Feels like fall

It feels like fall this morning. The weather is cool and crisp with tendrils of fog creeping around the fields. It feels nice but I imagine we will get tired of the gloom very quickly.
I got back from Warrior's Revel last night about 7:00. I unloaded my gear, thankful that it's the last camping event of the season for me. If I can ride with Ceridwen next week I will day trip Coronet. Otherwise, with the cost of gas being what it is, I will stay home.
It was a reasonably good weekend though. Well- The companionship was good. There we a lot of injuries during the fighting, the rapier fighting was minimal and poorly attended, we had thunderstorms and I had a leaky tent. But I'll start at the beginning.
Friday night I ran out the the Marcola site after work and having finished my packing. It was 7:30 before I arrived and rapidly getting dark. Trudi and I agreed to share my tent this weekend and she'd bring the cooler since it was a tent or food in her car. We parked ourselves under a large tree. The branches were hanging down so we interwove the ones that would reach into the higher branches. The tent went up fairly easily, especially with Trudi's electric lantern. Then it was a matter of figuring out how two people could set up two beds in the tent. It all fit without any of the tables set up so I put my table back in the car and set the kitchen table up behind the tent where it was mostly covered by the tree. Trudi used my cot with her padding and bedding on it. Then we used the room at the foot of each bed for our garb trunks and the cooler.
When we were done setting up, we went started dinner. Durin came back to their kitchen and tried to cook some dinner but he was so lit that he ended up singing his eyelashes, brows and hair while trying to light the grill. T. and I took turns babysitting him and making sure he didn't do anything too stupid while we cooked our own dinner. BBQ pork and zucchini and yellow squash fried in butter and garlic. The meat was pre-prepared so it was just the vegetables we had to wait on. The amusement of Durin's stumbling passed the time quickly. Then we took our dinner plates over to the kitchen tent where Fezzic was planning to food merchant to eat and be social. A young couple had neglected to bring any warm food so we shared our food with them. There was plenty.
Saturday morning things were supposed to start at 8:30 and got going about 1:30. While I was waiting I helped Ceridwen at gate while she braided my hair in two french herringbone braids. Then I braided her hair. Trudi had agreed to MIC the rapier tournament so I could fight in the Adiantum championship. I helped to determine the format and I'll help to do the paperwork but she is a senior rapier marshal and can be the MIC. Since that was supposed to be mixed into the fighting at some point, when I finished Ceridwen's hair I ran back to the eric to figure out what was happening. Which was precisely nothing. It was noon. The heavy fighters were finally gearing up and since the only other combatant in the rapier tournament was fighting in the heavy tournament also we had to figure out how to arrange it so he didn't have to change armour a bunch of times. Part of the way through the tournament for the Chivalry series, Durin realized how many fights were going to occur if he completed everything: with 9 styles and 11 fighters fighting in a round robin in all styles, I believe it was almost 1000 fights. Kathal had to leave early and proposed to fight all of his fights in a row to get them done. However, after getting through the great weapon round, his back seized up and he had to laydown for several hours. We were rapidly losing daylight so they paused to do the heavy defender tourney and decided that the rapier championship would follow it. Ewan was trying to get her Chirurgeonate warrant and needed to treat one more injury. While she was contemplating Kathal, Olav got a nasty armor bite and was bleeding. Ewan treated his injury and let Eve keep an eye on Kathal. Several of the heavy fighters volunteered to act as targets for the combat archery tournament and Victor ended up getting shot in the ankle with stinging force and the Chirurgeon had to check for breaks and sprains. Keeping our humor we requested that Trudi make and announcement that, while Ewan appreciated everyone's efforts on her behalf, she was now warranted and they could stop getting hurt.
After the Defender tournament which Gabriel won, Victor and I armored up for the Rapier tournament. There was a great deal of resentment that the heavy fighters needed to pause their tournament so we could do the championship. We were told that we needed to start immediately but I refused to go into the tournament without giving Victor a chance to recalibrate. Trudi found a way to stall while asking about royal decrees about the style of the tournament. Bless her. It was decided that we would fight the best 2 out of three in 5 weapon styles. After a few really hard hits, we ran out of time and had to start the tournament. I was comfortable that Victor was aware of his force by that time.
