Lincoln Castle 25-26 May
Oct. 14th, 2008 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Comitatus event, 400A.D.
A much awaited event, two years since my first Roman show on the site.
An incredible place to have the run of and a nice crowd. Unfortunately,
by this point it was becoming clear I was pretty ill, being in intermittent but quite severe pain, and I was going along to hang around in kit as therapy rather than displaying. I couldn't unpack or put up tents, so relied entirely on H. and a lot of kind help from the gang. We celebrated Rufus' 40th in fine style. I'd done a painty picture of him on guard outside the Arbeia gates :-)
Rough evening, rough night. The Saturday was pretty wet and I spent my displays understudying the commentary, or passing things to the cavalry, at least until Sextus took a spill, whereupon there was much fussing by the paperwork-obsessed St. John's to keep me occupied, especially their efforts to convince me to drive him to hospital for his tiny cut. As it turned out I could have done with the trip myself!
I was shot by the end of the day and we relied on invading Caius, Sabina, Lucius and Iulia's awning yet again in order to cook & eat. Awnings are vital, the living heart of the encampment. The rain had got in when our tent had lifted up the pegs in the sandy grass & soaked much of the bedding. We'd had it & drove back reluctantly, leaving the tent to provide Marcus and the dog tent boys a little more shelter, Viventia and Cynric kindly getting it and some kit we forgot back to York.
Kit Bit
We took the awning with named poles and shortened front poles, extra long, more beaten up nails plus the drilled out sticks I'd made to cover them, but this was an inconvenient point to discover I hadn't checked that they'd go through the grommets!! We did some modifications before I became incapable, but never got it sorted. It wouldn't have stood up long anyway. The wind was extreme on Saturday and Sabina and Iulia spent much of it going around everyone else's tents and awnings trimming the sails to prevent major damage. You need a few more folk in the camp for contingencies like that. It's worth reflecting that this awning would be better with an even lower profile or wind-shedding sides. I'm starting to think more seriously about just getting a side-opening wedge tent that can be simply closed up for the night, but it's almost an intellectual challenge now to make this design work when I'm allowed near sharp tools again.
Afterwards, we extended the roof forwards quite a lot to provide deeper shelter and formed a sleeve for the front crossbar in the manner of our geteld style tent ridgepole, reasoning that this would stop the canvas ripping around the spike attachments, flatten the front of the roof which usually forms a rain shedding chute over one's head and restore the original structural integrity, allowing more robust guying. The plan is to use longer guys pegged at one end, looped over the frame, pegged at 90 degrees and then held with a tensioner - a drilled stick. We also want to add proper side walls and extra frame and peg loops on the canvas.
A much awaited event, two years since my first Roman show on the site.
An incredible place to have the run of and a nice crowd. Unfortunately,
by this point it was becoming clear I was pretty ill, being in intermittent but quite severe pain, and I was going along to hang around in kit as therapy rather than displaying. I couldn't unpack or put up tents, so relied entirely on H. and a lot of kind help from the gang. We celebrated Rufus' 40th in fine style. I'd done a painty picture of him on guard outside the Arbeia gates :-)
Rough evening, rough night. The Saturday was pretty wet and I spent my displays understudying the commentary, or passing things to the cavalry, at least until Sextus took a spill, whereupon there was much fussing by the paperwork-obsessed St. John's to keep me occupied, especially their efforts to convince me to drive him to hospital for his tiny cut. As it turned out I could have done with the trip myself!
I was shot by the end of the day and we relied on invading Caius, Sabina, Lucius and Iulia's awning yet again in order to cook & eat. Awnings are vital, the living heart of the encampment. The rain had got in when our tent had lifted up the pegs in the sandy grass & soaked much of the bedding. We'd had it & drove back reluctantly, leaving the tent to provide Marcus and the dog tent boys a little more shelter, Viventia and Cynric kindly getting it and some kit we forgot back to York.
Kit Bit
We took the awning with named poles and shortened front poles, extra long, more beaten up nails plus the drilled out sticks I'd made to cover them, but this was an inconvenient point to discover I hadn't checked that they'd go through the grommets!! We did some modifications before I became incapable, but never got it sorted. It wouldn't have stood up long anyway. The wind was extreme on Saturday and Sabina and Iulia spent much of it going around everyone else's tents and awnings trimming the sails to prevent major damage. You need a few more folk in the camp for contingencies like that. It's worth reflecting that this awning would be better with an even lower profile or wind-shedding sides. I'm starting to think more seriously about just getting a side-opening wedge tent that can be simply closed up for the night, but it's almost an intellectual challenge now to make this design work when I'm allowed near sharp tools again.
Afterwards, we extended the roof forwards quite a lot to provide deeper shelter and formed a sleeve for the front crossbar in the manner of our geteld style tent ridgepole, reasoning that this would stop the canvas ripping around the spike attachments, flatten the front of the roof which usually forms a rain shedding chute over one's head and restore the original structural integrity, allowing more robust guying. The plan is to use longer guys pegged at one end, looped over the frame, pegged at 90 degrees and then held with a tensioner - a drilled stick. We also want to add proper side walls and extra frame and peg loops on the canvas.