Rowany Festival

Friday:
Didn't catch the train like I was going to, my parents decided they would drive me instead, as I had "too much baggage". They kind of had a point, but I would have managed. Somehow.
Got there about 3 ish, signed in at gate (they had put my name down as "Linlee Tilly" when I booked..). Got given a cool token to show I'd paid, had a sundial on it.
Borrowed a wheelbarrow to cart my stuff to college's campsite. I actually walked past it the first time, but found it eventually. Set up my tent near the St. Ursula pavilion and shoved all my stuff in.
Angerat saw me and told me to go watch the battle that was happening so I knew what I was in for on Sunday. i got about half-way before i met someone else from St Ursula who said it was finished, so i walked back to the tent.
Played cards for a while in the pavilion, game called "Presidents and Assholes" and then poker. Only realised after that he had misinterpreted the question, thought I had asked whether it was over for him, the battle's had still been going... ._."
Had some sort of satay chicken with rice for dinner. Was very good. Participated in the St Ursulan slave auction, had to stand up on keg barrel in the front of the tavern and look sell-able. I got sold for $40 which was about the average (ranged from $35 to $44). I was joint bought by Alfo and Chuck from Attica, got told I would be carting stuff around in both instances.
Ended up following some people I vaguely knew to play cards in a tent. Didn't end up playing cards, more people turned up and they started playing "Never have I ever", wierd drinking game. I was boring, didn't drink anything, watched everyone else get tipsy. The guy next to me had a knife he'd bought (about 30cm long, pommel to tip), started playing with that after a while. It was very beautiful. I left soon after he did, went back to tent and got all my crap out. Read for a while by candlelight, but not much; got tired very quickly for some reason. Having beginning of cold didn't help.

Saturday:
Woke up with an extremely blocked nose, several tissues later I discovered I also couldn't feel my toes. Decided it was going to be cold and windy outside, put a pair of trousers and two shirts on under my tunic. Had trouble getting my boots on. There were a few people up already (about 7:30am, I'd woken about 6:30), I sat down for a while feeling cold and watching breakfast being started. Had to go to be slave for Alfo before I could breakfast. Found the attican pavilion easy enough, was put to work carrying leather and boxes with leather associated products over to stall just outside tavern in the list field. The handles on the plastic boxes cut into my hands because they were so cold still.
Went back to the Ursulan Pavilion after i'd finished, had missed out on breakfast. Started playing cards (Poker) with various peoples while they woke up. Did alright, wasn't losing. Got bored around 11 o'clock and walked over with a group of them to look in stalls. All sorts of things on sale. Had some foam weapons ('boffers') that kids can use. They are actually families that come to the festival with little kids. They hold various activities for them (From what I saw at one of the activities there was about 30-40 kids). Other stuff on sale: eating wares (bowls, goblets, cutlery), jewllery (pendants, broaches, necklaces; mostly metal, some of it might have been silver since it was fairly expensive), fabric (various materials and colours), pre-made clothing, leather goods (pouches, belts), and armour and weapons. Most of the armour and weaponary were just collective and you couldn't really wear it in battle (due to various armour regulations; same for weapons). Saw a really nice bow. Wish I had the money to buy it ._. .Went back and hung around the pavilion for a while because there weren't any good Arts adn Sciences courses on at the time. Eventually went back and walked around stalls again with Lydia and Tara. Bought a few things: a really nice braid to put on a tunic i will eventually make (>_>""), a belt which I got very cheap because I bought it from Alfo. Also bought a beginner book to leather working and some cheap leather and thread to practice with. Alfo gave me two purple tunic/shirt's for nothing. Helped him take all the unsold stuff back to tent. He showed me one of his gauntlets that needed repairing (a leather strap had broken). The metal was very cool, liked the way the plates bent around the hand as you loosened and tightened your grip.
Hung about for the rest of the afternoon: talked, played cards. Had spaghetti for dinner and after a while most people went down to tavern, watched then played Munchkin with some Ursulans + others. Very silly game, meant to knock off RPG dice games in general. Gave up around midnight and went back to tent.
Folded up towel and tried to plug hole at bottom of tent, to try and keep tent warm. Lit several candles to warm up tent/read a bit by. *Rejoices in flames* Wore several layers of clothing to sleep in.

