Mary here,
The event was a success! I had a wonderful time and the weather was great. It couldn't be more perfect. I over-did it a couple of times but other than that, it was a lot of fun. Now I miss the "good ol' days" even more. I was missing Ali. I managed to trade a scarf for a new belt with some nice tooling on it. My first barter. Then I bought a 3-D wooden puzzle of a castle and I purchased 2 new portable holes from the blacksmith who was there, along with an iron hair pin. I don't have the hair for it, but it will make a nice gift for someone if I don't find a use for it.
The pavilion worked out GREAT! I was too "beat up" to hang the ceiling and interior walls so I put up a couple of curtain rods to shield the porta potty and to hang garb off of.
OMG the IKEA bed with my sleep number mattress was DABOMB!!! Ali said he's going to copy it and make me a "knockdown" version. It sure was nice having an actual bed frame to sleep on.
My Porta-Potty needs fixing. The pump to make it "flush" has a leak around the gasket and it sprayed out water instead of flushing. A little caulk should fix that right up.
We have a brand new household member! Welcome, Marjorie, into the fold. This was her first event and she really enjoyed it. A very lovely, lively and funny young woman who's going to be a great asset to our humble little group.
I learned that I am cursed by incessantly barking dogs. All afternoon and evening on Friday. After I yelled over, "PLEASE! Silence your dog!" when they woke me up very early Saturday morning, I didn't hear it again until Sunday afternoon. At that time the bag piper started up too. By then, we were packed and ready to go. That's when I said to Ali, "Ummm yep, it's time to hit the road." So, we left early. I could really use a nap about now.
I enjoyed myself but it was hard on both of us. Hard on me doing the unpacking and putzing on Friday plus walking up and down hills to where the demos were being held on Saturday. Then the packing up again on Sunday and the unpacking again once it's out of the truck. Ali can't do the loading, unloading and loading again either. We still have to get the stuff back out of the truck. We want to go to more events, but can't do this kind of camping. We don't want to do the RV thing either. We did that a few times. It just kills the atmosphere for us. We like being in a tent. We're playing with the idea of taking the small utility trailer that we have and making it into some kind of pop-up camper that still looks and feels like you're in a tent.
In the meantime we're going to day trip Honey War. Klaufi and I are talking about going to An Tir/West War. Katerina is going to a different event near there and then me and Klaufi can head over to the war.
See you at Honey War!