Some stuff we’ve been up to lately
Posted in alpacas, pirates on 02/02/2005 03:03 pm by Tam
and
and
The first pic is of this year’s “Pirate Camp” at the second soon-to-be-annual Folklore Festival/Medieval Faire/Whatever They Decide to Call It. Like last year, the Faire was not exactly like you’d imagine if you’re used to US-style Renne Fests, because 99.99% of the people involved have never been to one of those, have no idea what they’re like, and are sort of bemusedly playing along with the three or four of us who *have* been to one. Instead, it was a sort of hybrid creature of which about 40% was an assortment of the local Medieval (or Roman (!)) reenactors/re-creationists sort of camped out and taking turns doing demos in the arena, about 30% merchants of arguably not-Modern goods & services (think driftwood sculptures, head shops, face-painting, massage, etc.), and another 30% “other”, that “other” being composed of on-stage entertainment (belly dancers, the local oud/violin/doumbek trio (that being one of the incarnations of Tangerine: Liz, Tim, and Bruce), a couple of singers…), the costume hire place, the Fairies, the Pirates, and a smattering of the People Who Get It dressed up in character and randomly accosting each other and the anyone they could convince to play along with Plot.
No horses in the arena this year, as we were in a smaller park, but they had them around for pony and wagon rides. We had a better setup this year, as we had the boat for the whole weekend and could thus integrate it better into our area. They stuck us right at the front gate, too, so we could accost people coming and going — we’ll never know how many people saw Stephen (AKA Scurvy the Cook) haranguing passersby and turned right around and went back the way they came. Stephen grew a week’s worth of stubble for the occasion, so he was nice and scruffy-looking.
Saturday we actually had to bail halfway through the day, as we’d gotten a call the night before that the stock truck was on its way with our two remaining alpacas, finally coming down from Auckland. The black one (the only one of our girls visibly pregnant so far) is Galadriel, and the fawn one is Concetta. It may be hard to tell from the photos, but they are *quite* a bit smaller than any of our other alpacas (we’ll know how much smaller when the boys are finally shorn), especially Concetta. She’s our expensive, high-end “quality” girl — petite, feminine, cute, and ever ready to spit or kick at anything that comes too close to her butt. Watching her spit off Jim, three times her size, was High-larious. She’s also The Invisible Alpaca, as she’s just about the exact color of the dried-off long grass.
Sunday was back to Pirating, in the scorching, breezeless 77F degree heat. Hah ! I can’t tell if I’m getting acclimated to the point where 80 degrees actually feels “hot”, or if the intensity of the sun just makes it feel like it’s ten degrees hotter than it actually is. I suspect it’s the latter, since it’s always lovely in the shade. Anyway, the sun brought out the crowds (I suspect the fact the the Global Challenge yachts were having an Open Day 100 yards away didn’t hurt, either), and if they all had as much fun as it looked like they were having, we should have no trouble getting the Faire funded again next year. And in the meantime, the crew of the Privateer Amanita Virosa got several offers of hire for various other events, starting with an upcoming Irish parade, of all things.
The last photo is just another bit of summer for you folks oppressed by the Northern Winter. There are many Pohutakawas in Wellington, but this one is ours.