Glastonbury Medieval Fayre 2015

Held in the Abbey grounds over Easter weekend, Glastonbury Medieval Fayre makes for an enjoyable way to spend a day and this is exactly what we did yesterday.

There's a very good reason I don't get many photos of the locations of events.
That reason is my dad.

We decided to go on Saturday for various reasons, not least to ensure that I could get a proper night's sleep tonight as I'm flying home tomorrow. We probably didn't pick the best day for weather as the sun only made an appearance as the day was winding up but oh well, it's England!

All in all, it was a thoroughly delightful day. In fact, it seemed a lot stronger than last year's event. Perhaps this was because my remembering to pack a telephoto lens meant that we had some targeted things to focus on but I do genuinely think it was because the event was stronger this year.

Perhaps the highlight for spectators was the show performed by the Knights of the Damned Stunt team. They reenact a jousting tournament with great skill and a fair amount of theatrics. I've actually seen them a few times now, at various events, and have not grown tired of their performances. Indeed, we watched both shows on the Saturday to enable me to get some decent photos (a success) and both were different, high energy, and thoroughly entertaining!

The main battle is probably the focus of the day as various reenactment groups gather together to reenact a rather anachronistic battle - both Vikings and Napoleonic (I think) gunners were present, to give you some idea. It’s rather entertaining to watch the combination of people who don’t seem like they’re really into it and those who are about ready to tear each other’s arms off beating each other up in the name of history. That said, and for all the comedy included in the commentary and performance aspects, it’s really easy to see how chaotic a battle really would be. This was a (kinda) choreographed reenactment… imagine the reality whereby people were fighting for their lives amidst the crowd and noise. It’s something that’s hard to picture when our ideas of historic warfare come from a mixture of dusty history books and overly polished Hollywood films.

And that, of course, is the beauty, and the importance, of reenactment and of events like this one. It’s easy to teach people the information given in historical tomes. It’s hard to bring that history to life and to re-imbue it with life. Reenactment does just that. It takes the scholarship and makes it into something real, tangible, understandable, human.

Bonus photo of the most stunning sunset-ish moment.
Couldn't resist popping to the sea on the way home!

Sinterklaas' arrival!

Before I start I should probably say that:

1. I am writing this after pulling a complete all nighter and therefore my brain, and my fingers, feel as though they are floating. If this post makes sense and isn't scattered with errors it will be a miracle.
2. I am writing this for my non-Dutch friends so if you're Dutch and notice any mistakes then please don't hate me ;-)

Here we go!

Yesterday was the arrival of Sinterklaas in Amsterdam and so, naturally, I decided to go along and watch with Leonoor and Dania. After all, I wasn't going to miss out on the chance to watch something that's specific to the Netherlands and miss out on watching loads of little children being really happy!

They don't look so happy but they were, I promise!

Sinterklaas is basically Saint Nicolas and, as such, there are similar aspects to our own Father Christmas figure, although I get shouted at for saying that! While the Sinterklaas festival is the 5th of December, on Saturday, he arrived in the Netherlands and, yesterday in Amsterdam. He arrives by boat and then transfers to a white horse which is ridden along the parade route. He's also accompanied by Zwarte Pieten who give pepernoten to the children along the route.

I'm not sure if he's usually joined by a load of old fashioned
fire fighters but he was this time!

As you can probably guess, the figure of Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter, causes a lot of controversy and, from what I can tell, there are attempts every year to change his design (either to multi-coloured Pieten or to ones with streaks of black 'soot' on their faces but otherwise not made up). As one might have expected, there was a protest before the event which was cleared away quite calmly by riot police before the children arrived. I guess they didn't want to risk similar scenes as the day before in Gouda where protests got a bit out of hand. Frankly, I am pleased that the protest ended before children arrived because, while I agree that there should be a change in design with regard to the character, adult politics and campaigning shouldn't spoil the magic for young children and therefore should be kept out of the event itself.

Naturally, bikes had to be involved somehow!

And that was what was absolutely lovely about the day. Little children who could barely walk having a wonderful day completely full of magic. One little person, upon seeing some Pieten up a clock tower started shouting joyfully to get their attention and get them to wave. A little girl was dressed up as Sinterklaas' horse with a little cape showing the saint on her back. There was a buzz of excitement and it was lovely to see. Indeed, for Leonoor who grew up with all this, I think it was nice to have the excuse of 'showing the foreigner' to let her go and relive her own childhood a little!

These guys just had a party messing around while abseiling - it was
really fun to watch!

The only not great bit about the day was the fact that it was completely chucking it down with that fine rain, non stop. While it was okay as, although we got pretty chilled through, we all warmed up, it has meant that most of my photos turned out rather grainy looking which is a real shame. Oh well, next time!

