Renaissance Festival
I love going to Renaissance Fairs.
I’ve been going for years.
Over the last few decades, the Tampa Bay area has had Renaissance Fairs at a number of locations………………….I’ve visited a lot of them. I’ve been to the New York state Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo.
I’ve even been to a Renaissance Festival in Nottingham, England while on a long boat in England’s canal and lock system.
Yep, I’m a Faire Junkie.
This last weekend, my older daughter and I decided to go at the last minute.
Is it a bad thing that it wasn’t the least bit difficult to pull a number of period pieces of clothing from my closet?
There was quite a veritable potpourri to pick from……..all better than the previous choice.
I even found bustiers I didn’t remember I owned. Multiple shoes and boot-ware to choose from…………..some I wore daily back in the seventies………(or maybe last week).
I guess all that says is that I have a penchants for dressing weird.
Hmmmmmmm.
Good memories of roasted turkey legs and mead and mulled wine and roast pork……………..
I have several terra cotta Green Man masks hanging in my living room right now from the Nottingham Faire………..
Here’s a fun story……………
In the early eighties I was at a Renaissance Faire after one of my many knee reconstruction surgeries (before the final replacements). I was in a full leg plaster cast (because that’s just what they did back then). It was a very warm spring, I was in a very heavy multi-tiered skirt and petticoat, there was (no doubt) an over-consumption of mead (geez, I love that stuff)…………………
And I got my crutches mired down in the pine mulch…………………….and fell over.
Not one of my prouder moments……………..but Hey,……………………….mead happens.
It took a number of anonymous revelers to untangle my skirts, my plaster, and my crutches (but not my dignity)…………………and slowly winch me back up to a vertical position again……………..there was a great deal of laughter from all sides.
I wish I were kidding.
But I’m not.
It’s because of the Renaissance Festivals that I first took an interest in cultivating my own honey bee hives.
Mead is a good thing.
This year I discovered a leather-work shop who can make a leather shadbelly for me.
Oh……………and………………I got more CD’s of a wonderful quartet of drums, flute, and German bagpipe (or “dudlesack”)……………………actually I got five CD’s from this great group called “Wolgemut”. (It was a buy four, get one free, deal.)
Two years ago it was the “The Freestylers of Piping”. I love their CD, “The Shape of Piping to Come”. I need to see if they’ve recorded more.
I’m looking forward to playing the new CD’s for the Irish Wolfhounds.
They are connoisseurs of ancient instruments……………….
I just love the “bombastic drums”…
I collect medieval and primitive musical instruments.
Someday I want to get a Hurdy Gurdy and learn how to play it…………it has a provocative history…………….I think being a Hurdy Gurdy Girl would suit me.
