaged me in a discussion of the ethics of the fur-trade right in the middle of a fur-trader's market stall, I did not try to avoid or put off the conversation.
• All 3 kids had the lurgi.
• We watched sheep shearing, fed the chooks, annoyed some cows, were stared at by alpacas, spotted a furtive fox, and made good use of our viking hats to avoid frozen ears. Mid-winter in Armidale is cold.

Photos and elaborations will probably follow at some point.

Now for some photos

We arrived in Brisbane on Friday evening to be greeted by Adam's long lost twin brother...or maybe it was Joe, fellow Browncoat, organiser of shindigs and generally evil guy. When Joe was heading home on Sunday evening there was a brief "this jacket feels strangely wrong" incident :)



I don't have many photos from Saturday at Abbey, but Adam did take a fair few of us playing around at the archery range which was being run by the Companye of Northumbria. Here we have Caitlin in her very non-authentic outfit, it's a miracle that skirt stayed up all day, good thing she had her viking belt to wear with it.



And here's me trying not to be outshone by my own kids. (Thank you weather for not making the wearing of a woollen dress a completely insane idea.)



Tom was so fascinated by the lady doing back strap weaving that she eventually gave in and let him have a go - child labour, it's historically accurate! We almost bought him a kit so we could put him to work at home.



Later in the day, after we'd bought a couple of bows for the kids, David decided to try his hand at the range.



On Sunday we managed to arrive early enough to get ourselves seats in the grandstand to watch the official opening and grand parade. The jousters were first in line followed by representatives of all the re-enactment groups participating in the festival.



The New Varangian Guard



NEMAS



Prima Spada



There are more Abbey Festival photos on my Flickr account too if that wasn't enough pageantry for you.

Sunday evening saw us having dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and then heading back to the apartments to sit around weaving tall tales about the fearsome and mysterious Sea Venison. Much silliness :D

On Monday we went shopping for woollen fabric and were able to buy 2 rolls of blanket type stuff. It's all very exciting if you happen to be a dark ages re-enactor living in Sydney because there is NO ONE in Sydney selling pure wool fabric at non-ruinous prices. The place we got it from is actually an equestrian supplies place - it's horse blanket material!

We then headed south stopping for lunch at Cabarita Beach where we took a few moments to get some sand between the toes and collect a shell or twenty.



We stayed the night at Aqualuna resort in Coffs Harbour and had dinner at a very nice pizza place in town which I now can't remember the name of and my googlefu isn't helping because the one possible result (Amalfi Italian Pizzeria Restaurant) isn't leading me to any reviews, maps or pics to confirm one way or another. Anyway, it was awesomely yum, and not too pricey.

At the breakfast buffet the next morning I was rather taken by the sugar packets, my favourite is the "With your luck, it's probably salt" one.



Tuesday morning was spent at the Big Banana, we did the plantation tour and watched the AV presentations, took the obligatory "big thing" photo and had a surprisingly edible lunch at the cafe before piling into the car for the trip back to Sydney.



Then we were home. And now there is laundry. And grocery shopping. And cleaning. Damn, holidays are hard work!

Queensland dispatches

I'm posting from Brisbane, we've just spent two days at Abbey Medieval Festival. We're happy, tired and broke. And the kids are trying to kill each other. Fun times.

Somehow or other, despite Dave, Tom and I all having the horrible lurgi all week we managed to get all the post-Winterfest laundry done (all right, Adam did the laundry) and get ourselves packed up and ready to head off to Queensland on Friday morning. We were on the road at 6:30am, Adam did the driving, I was no use drugged up on Codral and snoozing most of the way. A very welcome respite was offered by Browncoat oziangel who invited us to stop at her place for lunch, I just hope we didn't end up sharing the lurgi with them too. We made it to Brisbane at about 8:00pm, had a BBQ dinner with the Browncoats at the holiday apartments and collapsed into bed pathetically early.

Saturday we were off to Abbey en masse. Spent the day wandering around enjoying all the displays, buying cool and useful stuff and bumping into Browncoats every so often. Adam, David and I were in our Huscarls kit, Caitlin was wearing an outrageous velvety skirt and crop top costume and Tom was in civvies. I'll post photos sometime in the next week hopefully (I'm not sure there are many with us in them). Dinner was at the German Club - pork knuckle FTW!

Today we had planned to head back to Abbey just for the morning and then join the Browncoats for mini-golf in the afternoon but there was still so much to see and do at the festival that we ended up staying there all day. We have ambitions to be there as participants next year with our own little living history display encampment. It'd be great if there were other Huscarls able to come too but I think we'll try and do it even if it's just us.

We're having a bit of a break at the apartments before meeting up with the others for dinner. The kids are watching Alvin and the Chipmunks and are apparently engaged in some sort of who can be the most irritating competition, Adam is lying on the bed beside me snoring loudly and I'm having my second cup of tea and dreaming of silence. *sigh* Tea will have to do.