Recent Medieval Projects

With the show season back on us, I decided it's time to get on with some projects that I have been ignoring all winter. For anyone in re-enactment, this is a fairly normal state of affairs. Decide on a bunch of things to do for the next season and then just as the season arrives run around like a headless chicken trying to do them.
While there is the usual run of clothing that needs to be sorted out I have decided that some of the 'extra' bits of kit needed attention.
First up is one of the wooden chests I use to store my kit in.
I actually have 3 wooden boxes at the moment for kit. 2 of them needed no special attention, just a clean.
The last is an off the shelf pine tongue and groove storage box. The main problem with it is that tongue and groove paneling didn't exist in the 14th and 15th centuries. To resolve this I filled all the grooves in and then sanded everything smooth. then I decided to paint it up. I am about 2/3rds of the way through right now but this should give you a general idea of what it will look like.

I also decided to do some more leather work. In the past, i have stuck to fairly basic things like knife sheaves and simple pouches. I have been thinking of making up some gaming boards for chess, backgammon, Tablero and Hnefatafl, so I decided to make a case to hold the boards and pieces. I saw some designs for Scriveners Case's and decided that they would be ideal for the job I had at hand. This was the fist time I tried sowing a tube and insert ends and I am very pleased with the out come.


Next up is a dice cup. I have the leather cut out for it so I just need to sow it up.

The final piece I have been working on is a new helm. I have always had a very nice open face bascinet but I have always wanted a hounskull or pig-faced one. Recently one of the members of the group decided to off load hers so I bought it. unfortunately, it had a large amount of impact foam glued into it so I have been steadily cleaning it all out,

Not an easy job. The final thing to do is add some more mail to the aventail, but as the current mail is all riveted I need to invest in some more riveted links and carefully stitch it together.
 Once I get some in it should be a straight forward job to add it on.

Great Lakes Tourney

For me the main event in the Re-enactment world here in NZ is the Great Lakes Tourney. Hosted by The Company of the Lance, to which I belong, the event takes place at the end of January.

This year we are working hard to make this an extra special event. In previous years the main event has been an individual horseman's competition. To make things more interesting this year we are running the main event as a Teams Tourney. This means that individual Orders, made up of 3 riders, enter as a team. Each rider will compete in each of the 3 mounted disciplines, Melee, Skills at Arms and Tilt. The combined total of the team will be used to determine the overall winners.

Coupled to this we are running a number of other competitions, including, foot combat, archery and living history. We are also trying to organize battle style displays of massed combat.

While the overall scale of the event is small compared to the UK events such as Teweksbury and Berkeley, we are aiming to make it one of the premier events for New Zealand.

This means there's a lot of work to do but at the end of the day a good event makes it all worth while.

 

For information on the event take a look at http://www.taupojoust.com/default.aspx

Movember Update

One week into Movemeber and the team is still going at it. The 'rules' state that for the growth to be considered a Mo it must not join to the sideburns as this makes it a beard and it must not join at the chin as this makes it a Goatee. So I have opted to go for a 'trucker' look, think Paul Snr from American Chopper.
























A number of the guys have opted for this look, although Duncan's looks very Goatee-ish he did point out that there is a gap




Look closely and you may see it
 
Finally here is the whole gang

Movemeber

This year I, along with a number of the guys from work, have decided to support Movember.
What's Movember I hear you ask, well here is the blurb from their website

Movember - Changing the face of Men's Health Movember (the month formally known as November) is a charity event held during November each year. At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants known as Mo Bros then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache and along the way raise as much money and awareness about male health issues as possible. Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Richard Hadlee look-a-likes battle it out on the catwalk for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. While growing a Mo is left to the guys, Mo Sistas (ladies that support their guys or love Mo's!) form an important part of Movember with their powerful feminine touch, by recruiting Mo Bros, helping to raise funds and attending the highly anticipated Gala Parties. But it's not all fun and games, so why the extreme behavior? Which ever way we look at it, men are far less healthy than women.  The average life expectancy of a man in New Zealand is 4 years less than a woman. The obvious question is why? The answer is because men lack awareness about the very real health issue they face, have an attitude of "she'll be right" and are reluctant to see a doctor about an illness or to go for regular medical checks. The aim of Movember is to change these attitudes, make male health fun by putting the Mo back on the face of New Zealand men and in the process raise some serious funds for the number one male health issue, prostate cancer. Every year in New Zealand 2,656 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 600 die of the disease, making prostate cancer the second largest cause of male cancer deaths, after lung cancer. Movember is very proud to be partnering with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand [ www.prostate.org.nz ]. All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs. The Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand is a registered charitable organisation. All donations are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.  We challenge you to change the face of men's health. Check out Movember photos [ here ]

So for the first time in at least 9 years I am clean shaven.

