stellar_muddle | Sleeping even higher above my station.

So, sitting in a friend's lounge in Canberra, having washed my hair of acres of dust and not thinking about the long drive tomorrow.

Busy dusty Festival.

Torn between doing the full writeup while I remember and catching up on email etc.
As per usual, this may be added to as I remember things.

Festival 07 - iron smelting, glass and beads, tents and all sorts

Mon: Late departure from Adelaide (2pm). Night in Balranald. No tent eyeleting.

Tues: Earlier departure (8am). Arrived onsite ~1pm and set up Viking A-frame. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince takes from Narrandera to a bit past Yass. To Canberra for catching up with various people round ANU, collection of more stuff from

eftb's shed and showers and sleep.

Weds: Picked up bellows from AAF. Out to site. Various tents up and other stuff - I forget what. Back to town in evening for catching up with nonSCAdian types at the Wig and Pen and then a leasurely 2 1/2 hour dinner (unfortunately due to incredibly forgetful service) with them. Then late night talking with R&P.

Thurs: The evils of McD breakfast - mental note not to do that again for ages. Eventually out to site via pottery place, Revolve and Belconnon Mall. More tent arangement, set up etc. All tents done (just) in time for people. Bed assembled etc. Meeting and greeting. Evening was around a campfire (I think).

(Good) Fri: Up and about 8amish. Breakfast and a class on shoe-making (the only A&S class I managed to make it to). Waxing of tablets - entertaining with the dust, but done and looked good - unfortunately was silly and didn't take photos of the finished product. Nap in the late afternoon. Evening - round a campfire (?) - this happened often. Mad scheming by Z, Buzz and

sui_001.

Sat: Market in the morning - sold everything we had to sell, which was wax tablets in two sizes, leather and an oilskin hood. Afternoon was spent pulverising ex-furnace, white sandy soil and charcoal, mixing with kaolin clay and water and assembling the furnace for the iron smelt. There was a slight interuption by a posse, a queen sideled up and a startled viking froze with his arms elbow deep in the clay mix in a wheelbarrow. Then they went back to work. They even before dinner, mixed a new batch of clay etc (using a concrete mixer). Evening included conversation in the wine bar and campfire, with a slow fire in the furnace to cure it for the next day. (Edit: singing in the wine bar (I think))

(Easter) Sun: Some cracks in the furnace, but relatively easily repaired. Making of baby furnace for glass and little beehive oven for making glass beads. Smelting eventually started. First ore in at 2:45pm, with breakout around 8:30pm. Various bellows slaves - I was evil and didn't do that, but there were a reasonable who did - some new and some who played last year. Better furnace from the clay mix, so no danger of premature break out. Didn't record what we did as carefully as last time and no photos as I had put batteries in backwards (sorted the day after). Slightly larger bloom with more visable iron structure, but still a lot of slag. Singing (Edit: nope, whisky tour of Scotland) in the Wine Bar.

Mon: Wandering and talking to people. Attempts at glass making from scratch from ingredients from Alex the Potter and assembled by

sui_001 over various parts of the day. Slight crucible issues ranging from the wire frame melting in the furnace to the cover fusing to the crucible meant that eventually the crucible was broken open. Initial attempts were closer to faiance (?sp), but late that afternoon, after the beadmaking furnace had been played with, slight glass was formed. It didn't cooperate in making a bead though.
Around 3pm, the bellows assembly (yes, another set...) was interupted as crowds gathered in the St Floz camp, Z cleaned himself up a bit, the King and Queen wandered by and there was a bit of a ceremony. Stanzi introduced him,

vonstrassburg and

auntyyolly did medaliony things, there was a green leather apron and

evildrakey and I robed him in

sandhi's embroidered cloak, there were group hugs and Z was made a Laurel specializing in Early period/Viking lifestyle.
Then people went back to playing with glass bead making and attempting to play with a chunck of the iron bloom (have (short) video). Lack of Wine Bar, singing in Abbotsford, singing at St Floz with a VERY larg campfire. Very strange noises when had to put out said large fire - large steam clouds for tens of minutes, boiling, hissing and roaring and Z and

vizi having fun with water.

Tues: Pack up pack up pack up :( Load to Canberra, back out, pack up pack up pack up with the last in the dark... Were sensible and phoned ahead for turkish pide, then to friends place for crash and SHOWERS.

General notes:
There was a lot of dust.
Edit: The evenings tend to blur together - I know thing happened, but I can't assign particular evenings.

And the short cut for those who don't read behind cuts...

basal_surge was made a Laurel.

Currently loading photos off the camera - will post links shortly and if I can work out how to do it, put the videos of attempting to forge part of the bloom and playing with glass on YouTube (or where ever).

Z is snoring on a sofa and it is time for me to do the same. Long drive tomorrow.

Sleeping even higher above my station.

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