To Southern and Back...

Well, we got home last night after I made an executive decision about wanting to sleep in my own bed. But that is for later.

We arrived at the site on Wednesday morning about 930am. It was good timing because things were just rolling on to put spikes in the pig and piglet after they got merchants laid out. We set up those two tents, walls got erected, rebar got pounded and we even managed to get big blue up without any fuss. Then it was about 3pm and we were in full day light setting up our camp. Very, very nice. Due to erosion we had to play camp tetris a few times and then our ridge pole cracked...but we fixed it up with some strapping tape...not bad for its eighth year of use. Southern marked the start of its 8th year of use. But we got setup, had potluck dinner and put ourselves to bed at 830pm. I woke up a bit during the night thinking of skunks etc but we slept in until 9am. It felt so good. Wrangled up some hot water for coffee and all was good. Mel trundled off all viking like to do some wood working and I got the camp set up a bit better with the firepit.

thomasdrevel arrived and we got to working on our camp. The kitchen was bigger than planned but it worked out great. We had to do some excavation to get Tom's tent worked out but it was good. By that point I was done with tents and set up and meandered around site and chatted up my autocrats and checked in on people. All good. Got back and everything was set up which was awesome. We eventually had dinner and then a fine fire..then storvarr arrived and we had an almost full camp.

Friday dawned early after much mead the night before and we got into armor and out on the field in mostly good order. Fighting was really good, the castle was awesome, I got hit in the knee and made friends with the castle with my head. Got off the field and headed home by 1230...wow! american_knight had arrived later in the morning and was happy to be in camp. Vorja was a happy pup and glad to see everyone.
Got a shower and then got gussied up for the B&B dinner after a trip through merchants where I picked up a few xmas gifts, helped storvarr get a book. The dinner was nummy, nummy thanks to thyraraigan's efforts and those of richarddbrewer. Had a nice time and then it was back to our camp for mead and fun.

Saturday was again with the fighting I had to leaved before the last two scenarios to judge combat cookery and all I can say is MEEP! Seriously, good food from the 3 teams and I knew it was going to be close. Got back to camp after eating way too much and made sure that I got a shower and made sure ivan got one too. Got everything to court and managed to get our award recipient to court very nicely. Its moments like when you realize that one of the best parts of being B&B is the awards. We get to hear folks's opinions, make decisions and surprise people in very special ways. After court we got to escort HRM places until the guardsmen showed up to "rescue" her. weavedancer and I were very amused. After court was the squiring of thomasdrevel in our camp and that was good and then we had lots of mead.

Sunday dawned cold (down to 37º in our tent) and I got myself moving and dressed and ready for the women's tourney. It was only Anica and I (Lyon's lady). But we had a good time and did lots of weapon forms. Wished we'd have a few more competitors but that just meant more cool stuff for us. We all did agree though that next year a 10am start time would be fine. Headed back to camp for some more coffee and to chat with HRM Cecilia. Then it was out to fight for a while. I took a header into the castle that left me done for the day. My foot slipped when I was charged and I hit at a bad angle..along with some interesting behavior from our opponents I was done for the day. Got back...loafed about and then changed for court. Got mel ready and we had a nice closing court. Then it was time for a drive by court (where we got Duke Mathghamhain an Argent) and then it was time to tear down site. Got back to camp at 4pm and I was done. Asked if we could pack up to go home and was met with some annoyed looks by the hubby (oh, btw posadnik_ivan) but we started packing. Glad we did too. The wind picked up and with the help of dverning, weavedancer, swordmage, domnall and Arion we were able to get packed up and get m'lady Sarafina from twin moons packed up and out before the rain hit. We stayed behind a bit more to get the trailer to walrick, check on everyone and make sure folks had their cars near them etc. We got home at 8pm but it felt good to be home and out of the wind and rain. It would have been a miserable night. Jake and Co were fine and had many hands for help with the tents and Mons was battened down as well when we left.

Had a nice dinner, a luxuriating shower and then in bed by about 10pm. Mel stayed up later. We slept until about 8am, relaxed with the girls who were far less grumpy that we were home and then went out for breakfast at Joes. We walked there and back and it was nice. Spent the morning unpacking the truck and getting laundry on. Mel got the family room picked up and I got the dishes loaded and most of the camp stuff put away. Just blankets, coats and towels to wash left. Well, and mel's laundry. The afternoon was spent looking through catalogs and figuring out purchases for xmas. Mel worked on his newest nalbound hat. We then trundled off to the antique mall for looking before heading to harbor freight and here we are...gonna have dinner with american_knight and duchess_asa tonight and then an early bed.