Over the course of the month I'll try to grow the best Mo I can and then style it towards the end of the month. I'll post up some pics as I go.
Here's the rest of the team

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate, enter my registration number which is 121158 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 121158. Please mail cheques to: Movember, PO Box 87 150, Meadowbank 1742, Auckland. All donations over $5 are tax deductible.

Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

A long time ago I was given a tape that one of my Aunties recorded from the original album, yes it was on vinyl. When it was re-released on CD I got myself a new copy, having by that time worn out the original tape and nearly worn out the replacement.



















Then I heard that there was a live stage version touring. When it was announced it would be coming to Auckland I weighed up going to see it, I mean given that Richard Burton died many years ago and is the main character could someone else do the show justice, I get like this a lot with re-makes of originals.
I did some checking and found that not only had 2 of the original singers agreed to be involved, but Richard Burtons original recording would be used for the show and a lot of work had gone into re-creating him as a lifelike hologram for the show.
Time rolls on and finally the show date arrived.  am very pleased I chose to go and see it. the music was as good as ever, and there was something special about hearing the immortal opening lines, 'No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space....'
The hologram, while not completely life like, was awesome, the performances of the live singers was excellent and held true to the style of the original singers, while bringing the styles of the new to the show.
All in all it was highly enjoyable, now I just have to wait for the next show I have tickets for.... We Will Rock You in November.

Roll on September

So August has gone by and I thought it would be a good time to look back at what I have done over eh last month and think about what I want to do over the next one.

August was a good month for me. Mainly because I had family visit from the UK for most of it. It's always good to catch up with family. Since moving to New Zealand I really only get to see family once a year and as I aim to go home every other year I only see the extended family every other year.
This year has been a bit different. I was home for the grand total of 8 days earlier in the year for a funeral, but mum still decided to come over for 25 days.
In the past, my eldest has come along as well but this year he wanted to stay home and hang out with his friends, but then he's 15 now so I guess they are way cooler than going to see dad. This meant that we could do some different things this year. As I didn't have any leave left to me the options for going away were limited but we did manage to do a fair bit.
We did a day on Waiheke Island in Auckland. I have been to the island twice before  but only to the main town by the ferry terminal so it was really nice to go for a look round the rest of the island.

We also spent a weekend in Melbourne. This was my first proper trip to Australia, having only ever transited through Sydney in the past. We spent the weekend exploring the main town center. It's always interesting to see how things run in other places.

Melbourne's Tram network is very reliable and easy to use. The city itself is very nice and even though it was winter we were very luck with the weather. The only time it really rained we were inside, on the whole, it was warm enough to sit outside and eat even in the evenings.

Mum also spent a fair amount of time touring around Auckland Region and sightseeing around the town.
Looking towards September I want to get back out with the Jousting Group a lot more. I'd also like to try and get out at least once to go scuba diving. It's been a long-term plan to go at least once a month and so far I have failed. This summer I want to make a much bigger effort, so we shall see.

Company of the Lance on TV3

 

For some time now the jousting group I belong to has been attempting to raise the profile of what we do in New Zealand.

Over the weekend a TV crew from the show Hyundai Sports Tonight came along to a training session to film what we do.

Over all the day went well even though the weather was not the best. Graham and Jezz put on a good show for the cameras.

The article was screened at short notice, but fortunately a copy was posted on the TV3 website.

 

If anyone is interested in knowing more or coming along drop me a line.

Ian

Holiday Journal - June 26th Flights to the UK

Having managed to get last minute flights to the UK I had a flurry of activity on the morning of the 26th June.

After getting up and finishing the last of my packing. I got taken to the airport instead of having to leave my car in the car park at some extorsional price.

After booking in and passing immigration control I had a few hours to kill so milled around the shops.

Once we got called to the gate I found my seat and got settled in for the first leg of the trip. We pushed back from the gate on time and all was looking good. Then the pilot came on and said we had to go back to the gate as someone onboard had left their bag in departures with all their paperwork in it.

After collecting this and pushing back again we got out of Auckland. It was a nice clear day with great views over the city and surrounding country.

