Oh. My. God. My feet hurt /so/ bad.

It's bloody painful to walk on them.

Why, you ask? Well, I'll tell ya...This past weekend, as you all should well know by now, I went to Golden Swan...

...Ooo. I feel vaguely sick. I should be going to bed rather than be doing this...

...and I went with this basic enthousiastic thought on my mind "I am going to /work/ /work/ /work/ all weekend!" And trued to my word, I did.

So I arrive on Friday, 'bout four thirty or five (we would have gotten there earlier, but Evangelina, or Janet if you rather, and I both forgot vital things back at my place so we had to turn back and get them. That was a good fourty five minutes, hour out of our trip)...and I set up my tent, roll out my bedroll, and turn around to see the Inn Ni being set up. Yay! The Inn Ni was back, after being partially destroyed in a wind storm!...So I went and helped David (the bartender) put up the walls (which are canvas, of course...it's nothing but a giant tent). And so that was all good. I wasn't even in garb that night. I just threw a cloak over my clothes and went visiting, then sat in the Red Tiger's Den for a while at night before hooking up with my dear sister (side note: any family I talk of, save my little brother, David, my older brother, Martin, my dad, Daddy, and my mother, Mother, or Female Parental Unit, and possibly a foster sibling, though I tend to note those ones well...any other family, chances are I'm referring to SCAdian family)...damn. Where was I...Oh yes. My dear sister Bliss and I decided to share a bed in my tent, and thus staggered off rather early and passed out. She was very warm. We didn't spend another night together, however, because she bought herself a little slave boy...who proved to be defective, so she got another one, who also proved to be defective. I believe the third was satisfactory. It was her birthday, you see.

So far, this if my favorite Bliss Quote: Well, so long as I can kiss you and fondle your breasts, you don't have to buy my a birthday drink.

So I woke up the next day, downed one of Lord Malcom's lovely breakfast's (pancakes and sausage, as usual...no fruit sauce this time, unfortunately. He makes the best fruit sauce.) and was promptly roped in to doing water bearing for the fighting that was going on.

Not that I minded. I love watching men in armour beat the daylights out of each other...then bounce up and offer then a cool drink of water when they stagger off the fighting field. It's great. One time I was sitting with Sunny (she has the most beautiful happy face I've ever seen) right at the guard ropes of the pavilion that the fighters sat under when they weren't fighting, near the exit to the erric. Aric. The name of the fighting field sounds like erric, so that's what I'll call it. So there was a big melee and a bunch of fighters staggered off the erric at the same time, and I offered water to one (a particular squire of about mid twenties, I'm guessing, tall, blond, happy baby face and gives wonderful shoulder rubs)...I was sitting on the ground at thise point. And so he takes my water bottle with a delighted exausted noise, drops to one knee, wraps one arm around my shoulder and kisses me on the cheek. That was great. And he was in full armor (except his helmet, of course)...

See why I like water bearing? Hehehehe...

But I met a group of squires and men-at-arms from Montegard. They were the ones Sunny and I were giving water to. Let's see...I don't know all their names...Well, all except the fellow who kissed me on the cheek. I never caught his name, though I did sit on his lap for a break when I was serving at the feast that night. Let's see, there was Nathanial, Emma (yes, a woman fighter), Ian (which is spelled strangely, but is pronounced Ian, so that's how I'll write it), Sigurd kerr de Roxburgh (I believe that was his full name, after reading it out so many bloody times) and another lady fighter whose name I never caught...

Crap. Gotta run. Bro needs the comp and I promised to get off five minutes ago...

Stay tuned for part two, tomorrow. ;)

Before&After