Originally uploaded by volcanodancer.
Well, as you have probably gathered from any other blogs on here, Whitby was the re-enactment to remember…
As they say, you can’t live off the view, and that was true for Whitby. The view from the tent was stunning – a sea view – and at the back of the tent was the harbour.
The site was great, although the lack of toilet emptying left something to be desired, as did English Heritage’s pettyness with a couple of students who had travelled all the way from Sheffield for some footage for their projects.
The battlefield was so-so – rabbit holes were everywhere – but someone had taken the decency to mark most of them.
The archery was rather lacklustre – we shot about 12 arrows each and due to the one way shooting there was no chance of arrow recovery for more volleys…
But the wind… well that was another story… on Sunday the wind got up to quite phenomenal gusts and blew down the awning and forced a few people to up sticks and leave. We soldiered on with some of the old Dunkirk spirit flowing… and had a gathering in Liz & Tim’s tent… battening down the hatches, and storm guying all other tents.
As people headed off to bed though, matters got worse – our tent started really billowing and wasn’t looking too steady, so we took the decision to drop it down and sleep in Tim’s van… however… matters got even worse as the same happened to Liz & Tim at about 4am, and more people joined us in the van…
The morning left us regarding what was essentially a battlefield in it’s own right. Tents were damaged, broken poles, pulled out pegs, fallen tents, fallen awnings… the Fed camp was a mess and most people were leaving the event. The L&M camp at the other side of the abbey hadn’t taken such a beating.
We left on Monday because we had nothing to sit under/in as our tent wasn’t in a fit state to re-construct and the wind was still blowing a gale…
Anyhow, that’s about it really, except that we did go on the Bark Endeavour for a pirates party.
Comments on the weekend…
1. The wind was phenomenal
2. The Pirates thing and Bark Endeavour were great.
3. The damage
4. Why didn’t L&M want shared camps with the FED? aren’t we good enough for them?
5. Did that member of a certain group have to wear those jodhpurs quite so tight leaving nothing to the imagination…
6. Guthrie’s copper bead… ask him about it.
I’m gonna bed now… I’ll tell you about the recording I’ve just done later this week…