I woke after 8.5 hours sleep (not counting the four trips up the hill to the toilet house, which is just far enough from the cabin to have me thinking longingly of bed located nearer toilets. Bodies are stupid.) This gave me time to finish typing up the last of yesterday, and even post it to Dreamwidth, and start today, and it was still more than.an hour before scheduled breakfast time.
I tried going back to sleep, but after just 20 minutes decided tht I my as well get up and do a morning yoga, as I was unlikely to get another chance all day
This was a smart idea, as I never got another chance all day. Crown events are always busy, but this one seems unusually so for me. My schedule for the day:
- 07:36 woke up, visit the loo, dress, etc.
- 08:11 a quick 10-minute standing yoga session in the corner of the cabin out of the path, so I wouldn’t be in the way if anyone else woke up
- 08:30 walk up the hill to the main hall, eat breakfast, and greet people I hadn’t seen yet
- 09:15 walk back down the hill with Keldor to get him into armour and me into warm clothes, do some stretches and get ready for the tournament
- 10:00 armour inspection starts, but I had to walk the 300 or 400 meters back up to the main hall to get my water mug I had forgotten before returning to the lakeside tournament field.
- 11:00 the tournament, which ran as a single round robin, single elimination, double kills counting as a loss for both and not refought. Several of us who had sent letters of intent didn’t fight (I didn’t get my helm done on time, Sven and Siobhan just bought a house, ad at least one of the Finnish fighters were sick/injured), so there were 9 fighters total. This time, knowing it would go reasonably fast, I used my Charlemange’s camera holder to film all of the fights (ok, I got distracted and missed the start of one). The plan is for Keldor to put them onto his YouTube channel, but that could take some days before he gets to it. Their Majesties came up with a great idea to show how the tournament was going. After each fight the victor’s consort went to the King and Queen and got a ribon in Drachenwald colours to tie onto their Champion’s belt. A black ribbon for each of the first three wins a given fighter had, a yellow ribbon for each of the next three wins a given fighter had. Should anyone had won more than six of their fights, the would have gotten a red ribbon.
- the field was reasonably closely matched, with most fighters being pretty good, even though not all are knights. Thus none of the fighters got a red ribbon (Keldor got only three black this time), but two of them managed three yellow and three black, and so they went straight to finals without a semifinal round.
- we were not surprised to see Jan, fighting for Victoria, in the finals, as he is a Knight who has been in finals a regularly in the last few years. Juhana, on the other hand, is a fighter we hadn’t met before, so it was a bit surprising to see him in the finals, normally the fighters who can win have been around long enough and have travelled enough that we know who they are. The first I noticed Juhana was around the third round—when Anna was standing next to her sister, Birgitta, both cheering for their own champion. Juhana (Brigitta’s champion) beat Valdemar (Anna’s champion) and Anna promptly stuck her tongue out at her big sister. It made me laugh, but I didn’t think about Juhana again till a few rounds later, when Juhana faced, and defeated, Keldor.
- 13:00 after the tournament was over and I had helped Keldor get stuff back to the cabin I went up to the main hall for lunch (Keldor went to the sauna)
- 13:30 i set up our table for the market (but couldn’t stay and actually sell anything)
- 14:00 I was one of the puppeteers for the play (a call had gone out on Thursday asking for a replacement for the person who had gotten sick)
- 15:00 went to the Laurel meeting
- then I had a break till fika at 17:00
- 17:40 I participated in the group singing
- 18:30 was the Royal Court
- 19:00 the feast started, I served High table and chatted with people.
- sometime later dancing started, so, of course, I joined the dancing.
- 00:30 I was back in the cabin and crawling into bed
photos from the day (photos taken by Photo by Beata Sigridsdotter, and shared to FB)
Me, filming Keldor’s fight with Valdemar, using my GoPro mounted in my Charlemange’s camera holder.
Me, Keldor (in the purple fighting surcote), and other fighters and consorts watchign the tournament
Bryan, wearing his new coat that I had helped him cut
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