Saturday dawned muggy and warm....and pretty much stayed that way all day...getting warmer as the day progressed. It seemed at one point late afternoon as if the temperature dropped momentarily and then increased. I think it was due to the breeze dying down.
We were set up in the same place as last year, exactly, which was kind of nice, small, but right in the thick of things. We were the only guild set up on our aisle, which, I think made it really nice.
We met some new folk. Across from us was 'A Sacred Realm' (ASR) and another vendor, whom I can't remember for the moment. The lady at ASR seemed to be vastly entertained by us....especially when the Lady Anne-Marie was with us.
On the right of us were the Beekeepers. They were really sweet. Melissa & her husband have three small bairns (Kiera - 5, ____ - 3ish, and Charlie - 1). Unfortunately I didn't pick up the middle sons name. Gavin played with them almost all the time, which was good for him. Sunday they spent alot of time with us which was also nice. Kiera (yes Kyra) was such a joy. Since I didn't have my Laurie, I made due with Kiera.
To the left of us was the Bone & Leather booth. Very quiet and subdued, you never heard from them. The gentleman in there was nice enough to allow Danse Macabre (DM) to use his back stage area...unfortunately his backstage area ended up being part of our encampment. I honestly think DM's numbers overwhelmed him. I've never seen so many people participate in their group. There must have been upwards of 15 of them. As they were using it as a backstage area, they didn't realize that it was part of the encampment that folk were looking at and we ended up having some non-period items in our encampment. Sunday Don Juan discussed this with the head guy and things did improve.
Saturday we had Lady Anne-Marie with us, as noted above. With her came a maelstrom of excitment and activity. Meet and Greet was particularly delightful as the lady wowed small children and adults alike. As the lasses (Tory & her friend Marissa) and I were following Lady Anne-Marie through the shire, I was banging on the tamborine in time with each of her steps. I had tons of fun playing with my tamborine and will continue to torture you all with it...So be warned!
There were two knightings on Saturday. One for Rat at 11am at the Dauntless...which I was lucky enough to see from Meet & Greet, but not lucky enough to get photos of. And one for Captain MacLaren at 2pm, which I was able to photograph, here...
We were scheduled to join in the morning parade, do meet and greet and closing parade. Morning parade on Saturday did not happen. Sunday didn't happen, but the ladies (Fyonna, Tory & Marissa) and I decided to create our own parade. As we came through the gates there were a few nobles and some pike men waiting, so they joined in. We danced through faire screaming 'Welcome to Faire' and beating on our tamborines & noise makers. We lost the nobles about half way through, but the pike men stayed with us. When we got to 'guild row' one of the guilds asked if we were the parade, to which we shouted, yes, we're opening parade! So we got a huge amount of cheers for our 6 man parade. MacIain's was particularly loud and boisterous cheering us on. It was quite fun. Something we'll definitely have to do again if the situation arises!
Both days were very busy. Saturday was jam packed. Per Marti the gate was the largest they've seen in four years. Sunday was still busy, but slower to start. The weather on Sunday was so much nicer than Saturday, but was threatening to rain all day...and finally did about tear down time. But lightly, fortunately. Sunday's closing parade was huge and so fun. At the end they had a limbo stick set up across the gate and they made everyone pass under it. Then we all waited and cheered guests on as they left the village. Then all headed back to try to tear down quickly before the weather got the better of us all.
In summary, fun faire, lots of activity, little time, warm weather, lots of guests (gave away 1/2 the chest in knights), and fond memories.