Having been told to start immediately, we looked up to discover that no one was watching, not even the Baron and Baroness for who's championship we were fighting. But we started, with no fan fair since it appeared no one was interested. Just as we were preparing to start, Victor was called off the field by Captain Juan to participate in a gift ceremony for the Baroness. It was an irritating and unnecessary delay but we waited patiently. In the first round, sword and dagger, Victor beat me easily. As we were preparing for the second round, Trudi looked at Victor and instead of asking if he was ready, asked if he was ok. He took a step back, considered and said "no, no I'm not." He turned and called out to Juan that he needed a coke, immediately. After a dozen questions, he got some coke and we finally found some other food that he could eat. (He is severely diabetic and we've had him go into convulsions on the field before.) Once he'd gotten his blood sugar back up, he beat me quite easily in the next two rounds, at that point he had the majority of wins and we quit fighting. It was pouring down rain for the entire time so we were wet and I was angry that the baron and baroness couldn't be bothered to attend their championship tournament.
I didn't care that I lost by that point. Victor said that he notices there comes a point, and he's not sure if it's when I get tired or if I give up, that I drop my guard and I'm much easier to beat. I know that my heart wasn't in the fighting by the time that everything had been interrupted and I didn't care overly much but I didn't consciously give up. The Baron and Baroness apologized to us but they had wandered by and through us several times during and before the tournament and never bothered to stop and watch so I have to question their sincerity.
Afterwods, I cleaned up and went over to the kitchen. Trudi volunteered to buy food instead of cooking for us so we had corn on the cob slathered in butter (There was enough to grease up a slick and slide) and bbq'ed chicken. We all laughed at the copious amounts of butter we were wearing on our hands, faces and clothes by the time we were done eating.
Several people brought out bottles of Absinthe, with wormwood, and were serving drinks made properly (Poured over a sugar cube and mixed with water). I won't drink the stuff but I understand that the hallcinations of old may have been caused by the laudanum that was added rather than the Absynth. However, I know that wormwood is toxic so why tempt fate?
I sat quietly and crocheted while people talked around me but I didn't feel very social. It was pouring with lightening and everything else. I'd loaned my cloak to a girl in a very fine cotton tunic so she wouldn't freeze but I was starting to get cold. So I went back to my tent to see about going to bed, only to discover that the tent was leaking and everything was wet. Trudi's bed was soaked, but fortunately mine was not so bad. I moved my bed away from the drips but Trudi had to borrow bedding and sleep in Kate's tent. I felt really terrible but there was nothing I could do. I curled up under my wool bedding and read a book until the wee hours.
Sunday morning I stayed in bed as long as I could before I was too awake to stay a minute longer. I'd just sat up when Trudi returned. It was a bright sunny day and so we decided to wait as long as we could to pack up to give the canvas a chance to dry. I'll have to waterproof the tent before next season. To that end we loitered around the kitchen pavilion talking with the Consortium and others who wandered through. Brutus found a jar of home canned peaches and snatched them up like a dog with a coveted bone. He woke Eve up to ask if he could eat them then took the jar as far away from the other people in the tent as he could get to eat them. At one point he sat kicking his feet like a 2 year old. It was very funny. Apprently he really likes home-canned peaches.
At some point during the previous evening, Ewan had been talking about her mopeds and Kate started calling her Ewannnnnnnnnnnnn. Since she answered to it and didn't protest, the nickname is hers, kinda like Gabriel is stuck with Hot fudge. There was great amusement over that. Kate was fighting channeling Dietrich all morning. (He who has no internal editor of any kind, except, of all places, when he is in a strip bar and who has a filthy mind and mouth) As a group there was a decision that they needed Sith t-tunics (Red and Black) with Norse ruins around the bottom tell what they really think. Although he vociferously objected, the Baron is really stuck with the name Peaches. Kate suggested that we put "Wuffff Peaches Wuffff Peaches" around the bottom of his tunic. Ceridwen has claimed "Her Hexellency". The newest friend who is flaming gay and has a huge crush on Gabriel suggested that his tunic read "everything tastes better with hot fudge on it." It was a morning full of hilarity.
Fezzic had run into town and so there was no kitchen so we all provided a few ingredients and ended up with cheesy eggs with either ground turkey or kielbasa, depending on your preference. It was quite tasty. Finally around 5 we got down to the nitty gritty of tear down and I left site about 6:30.