Category: Historical reenactment

Fibre & Needle Crafts, Historical reenactment7 Comments

Seems I haven’t forgotten how

mimbles

On Sunday we headed out to North Richmond for a Huscarls training and crafting day. Tom was all set to spend the day weaving, so I decided I should break out the tablet weaving loom and get back into doing that for the first time since October last year. The only question was, would I be able to remember how it worked? Oh, and “where the hell are all the bits of the loom?” (We found everything except the patterns so I made one up.) Turns out the answer is yes, I do remember, and here’s the results – just … Continue reading Seems I haven’t forgotten how

Family & Parenting, Fibre & Needle Crafts, Historical reenactment9 Comments

Tom the weaver

mimbles

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 … Continue reading Tom the weaver

Family & Parenting, Historical reenactment3 Comments

Holiday snippets

mimbles

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 … Continue reading Holiday snippets

Family & Parenting, Historical reenactment5 Comments

Lithgow Ironfest

mimbles

Yesterday we hauled ourselves out of bed at 6:15am and headed off to Lithgow for a day at Ironfest with my mum in tow. The Huscarls had a paid gig there to provide a living history display so a bunch of them were camping Friday and Saturday nights but we decided it was all too hard and that we’d just come up for the day. I packed my bead making stuff but didn’t end up using it as the club trestle table hadn’t made it to the camp. When we arrived I couldn’t wait to get into my dark ages … Continue reading Lithgow Ironfest

Historical reenactment3 Comments

Things are improving – I’ll be back properly soon!

mimbles

Thanks for asking after me Alix 🙂 I’m fine – much, much better than when I last posted – but still finding it difficult to focus long enough to write anything of substance. Fortunately everything kind of fell into place on Thursday last week. I got the animals out to the vets without a hitch and I caught up on the worst of my pile of stuff at work. School term ended giving me a reprieve from homework related kid-wrangling until almost the end of the month and I resigned myself to wearing the same outfit all weekend at Conference … Continue reading Things are improving – I’ll be back properly soon!

Family & Parenting, Historical reenactment, Things We Should Talk About at the Dinner Table13 Comments

Not blogging, not sleeping, not coping

mimbles

It’s 1:45 in the morning. I’m supposed to be taking the animals to be boarded for the weekend first thing tomorrow, have to leave the house at 7:30am. I’ve not made the clothes for myself that I wanted to get done for the reenactors’ conference this weekend. I’m not being very nice to my kids. And I’m up to my eyeballs in stuff to do both at work and at home. Stress = not going to bed. So fucking stupid. *kicks self* At least I’ll sleep while we’re camping, it’s much harder to stay up too late when living in … Continue reading Not blogging, not sleeping, not coping

Family & Parenting, Fibre & Needle Crafts, Food Glorious Food, Historical reenactment, Stuff About Me3 Comments

Beorg-wic and birthday party reporting

mimbles

Here we are at the end of two weeks of school holidays and I feel absolutely wiped out. Not because having the kids around has worn thin, they seem to have grown up enough for that not to be such a problem any more. Rather it’s because I’ve spent pretty much the whole 2 weeks with a horrible lurgi. Same thing happened to me last school holidays too. I feel cheated. All I can say is it’s a damn good thing that being a Dark Ages reenactor doesn’t require you to give up paracetamol and anti-histamines as well as plumbing … Continue reading Beorg-wic and birthday party reporting

Fibre & Needle Crafts, Historical reenactmentLeave a comment

Beorg-wic loot

mimbles

There were market stalls and craft workshops at the camp on the weekend. Adam and I both succumbed to the lure of bigger drinking horns, he now has one that holds 0.7L and mine holds 0.5L. Adam got busy in the forge and did some blacksmithing. Not bad for a first effort. The knife is quite heavy, holding it makes you want to attack something with it but we restricted ourselves to slicing bread instead (which it did beautifully). I did a tablet weaving workshop and am now the proud owner of a tablet weaving loom and a few inches … Continue reading Beorg-wic loot

Family & Parenting, Historical reenactment1 Comment

Beorg-wic was fun

mimbles

We spent the weekend at Beorg-wic which is the annual conference of the Ancient Arts Fellowship. It’s held at a site on the Danelaw property on the edge of the Moreton National Park near Braidwood. We were there with the Huscarls though only one other group member made it to the camp but everyone there was very welcoming and friendly so that was ok. The weather was marginal, we had a bit of rain each day so we were very pleased to be able to pack up with a dry tent! I wasn’t entirely expecting to be able to say … Continue reading Beorg-wic was fun

Family & Parenting, Fat Acceptance, Food Glorious Food, Historical reenactment, Pets and Other Wildlife1 Comment

It’s been a long day

mimbles

You know how I said I might try ice-skating today? Well, I did. I was really apprehensive because I had memories from the last time I tried, years ago, of being so distressed that all I wanted to do was hide somewhere and cry. I remembered that my feet had been in agony but I couldn’t remember what it had been like on the ice. Was I still able to skate (I used to go regularly for sport in high-school and had taken lessons when I lived in the US) or was it just an exercise in frustration and humiliation? … Continue reading It’s been a long day