Gyldenholt/Calafia Friendship Tournament

Saturday was Gyldenholt and Calafia's friendship tourney. They held it in a place they call the "Nut Farm", because, well, it's a nut farm, down near Escondido in north San Diego county.

This was the barony's first outing with the baronial pavilion for this season (we'd intended to go to Gyldenholt's Unbelted Tournament but the weather and the thought of a wet baronial pavilion frightened us off). The Angel, Mistress Aliskye, and I left at 7:30, had a pleasant drive and arrived on site at 9:30 in the morning. Lord Philip, Lady Marion, Lord Pierre and Lady Etiennette were less lucky, being held hostage at an IHOP for hours before they were able to make an escape. Lord Tighearnan and Lady Sibohan were still more unlucky, having an unfortunate encounter with a highway patrol officer over a mater of transportation regulations. Even so everyone, and everything, nessary for the baronial encampment was on site by 9:50 and we managed to get the pavilion up and make it to opening court just a few minutes late.

As far as the day's activities everything seemed to go fine. We had a very full pavilion with lots of friendly faces, a number of tasty items on the snack table, and lots of laughter and conversation. They were coursing the dogs just outside the ring of pavilions and we watched several rounds of that. My one thought about the coursing is to wonder why it is that there were three dogs out there who were bread for it, and something like 15 toy breeds that, while no doubt were highly determined, were also easy to lose in the (not) so tall grass. At this point I think I will need to see some documentation before I will be convince that coursing your short haired Dachshund is a period activity. It was darn funny to watch though.

Take down went well, as usual. Most people by now know what to expect and what they can do to be most helpfull. Several people who are new to staying with the barony commented that when it comes time to strike camp we don't mess around, and we don't. The Angel and I bid fond fairwells to our populace and headed home. Along the way we were held hostage in a Marie Callendars but did eventually manage to escape. Still, by the time we got home we had just enough enegery left to set our clocks forward and fall into bed.

Then it was Sunday, and time for ThT!