So yeah, that's it for today. I guess that I'll write more about the traditions closer to the 5th if (non-Dutch) people are interested. As for the next few weeks, I'm basically going to be working solidly so, if I don't post or am not around as much, don't worry! I've somehow, in my infinite wisdom, managed to book at least one social event every single day in December so I really must get ahead with work before the fun (and breakdowns!) really starts!

A lot of stuff mushed together in one post

So, I'm getting really good at writing about what I did about a week after I actually did it. So, this post starts off talking about Shakespeare's birthday celebrations, goes on to talk about my singing, and ends up with me talking about painting stuff for the Castlefest scrapbook. Feel free to skip to bits you're interested in ;-)

All photos are my own...more photos of the Shakespeare birthday celebration can be found on my facebook page and if you are in any and want me to send the file, contact me :-)

 

Shakespeare

Anyway, on Saturday I went into Stratford-upon-avon, the birth place of Shakespeare, to lurk during the events that were put on surrounding his birthday. Although I didn't get that many decent photos due to sheer bad luck (even when I was at the front, having been there since 7a.m. people who were part of the parade stood in front of me!) I had a lovely time.

The main part of the celebration took the form of a procession including primary school children, various special guests from the community, and indeed the world, and a giant horse drawn birthday cake.

Within this part of the celebration there were various smaller moments. Flags from countries and supporting organisations were unfurled to fanfare. An actor 'Shakespeare'  presented a quill to the Head Boy of King Edward VI Grammar School (believed to be the school Shakespeare attended). The quill was then taken through the streets and, I believe given to the funerary monument. Balloons were released in Shakespeare's colours.

The parade continued, developing into the colourful 'People's Pageant' which was lead by the 20ft, slightly creepy, puppet of Godiva. Local societies, bands, and dancers all took part.

There were also various activities, attractions, and events on all day.Which I can't possibly go into in full but leads me nicely onto....

 

 

Singing

As part of the celebrations, the Royal Shakespeare Company put on various workshops surrounding performing arts. There were stage combat workshops, voice workshops, and a singing workshop which I forced myself to go to.

Okay, I nearly ran away before it started because when you're waiting in a marquee to face one of your oldest and deepest set fears with a group of strangers that's pretty heavy stuff. Somehow I managed not to run. As the workshop began people introduced themselves and said if they had singing experience. It seemed to me that everyone had been a member of a choir, was a member of a choir, adored singing, and/or performed frequently. When it came to me to say that "Hello, I'm Bethany and I'm in the process of getting over a phobia of singing and you may well find me cowering in the corner later." I did just that. No use pretending otherwise... I was shaking like mad anyway! After that, it seemed that a few more people were less 'professional' and a few more people said that they weren't sure if they had a good voice or that they sang in the shower which was nice. I guess. Okay, I was completely petrified.

Warm ups were filmed by a television camera which was kind of funny and then we moved onto the singing part. Do you know something? I managed it. Did I enjoy it? Not exactly. That said, from time to time I could hear my voice and think... yeah, that actually sounds good.

It was only a couple of days later when I was talking to Aleks on skype that she joked that to earn money for my move to the Netherlands I should become an overnight sensation singing 'Let it go' on youtube. Well, something possessed me to record the first part of the song on my camera despite not really knowing it. It took me about five minutes to be able to press play and listen through the introduction and then when I heard myself sing I actually cried. I'd heard recordings of myself singing before and had found it painful to listen... I sounded awful. This wasn't awful. It was actually, dare I say it, kinda good. My own brain's been warping my own perception for so long, and I've known that, but my goodness... this was strange. I didn't send the file to her and I'm still not comfortable singing in front of anyone but it will happen. If these few months of attempting to overcome my fears have led to this then give me a few years and we'll see what happens.

Scrapbooking

So, other than having moments of self realisation, I've mainly been painting cover pages for this year's Castlefest scrapbook. As I'll be moving country straight after the festival this year, I know I won't have time to scrapbook for quite a while after it. I therefore decided it would be wise to get as much done in advance as possible. In practice, I hope to have the 'cover pages' for each of the bands, the main front page of the scrapbook, and odds and ends like the schedule all filled in beforehand. That leaves photo printing and mounting as the main thing to be done afterwards and I can't do anything about that! I'll at least have made a start and, for all I usually do quite a lot of painting around the photos, that's optional so I should be able to fit it in around whatever schedule I have. The other bonus in getting this all done in advance: I don't have to get scraps of paper signed and then cut them out and stick in... I can get the cover pages signed directly, if I want an autograph from the members of a certain band.

I'm also doing something a bit different with this book, I'm timing every bit of work I do on it. Actually, I didn't time the first page I painted or the finding and buying of papers but other than that. People have quite often asked me to make them a book if we've been to the same event and I've had to say no because it's too time intensive (and expensive but I try not to think about that!). Anyway, so far, I have painted seven cover pages and it's taken me just shy of 21 hours. So, that's why I say no ;-)