Climbing to cruising altitude we headed for Sydney. Not long before the meal was due we hit turbulence and the pilot informed us that there was heavy weather ahead and was going to climb over it. This put us into a stronger headwind and would cause us to be slightly late in.

The flight was nice and smooth, and then we started our descent to Sydney and into a bit of a rollercoaster ride. The turbulence was back. Now I get to fly into Wellington, NZ, fairly often and that is meant to be a bumpy ride, but this was far worse.

Finally we got through and dropped below the clouds. While Auckland had been nice and sunny, Sydney was wet and grey.

We finally made it to the terminal but by this time we were 30 mins late and a number of us were meant to be boarding the flight to Frankfurt via Singapore. So a quick dash through Sydney airport, with a stop for security control just encase we had managed to get hold of something since boarding in Auckland, got us to the gate for the next flight.

We hussled on and found our seats. And sat there, and sat there and sat there. The pilot came on and told us there was a discrepancy with some of the paper work that had to be filled in.

We finally got pushed back about an hour late and started the trip to Singapore.

This was a nice flight. Spent a fair amount of time flicking through the entertainment and settled on music and read my book.

We made up a bit of time on the flight and they decided to keep the turnaround time in Singapore right down. So 40 mins later we were back on the plane and headed for Frankfurt.

Spent the first part of the flight trying to sleep. No matter what I try those economy seats just don't allow for anything approaching decent sleep. Started to flick through the entertainment again. At some point my screen decided to play up and put all movie and TV shows into negative. By this time I was fed up with the music and radio stations so even though the colours were all off I watched a few of the TV shows. And then back to music and another attempt at sleeping. I think I must have dozed through the next couple of hours because next thing I properly remember the lights were back on and breakfast was being served. After that it was back to my book for the approach to Frankfurt. We had made up time on this leg as well so instead of arriving half an hour after my onward flight was meant to have departed I arrived about 15 mins before. So I raced round Frankfurt airport to find my connection

Got to the gate to find that the plane was being held and the flight was going to be 15 mins late leaving. Once we got onto the plane we got the news that the paper work was wrong (again) and we missed our slot for takeoff. Once everything was finally sorted we were about 45 mins late leaving. After a short hop we hit the holding pattern at Heathrow. Finally got in an hour late.

Once I got picked up and taken home I decided that I really had to try to stay awake, we landed at around 9am UK time and I had been on the go for something like 37 hours with little sleep.

I managed to stick it out until 4pm when I finally passed out. I woke up at 3am. Ah well

Jousting

So one of my hobbies for a long time has been 14th and 15th century re-enactment. For a long time I was with a group based out of South London called The Paladins Of Chivalry.

Since moving to New Zealand kind of dropped out of it all. Then after a few years I came across a group called The Company Of The Lance, based in Auckland. I got in contact and meet up with them. Immediately I was hooked again, and while this was a jousting group instead of the foot combat I was more used to I joined up.

Since then we have added a foot combat element to the group and are hoping to add archery and living history as time and peoples interests allow.

When people hear that I am involved in jousting I get the 'standard' round of questions,What on a horse? Doesn't it hurt? Are you really trying to hit each other? etc

Well for the record.

1. Yes they are real horses.
2. Yes we really are trying to hit each other, although we aren't trying to knock each off just break lances on each other
3. Yes it can hurt, but injury's are fairly rare. The Armour worn is copied from period pieces and is very good at protecting us.
4. No I personally don't joust. On the whole I work in the list area as a marshal or squire. I can ride and I am working towards riding in Skill at Arms.
5. Yes the swords are made of metal, the ones used in combat are blunt but still very capable of causing serious injury.

Each year The Company of the Lance organises a tournament in Taupo, New Zealand and has combatants for all over the world attend.

If anyone is interested in getting involved in re-enactment for any period I would encourage them to do it. If your in New Zealand, especially Upper North Island let me know. But even if your not feel free to get in touch if you want to know more. I might even be able to help you track down a group to join.

Diving

One of the things I have always wanted to try is Scuba diving.

When I moved to New Zealand I decided that it was finally time to learn. I did a bit of searching around and finally enrolled in a PADI open water course with Dive HQ West Auckland.

 

After having a few problems with some of the skills in the pool I was a bit apprehensive about the open water dives but I found everything much easier when I had more depth to work in.

 

I still haven't managed to log anywhere near as many dives as I would like but i try to get out at least 4 times a year. I'd love top get out twice a month but I just don't seam to have the time.