Absolutely Knackered....and 20,000th Visitor :o)

Firstly congratulations to Old Old Lady for being my 20,000th Visitor :o)

We're back from the Wilds of Wales and Caerphilly Castle. We got home at a sensible time yesterday evening, about 1930, and we we're filthy; quite frankly we stank. It's one of the hazards of reenactment as a hobby, several days of living under real canvas (single skinned) exposed to 18 hours of Wood smoke a day whilst having no real washing facilities at all other than a sink in a toilet tends to make one pong slightly.

But it was fun.

We go to tthe Castle at 1430 on Saturday for our first event with the new group (The Company of Chivalry) and terrified a few tourists by driving in through the front gate over the modern replacement Drawbridge


And set up camp in the Outer Ward...


Our Tent is the White one at the back with the awning on the front...

The Siege Engines at the Castle were right next to our camp



From Front to back you can see a Catapult, A Trebuchet, and a Man-powered Catapult (There's a Mangonel/Onager as well just out of shot)

Anyway we got there unloaded and then had Dinner of Sausages, Eggs and Bread cooked over our Fire Box, went to bed in eager anticipation of the next couple of days.

Sunday morning 0700 the kids woke us up, not to bad for them in teh tent, they usually awake when the sun comes up (just before 6am) but thankfully this hadn't happened. We got up and dressed and headed up to the "Kitchen Tent"



Drill was at 0800, all the men have to take Drill with the Bill. The Bill is a Polearm weapon, dating from the Late 14th Century and used for several hundred years after in various forms. It is between 6 and 12 feet long with varying shaped heads that were developed from the agricultural Billhook Tool



Drill was actually a quite light-hearted affair (Agi.Junior and LMB joined in on Sunday Morning too with limited but amusing sucess)

After drill was a HUGE Breakfast of Sausage, Bacon, Eggs, Black pudding, and Bread tasting all the better for being cooked over an open fire.

After that we moved all our vehicles and all trappings of the 21st Century out of sight and went medieval...to 1370 to be precise. This shot from the rear of the castle... also free of modern clutter...



We spent the rest of the day in 1370 demonstarting to the public the making of soap. We made Castille Soap from Beef Dripping (Tallow), Olive Oil, Lye, Salt and Water. Due to time constraints we had to cheat a little and use Caustic Soda instead of Lye and Salt, but it's the same thing (excepting Caustic Soda wasn't discovered til several Centuries later). I'm not going to go through the whle process, but I'll just say that it needed to be stirred constantly for 2 hours before it thickened enough to be poured into it's mould.

24 hours later it is hard enought o turn out and to cur up into bars.

(Place holder for Soap Picture)

LMB was detirmined to make her self useful so we had her make Daisy tea to be added to the soap (it acts as an astrigent). Her she is doing just that...



In the afternoon there were a couple of demonstrations by the soldiers in teh group, one of Bill Drill done properly....



But then they did have a little encouragement.....



And later the French invaded......



Dinner Was a Great huge bit of Beef cooked over the fire, with Lamb Stew and Trenchers of Bread...Yum

Day 2 (Monday) was much the same excepting the weather if anything improved, we had sun for most of the day and temperature of about 14°C, which meant we all got a little red cheeked and I managed to sunburn my Neck. D'oh.

We finished at 5pm on Monday packed everything away, and other than a few tyre tracks there was little sign of us having been there.

We'll be back at Caerphilly castle in 10 days time to do it all again, and maybe sell some of the finished Soap

If your near by come and see us :o)