Memories of a very wet Twenty-Year Celebration
Memories of a very wet Twenty-Year Celebration
No kidding, there I was ....
Twenty-Year Celebration was held during the week which marked the end of April and the beginning of May, in Stargate, which is Houston, Texas. They get Gulf weather there, which can be very wet, and that time of year is usually fairly warm as well.
The event was held at the permanent site of the Renaissance Faire for that region. The assembled multitudes for the most part camped in the parking lot, which was lightly graveled but not asphalted. And there were these shallow ditches between the parking rows ....
When we got there the first weekend it was hot and humid and very sunny, and so it remained until Monday. But Monday night the heavens opened and the rains came. Not vertically or at a steady angle like decent An Tir rain, but sideways, like a series of people throwing buckets of warm water at one. And it did not cool off when it rained; it just got more humid.
Do you know that white cloth becomes quite transparent when it is soaked? For those of you who don’t know me, my habitual garb is all white …. Fortunately I had my cloak with me. Unfortunately it was a cloak designed for An Tir rains, i.e. the sort where it gets cooler when it rains. :)
The soil there is a red clay, hardpan. The rain could not drain through the soil. The rain turned the top layer of dust into red mud. The red mud stained my hems with a hue that would not completely come out even years later.
Some of our An Tir contingent had set up their tents partway down into the ditches. The occupants soon learned the hard way what the ditches were there for! One Viking tent wound up with over a foot of water in it. Those tents had to be moved, and several trips made to a local Laundromat to dry out clothing and bedding.
People had to trench around the huge tent that had been set up in which to hold Grand Court and have displays of arts and sciences, or it would have flooded. But with trenching and many hay bales, the floods were kept out of that tent. The royalty of the Knowne World assembled for Grand Court. I remember almost nothing of the business of the court, but the spectacle I will never entirely forget. Wow!
The An Tir Domesday Boke, which had been proclaimed by TRM Arthur and Melissa and assembled specifically to take to TYC, was much admired. Several of us took turns at the display, wearing cotton gloves to turn the pages. We had brought various other works of art with us as well to display to the people of the Knowne World. The Seagirt Tapestry was there also and was much admired.
The organizers of TYC had assigned half-days for each kingdom show its stuff. Thursday afternoon was An Tir day. It was hot and muggy and very wet all week, except for Thursday afternoon, when the rain lessened to a light drizzle, and it cooled off a bit, to what An Tirians would consider normal for an early May afternoon. :)
Our King and Queen, Arthur and Melissa, gave a feast for the Crowns of the Knowne World and presented them with napkins hand-embroidered with the arms of their kingdoms. (Embroiderers to finish the job, me among them, were recruited at the event.)
It was a fun event, wet though it was.
By
Sister Guineth the White
Copyright © 2005, Emily S D Thompson