2002-06-18 - 7:07 p.m.

Well, I'm back in England after a long and tiring weekend in Scotland.

The flight and associated activities were pretty good (although I hate not having the in-seat video screens) and I and my luggage arrived intact. Dan (of sausage fame) met me at Heathrow, we had breakfast and then I took a taxi up to Val's place in Pinner.

I spent all day hanging out at Val's, and eventually everyone showed up, we got dinner (takeaway pizza, some leftover chicken curry Tanya made, miscellaneous pies from the grocery and a small roasted bird Tina made), and packed the War Bus. This year we had 11 people so we took the 15 person van, with the roofrack loaded to the gills, and a small car. We finally got everyone crashed at Val's by about midnight, and headed off at some obscene time like 5:30. Ugh.

It took us about 12 hours to get to Edzell, including a stop for lunch in Moffat. We got to the castle, checked in with various people, then got ourselves somewhat organized. We had tents to put up, and then we scurried around like crazy-people as we had to be in garb and ready to go at eight when court was due to start, as they were putting my friend Michael on vigil for knighthood.

It was excellent. I've never seen quite so many emotions cross someone's face in that short a time. The Crown called him up to explain about the fighting plans for the weekend, while kneeling in front of them. He was snuck up on by his knight (who was not even 'supposed' to be there!) and the other knight present, and then the King took his hand and he realized something was up. It was absolutely fantastic.

He sat vigil all evening in the tower of Edzell castle (partly ruined), by candlelight and the light of the late evening (it doesn't really get dark in Scotland in the summer...) It was spectacular - there was a small feast (well, liberal snacks), and everyone brought up a candle or two when they came up. It was just amazing.

But it did lead to not getting much sleep. Then in the morning he was knighted and I had the honor of speaking for him as a member of the Pelican.

Then we fought all day in the castle, ate a pretty mediocre feast, had some entertainments, danced a little then went off to the midnight pas d'armes. I couldn't see some of it but parts were good. There was a small crisis when Val locked himself and the new knight out of their bed & breakfast, so we had to take him back to our place.

Sunday we got a very slow start, there was a fighting practice at the castle, we packed up and took down the tents then we set off down the road. We stopped in Lockerbie for dinner, which was delicious (smoked salmon, and then game casserole), but we had to leave really quickly and drive like crazy people to get to the Youth Hostel before they closed. We almost didn't make it - they were ready to lock us out, but we managed to get in.

Time for dinner, more later....

�

previous - next

