The month of October was a travel month for me: first Floris and I went to a small revel in Tretower Court in Wales, and the weekend after that I went to Garden of Earthly Delights with Mariken and Elisabeth.
The trip to Tretower was as much a mini vacation as an event, since we took our time travelling, stopping to have British breakfast and tea, and visit landmarks and breweries. What a wonderful country to travel in!
The revel itself was a sort of dream come true; years ago, before the site was renovated, we visited it, and the lovely garden that was allready there then, and ever since it has been in my mind as the most perfect kind of location for going back in time. Castles are beautiful locations as well, but this building has the kind of scale and intactness that make bringing it to life much more achievable, and the revel itself proved this. A few of the rooms were furnished as part of the renovations, and so it is now possible to cook in the kitchen and there is a lovely dining hall.
So we helped Paul, Ann, Thomas and Edith cook dinner in this amazing setting, where just fetching a pitcher of water felt special. I also played bagpipes, we ate in the reconstructed dining hall, and in the evening Ann and I played some dances on recorder and fiddle, we ate some more and I sat and embroidered while others played period card games. We also had lots of time to talk food and living history with Paul and Ann over Friday night dinner at the pub and breakfast at the B&B, and family matters during the drive, so all in all, it was a perfect trip.
The weekend after, Mariken drove us down to Miltenberg in the middle of far too much traffic, and we played music, embroidered, admired lots of amazing stuff at the fair. We had some surprising moments playing music, when Mistress Judith asked us several times to play a dance more slowly (huh?), and I was actually asked to stand closer to the dancers with the bagpipe because they couldn't hear me (huh!?!?).
Being away from the kids two weeks in a row was a bit much really, especially since the trains didn't run all the way on the way home, and in the end I didn't get home until 20.00...
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