The Adventures of Goldilocks and Her Bears

There are still tickets available for the Esfenn Feast that ysabella_dolfin  is cooking.

I'll have paper tickets available tonight at Teufelburg fighter practice ($20), or you can buy them online on Acceps.

Here's a link to the post describing the day's activities.

It happens every month around this time. I'm getting jazzed up about Wednesday fighter practice and then realize we have our shire meeting on te first Wednesday of the month.

Still, all is not wasted. falzalot and I figured out the Acceps stuff last week, so that'll be getting sigs and getting sent out. We've put together the text for the event website.

We should have Acceps available to sell Esfenn Feast tickets pretty darn soon. I'll post here when we do.

We'll also have a few paper-in-hand tix available, too.

I just did a run through the numbers from the feast with falzalot. We had 91 people at the Esfenn event! That's pretty darn good for a small shire day event.

I spent today laying down the background paint on the headboard and foodboard on our camp bed. Then  I did the acanthus leaves on our new sunshade. It felt good to get back to that project.

This evening we had a tasting dinner for the feast. Yay, bunny! Branwen's boys are a hoot.

The appliance curse at this house continues. Yesterday morning, moriven found that our water heater was running water freely our the garage. Fortunately, we had already showered when he made this discovery.

So, we went about our business. I was very excited to be wearing my new two-day dress - I cut it out  and moriven serged it Tuesday evening and I sewed it together Thursday. I still need to tack down the lining at the arm scye and then I'll be good to go. I might also put in another hook and eye. Or not. 

The hennin I already had, of course, though this was a new veil. The heavy silk net was an excellent sail, and I think I can say with some certainty that there is a reason we only see pictures of women wearing them indoors. I have been experimenting with some new ways of anchoring them based on what I learned doing the hat for 12th Night. I was really pleased at how well the hennin stayed on after I pinned it the second time. Both my hennin and the one I loaned calistotoni had their tips go limp because the starch is a bit elderly by now. I've wondered why some pictures show very tall hennins - not the obviousy truncated ones - with a round or not quite pointed tip, so I'm thinking that now we know how that comes about.

It was mighty warm at the Collegium site, which otherwise was very nice. Once the sun went down the hall cooled appreciably, but we were all still baking off the extra heat. The lessons about sittting and serving before the feast were really neat. I felt badly that no one stuck around for the Q&A session, but we were just too darn hot.

I think we struggled most with not being allowed to rise if the Crown had not. The tiny 'stand-up' breaks that Her Majesty gave us were much appreciated. Being stuck in our seats was a bit boring until we learned how to make our own entertainment.

It also took us a while to work up to asking the server for drinks, though once we broke though our modern mentality on that one, we did much better. I know that I should have drunk up quite a bit before we were seated. Michael was an excellent server and was quite willing to help us with our sending drinks to others entertainment. Our first volley was a glass of "wine, slightly watered!" to calistotoni. That exchange devolved quickly from there and was capped by the infamous cheese snubbing, all in good fun.

Brian, of course, was an excellent carver (far better than that other fellow on the next table down. LOL). I expect that a really good carver in period could get up to Benihana-like skills.

The benches were not bad generally, though we were warned about them. I think a flatter, more cubical cushion would have been better (more like a sofa cushion with the built-up sides than a throw pillow). I had more trouble trying not sitting on my veil. Unfortunately, we didn't have both cotter pins on the back rest and the leather throng did not hold it on, so we couldn't lean back the whole time. Between that and wearing the hennin my upper back is a bit sore today.

The food at the feast was the same as we had at Mists Bardic. The fish was quite tasty and the grape stuffing was another favorite. I don't remember the feast being so meat heavy and vegetable light before.  I still love the plum goo. Mmm... plum goo.

After a long, hot day, I'd sure like a shower.

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On a completely unrelated note, moriven just found a website selling "Men's Military Capris". Yes, that's cammo capri pants for men. snerk.

The cook is okay with the date change for the feast. Whew. 

 The feast site fell through. Polyps. 

I'll have to discuss this at the shire meeting tomorrow.

Say, Beltane is coming up and Esfenn is having that silent auction to support next year's Feast of Fine Arts/Arts Fete. I need to kick myself into gear about that. Clean out the garage... beg... plead... offer favors.

I know that we have a bunch of things for the auction, since the First Sword autocrat says that he has prizes already. (Yes, falzalot, you can skip that thought here.)

I am also hoping to have talk a lot of people into offering promissories or spiffy items. Just today, misagillian agreed to offer a couple of hours of babysitting at an event (priceless!) I'm also hoping to find other arts and service type promissories - one of my favorites that I ever had was a period breakfast for four by madbaker that semy_of_pearls won (sadly, a long time ago). Yummy. 

I will be calling a few people, but please (pretty please with a honey & wine conserve on top) consider this a shameless, brazen request for donations, a bit of volunteer time, or harsh rejection.

Oh, dear, I need to make a couple of hats for this, too. And maybe some pear crack. (That's a silent auction and bake sale!)