Sunday:
My toes ached a bit, but I could feel them, towel hadn't worked that well. Took me a long time to get dressed, very hard to do in a one-person a-frame tent when the air is so cold. Had some pancakes for breakfast, played cards for a bit before moving off to watch field battles at 10am. Spectators were watching from atop a steep hill at the two sides below in a sort of flat valley. Interesting to watch how each side approached the other. The two sides were Rowany (Sydney groups) Vs Politcopilis (Canberra SCA groups). Politicopilis had considerably more archers around 25 compared to 10 or so, but St Augustine group from Rowany used their tower shields as an effective counter. There was a few random charges at each groups archers, single people running at them hoping to knock off a few. There were several battles, alternating sides and whether or not light's (non-contacts, generally archers) were deployed. One of the last battles was very interesting. All the heavy fighters got eliminated before the archers did (which is unusal), so there were about 5-10 archers a side firing at each other. I think Rowany eventually ran out of arrows. After the field battles were finished, there was a break for lunch and rest. Around 1:30 went in search of Angerat (St Ursulan marshall) in order to get final approval to fight in the afternoon battles. Took a while but eventually got cleared and handed a loverly new tabard (tunic-esque item of clothing to distinguish between sides). My tabard was St Ursulan, white with two red bears (though they look like wolves) rearing over a open book and wreath. The back has a larger version of the bear/wolf.
The afternoon had "fort" battles. The object was for the attacking team to get the banner out of the fort, whoever did it the fastest won the afternoon war. The team in the fort had 2 resurections, the attackers had infinite. Missed out on the first, when Rowany was defending, as the armour inspector had run out of the stickers that said my armour had been inspected (._."""). So I had to sit and watch the first of the two battles. It took Politcopolis 47 minutes to get to the flag. The last of the two I got to fight in. Started off with a charge out of the fort by Politicopilis, trying to knock out the siege weapons (two ballista and a missile-type thingy). They got one ballista but the charge was knocked back. I walked casually up to the fort looking for targets to throw my wondeful axes at. Threw one over the top of the heavies fighting at the fort's entrance and managed to hit some archer standing on a bit of a rise. He sort of moved off back up the hill to the ressurection point. Don't know if he actually accepted I'd hit him or not. Got hit soon after that by an arrow from the towers. Walked all the way to the res point and back, only to walk into the 'moat' (was marked out by hay bales, which I didn't see *curses tunnel vision*). That meant I'd drowned, so I had to walk all the way back. (>_<"""") noticed a banner lying near the res point but walked back anyway. Fighting was still going on, threw another axe (missed) and suddenly the battle was stopped. Apparently the banner I had seen was the one we were meant to capture, but the opposing side had switched them around (there was more than one banner in fort).
It had taken us 11 minutes to capture it.
Went and sat down in the fort for a while with Angerat and Alfo, talked for a bit. When we eventually walked off, Angerat picked up a banner on the way. Asked her later, apparently it was the "White Companies" banner who rival the Atticans (for some reason, I can't remember). Just walked calmly out of the fort and back to Attican campsite with it. Passed the White Companies marshall on the way, who saluted us (I have no idea why, we were stealing his banner. I guess he thought we were returning it.). Watched Attican's take photo's of the banner around their campsite before heading back to Ursulan pavilion. Played cards again before dinner and afterwards started singing various songs. I didn't know any of them and most were about beer. Headed up to the Tavern with everyone else. Didn't drink anything. Watched some of group play "King of Cups" and get severly drunk. Got very dusty inside the tavern (didn't have a floor) so I left eventually. Wandered back to campsite to grab candle, paper + pencil and book before walking up hill to look down on whole of campsite. Found a ant-less spot and sat down watching the stars and the moon. Lit the candle, and saw any attempt at reading to be futile. Sat for a while and wrote a bad vaguely philosphical poem, contained here for your assessment:

A Cold Hillside
And so I lay me down on the cold hillside,
To dream of where my thoughts may take me
Surrounded by the chorus of silence
Shaded by the full of the moon
But the rowdy noise of the human soul cannot be quenched
And for that, I lay me down on my hillside

Above the sparse grass and enchroaching dust
Amidst the cool still breeze and darkened trees
Beyond the human subtly
Ever-reaching for the stars
But the wandering spirit of the mind cannot be sated
And so I lay me down beleagued by thought

And as I listen to the people around me,
Surrounding me but never with me
Their actions the verse to my now distant life
Their shouts drive me to the same,
To uselessly add my voice into the disharmonic majority
So I lay me down on my cold inescapable hillsde
With dreams of sleep to wake another day
While the questions disintegrate my being.

All bad speeling is un-intentional. Any effort to keep to a rhyming scheme is unintentional. The poem is unintentional.

Walked up to the top of the hill after that jumble of thought. Found a car track that I followed. Near to the top of the hill walked past someone sitting with head beneath folded arms rested on knees. Said hello as I walked by, would have liked to talk to someone but she (I think) probably wanted privacy if she was half-way up a hill at midnight. By the time I walked back down whoever they were was gone.
Went back to tent and made a vain attempt to seal front. Slept.

Monday:
Very lazy day, everyone was tired from yesterday. Played some more cards. Watched Fighter tourney for a bit in the list field. Toward the afternoon I went to do my other Slave duty for Chuck. I was meant to load his stuff into his car (since he had an injury of some description) but got there (on time) to find he'd already done it. Had to fill up water cubes instead. Went to watch end of Royal Archery Shoot after I'd finished. Each round, the remaining contendor's got further and further from target, you had 6 arrows to try and hit and if you didn't get one in you were eliminated.
Dad rang me soon afterwoods to tell me to be ready to be picked up. Went back and packed everything up. Got picked up from gatekeeper's tent around 4:30pm. Fiddled with token most of the way back, happy that I got to keep it.

*wins prize for longest blog post*