Caldicot

From the outside, forlorn and derelict

On the inside

Warm and filled with the scent of roses

I spent the day spinning and chatting to children.
Perfect.

Cilgerran Castle

Not far from the coast of Cardigan Bay there lies Cilgerran Castle, built by the Welsh out of thin slate slabs, it has been ruined since the 1300's but what a little gem of a place. It is the site of a most Romantic Abduction...one minor Welsh prince fell desperately in love with the beautiful wife of a Norman lord and risking all for love the couple ran away together. I haven't found out what became of them but in all likelihood they were hunted down by the outraged husband and the worst probably befell them...

The castle is haunted apparently by a rather intimidating gentleman in black who watches from one of the towers. He did not stick around when the Freemen went for a ghost hunt late last night...mind you, if I was a spectre I would make myself scarce when faced with that lot with a few beers inside them!

Tomorrow, I am off to Caldicot Castle, one of my favourites to help with an education day for the local schools. Spinning, weaving and dyeing in the fourteenth century has to be made as gruesome as possible in order to appeal to young children. It is a challenge, but thanks to the terrible chemicals used in medieval dyeing and a particularly harrowing martyrdom with woolcombs it can be done.

I hope you have a fun day too.

Sir Lily

It's still a while to go before the start of the season... but guess who has been watching
A Knight's Tale just to keep the hand in.

A Gentle Day

It is taking the sky is taking a long time to wake up these last few days. It remains the same misty silver pink of a watercolour dawn until well into the afternoon. As we were driving to Chepstow this morning I saw charcoal treelines against a horizon that changed from pearl to rose, topaz to olivine - all lit up by an opalescent sun. For over a hundred miles it made me want to paint...

Other than admiring a jewelled sky, there is little better in life to sit in a castle, well wrapped up against the cold with a thick woolen cape and the knowledge that a beef and barley stew is on the fire, waiting only for the sword practise to finish before we can tuck in, having spent the previous hour teaching a youngster how to use a drop spindle. A girl's determination to make a workable yarn defied chilled fingers and awkwardly slippery merino fibre. She made a very creditable first thread which many a spinner I know would be content to call an "art yarn" or "textured" (for that you can read "lumpy") but for an eleven year old, there is nothing wrong with that.

Hope your skies are soft and beautiful too

Of Reasons

So I sorted out all the tablet weaving kit. I plan on making a belt for Eden. The dress below is hers for when we go re-enacting. It is a lovely soft purple. I dyed it using acid dyes which have a tendency to be quite bright and though some natural dyes can be very bright indeed the purples that they (ie medieval folk) could get were not. So I took great care to keep the mix on the silvery side of lilac which is what you can get if you use elderberries. I missed the elderberry season this year and anyway I am not into natural dying, all the mordanting wool and all the fiddle (and potential errors) that natural dying involves. Acid dyes are far easier.

So I got all the kit out, even the pattern book! And then I realised that I really should get cracking with V's tunic rather than indulge myself with a demanding fiddly new rabbit trail. Eden can do very well with a length of plaited wool for now but V's tunic must be made before our next gig at Chepstow on the 6th. I need to get my dress sorted out too but I can borrow something if needs be. I want the rest of the family in their own kit first though.

This is part of the haul from the re-enactors fair up in Leamington Spa. Pure wool that is next to skin soft. I intended this for a dress for myself (and hoped to get one for Lily out of the remainder) keeping a lovely thick linen for V's tunic. But the training day that we went to two weeks ago made me realise that linen just won't be warm enough for a December day.
This wool is a cheery, holly berry red and it suits V very well. I have enough left over to make a dress for tiny Lily but I am going to have to send off for some more wool to make a dress for myself. I am fancying a burnt orange or a moss green if possible. It will look a bit daft if we have three members of the family in the same colour I think.

And I finally saw sense and started using the sewing machine. One dress, some braeis and two underdresses would be enough handsewing for anyone. If I want this finished anytime soon it is going to have to be machine work from now on. I finish visible seams - necklines and such- by hand and very relaxing it is too now that most of the donkey work is being done by the Bernina.

An honourable mention goes to this machine by the way - it is older than me. Bought in Tanganyika* for thirty shillings over forty years ago and it is still going strong**. The whirr of this machine is one of the sounds of my childhood. Mummy was always creating something with it. She has assured me that it will come to me when she can no longer use it. I am happy to have the occasional loan for now.

Maybe I'll get a pic of V wearing his new tunic tomorrow. This post has taken ages to write and I am off to bed now.

Nos da everyone.

* Tanganyika no longer exists as an independant nation. It has been amalgamated into Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.
**Which is perhaps more than can be said of Tanganyika

Of Kids and Kidding About

Getting the kidlings ready for school this morning in my rather tea deprived state Rose squawked-
"Look at my foot!"
In so far as I could, I whirled round to face what awful thing had happened to my baby to see a grotesque bulge under her big toe.
"Good grief!" I shriek. "What the heck is that?"
"It's my wart" she says, completely straight faced.
I just about passed out in horror, when - in the nick of time - she withdrew a marble from her sock.
I think the word is pwned.

In other news, here is my latest bash at a cloak. In a former life it was an ancient Welsh wool blanket, slightly scratchy but still comforting and very very warm. I have dyed it from a distressing Calpol pink to its present shade of milk chocolate. It is a classic hobbit cloak. Cut on the cross, two quarter circles sewn into a half and it drapes very happily around my shoulders.

