s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

This past weekend was another over-booking special, starting with Friday night’s first session of the new Ars Magica game.

Saturday morning, Emily arrived at 6:15 and we lit out over the Hill to Martinborough for the big annual Martinborough Fair. There are several hundred stalls (with a 3 year waiting list to get a stall, apparently), and you need to show up bright and early if you want a parking space closer than a half kilometer away. We got there about 8:30, and by the time we left (around 10:45) it was indeed getting hard to elbow your way through the crowds. Thanks to advice from Sharon, we got a close parking space around the back. The trip over the Rimutakas was more interesting than usual, as Emily is not too keen on heights. We picked up a new kauri cutting board, an oil hurricane lamp, a merino micro-knit for me, and a bag of walnuts. I also got the card of the guy in Featherston who makes the neato leather aviator helmets.

Stephen will have to remind me what we did with the rest of Saturday afternoon, as I was so brain-dead I don’t remember. Saturday evening we hooked up with Emily again, her friend and fellow tech-writer Dawn, Susan and Beverley, and went to see “Heavenly Burlesque” at the Fringe Festival. Kewl. Especially the “cleaning lady” with the hula hoops, and the chick doing sleep-gymnastics hanging from the ceiling by her sheets.

Sunday was an SCA “war practice” which was largely organized so that a bunch of people could come over and work on the banner project that is currently living in the dance studio. That started around 8am, with Stephen making a killer breakfast for StephenR and Jennifer, who’d come over for riding lessons with Yvonne, and also Dillon and Cordelia, who’d gotten a ride with S&J. Stephen made up a printed “Chez Stephen” menu and everything. We got a ton of work done on the banners, which is good, because they are doing that Sword of Damocles thing.

In other news, the horses got into the garden and ate all our carrots, but the tomatos are going like gangbusters. Stephen and I can both eat cherry tomatoes like popcorn & Stephen’s even started making noise about getting a little glasshouse so we can have them year round. Woo ! I wonder if the conservatory would work ? It would presumably be easier to keep gorse out of a glasshouse.

Also, I’ve had two mornings in a row now that I haven’t had to unglue my eyes when I woke up, so it looks like the dryness may be easing up a bit (knock wood). My first checkup is next week.

Still haven’t got the girls back. We’ve dropped an email to the breeder to find out if they’ve scanned yet. *Definitely* going to try to get a stud in next year.