I am particularly pleased with the clasp which I purchased from a viking re-enactment store in Copenhagen. I love the WWW.
More pictures of sewing projects soon. I am on the last leg of the costume marathon now and I will be glad to get back to my spinning wheel. I miss it.

Training Day

We bunked off church today to go to Chepstow Castle and a training day with the Freemen. I actually had a go at sword fighting which was quite exciting although I am prettybad at it. I keep on watching the blades which is a very bad habit to get into, but they are surprisingly mesmerising. Kerry was a very patient teacher even though I kept on blocking incorrectly - I was annoyed with myself about that. I found out that although swords are pretty awkward and heavy, they really are quite musical, in that they make a very pleasant sound. Weird eh?

I also found out that archery is more like golf than one might first imagine - all to do with shoulders and feet lining up in the right direction. Drawing the bow so that there was enough power in the string for the arrow to actually hit the target was pretty much beyond me. The bow was a 40lb draw if that means anything to anybody, it doesn't to me. I suppose it means that 40lb of pressure is needed to pull the string to its optimum stretch. It was very satisfactory when I got a red though - I can see the appeal and I would not be surprised if I got a little further into archery, only with a lighter bow!

There was pottage for tea and chocolate mini-rolls, the latter not very authentic but I needed chocolate by that time (and I am certain that if medieval folk had had chocolate they would have been eating it in barrel loads.)

On the way home, V and I were chatting about what we enjoyed best in the day and for me it was hearing the song of swords and the twang of a bowstring in a place that once rang to it. Castles always give me the shivers - in the nicest way - history shimmering all through the place, soaked into the stones: the way a step has eroded over the millenia under generations of passing feet; lives, stories, passions and sorrows lived out and suffered over now long since gone and unremembered by any but there none the less. I looked out from one of the castle windows and saw the broad sweep of the Severn River slinking past the castle walls and felt the breath of the past on me. Shiversome is what I call it.

My hands are aching from holding that sword. No sewing for me tomorrow I think. I may well dig out some sock yarn and work up some slippers for winter. Nothing like the feel of cashmere to sooth tired hands.
Have a warm and comfortable day won't you.

I Went to the Market...

Do you remember that game? We played it a lot as kids. Well I went marketing medieval style on Sunday last. The Living History fair in Leamington Spa was jam packed full of traders offering almost everything that a re-enactor needs.

So...

Me: I went to the market and I bought...

a thurible. (Fabulous word that isn't it? It's an incense burner and I bought three packs of delicious incense.)
V: I went to market and bought a gambeson (a padded jacket for wearing under chain mail)
Me: I went to market and bought five wooden bowls
V: I went to market and bought a pair of boots (thigh high, black leather and yes, they are almost as kinky as they sound)

Me: I went to market and bought three horn spoons, some bells, a wooden shuttle and a beater for tablet weaving

V: I went to the market and rather fancied getting a helmet but thought I'd hang on a bit as they were flipping expensive and I just bought a sword on e bay.
Me: I went to market and bought eight yards of linen and ten yards of wool. Because, let's face it, you can never have too much wool right?

Did you notice? I bought far more stuff than V but I spent way less. I feel very pleased about that.

Getting Medieval...

with the Freemen of Gwent. You might remember that we met them last week and liked the sound of it all. They were kind enough to invite us to their last event of the season and kitted us out so we could join in.

Sir V the Interior Designer
I don't know why they called him that, they just did

Does my head look big in this hat?

You can see it in his face can't you? He's just not sure about that hat. Still it kept him safe. I think he was hit by an axe at one point. Apparently it was a laugh.
Men!
We stayed over Saturday night and though it got a bit nippy under canvas at 3am, the children slept better than they ever do in the house.

This was at breakfast. Cooked over an open fire, they were the best sausages I have ever tasted along with fried bacon, egg, mushrooms, bread and butter and hot tea. Fab... and yes those stocks are fully functional but we didn't need to use them.

I cannot pin point why I enjoyed the weekend so much because it is hard to narrow it down to one thing. It was just huge fun. The company was great and we sat around the camp fire Saturday night. There was cider and mulled wine, good beef stew, stories, games and gales of laughter.
Perhaps it was good just getting to know folks, like minded loonies with a pechant for dressing up and make believe. V gets to turn into a Welsh rebel, I get to spin and felt and cook a bit more and the kids get to run wild in a safe place. I can't wait for the next one!

Owain Glyndwr Festival

Today found us just outside Abercrave in the fields behind the Ancient Briton Pub for the third annual Owain Glyndwr festival.
The guild were running a demonstration there and we were asked to dress medieval-ish. No problem for me, I wore my Christmas ceilidh dress. A square of muslin tied on with a plait of yarn served as a headdress and I was good to go. I do so love dressing up.

Unfortunately my louet, though it runs beautifully and is incredibly versatile in the yarn it can produce, is not the most beautiful of spinning wheels. I have been thinking about getting an ashford traditional to take to demonstrations (Deb is using an ashford pictured in the centre) or maybe even a mazurka if I could find one at a reasonable price.

Here are the archers. These chaps meet in Margam Park which is quite close to us. We have been thinking of joining a re-enactment society for ages but haven't found a suitable one yet. These are certainly close but I think V wants to do sword work rather than just archery. I love the long bow but I find them utterly impossible to use, they are a clear foot larger than me for a start plus you need a wrist of sprung steel to bend it even a little.

These are the chaps for us I think - The Freemen of Gwent. It is unfortunate that they meet in Chepstow, too far for a weekly meeting, but we could probably make it once a fortnight. They seemed a nice friendly bunch too.

and so good with kids!