Let's get the nots out the way first.
1. Arriving on Thursday in the dark. Now it's quite hard to put 3 tents up in the dark, especially when you're not overly familiar with 2 of them. It's made even harder when the rental van we brought our kit in has a headlight out, dropped the ball there Enterprise. Luckily we had my car too, so we managed to get enough illumination to put the tents up. Not that we'd been left much space and our sleeping tent had to be pitched on the pegs of the other 2.
2. Sun burn. It was stupidly hot the whole weekend and I got burned. Which might have had something to do with me falling asleep on my new chair. The sun was so hot that I even got burned on my scalp down the central parting of my hair, first time fore everything. My sunburn ruined the battle for me. Sunburn and chainmail don't mix. I felt like I was being grated to death by my own armour. Because of that, and the baking heat I was not feeling that battle like I wanted to, I spent most of it wondering when it was going to end.
3. The freezing cold. The weather was a hot and dry the whole weekend. Conversely because of this the nights were freezing cold and dry. It was so cold that a couple of our group slept in the group tent where it was still warm. Some of the things we left outside had ice forming on them before the sun came up. Top LARP tip, take clothing for all weathers.
4. I hurt my leg again. But not as badly as last time.
Now the negitive stuff is out the road, lets get onto the good stuff.
1. Moonshine's Gin and Tea House was a massive success. Thank you to everyone who came in, we appreciate your patronage, but appreciate your company more. We had a lot of great conversations in there, many of which lowered the tone. I'm seriously thinking about renaming the house to House de Filth. We also had Moonshine's consecrated to ambition, which resulted in a hilarious bit of RP. We are looking to make improvements for next year, including better lighting and a smut library.
2. The stove in Moonshines. This drew in people on a cold night and my old bones appriciated the heat coming off it. House de Carsenere were practically living in Moonshine's, some of the best people I know, great people, great conversation.
3. The House du Soliel setting of the sun festival. I didn't get to experience as much of this as I'd hoped. I missed their singer, but did catch the fire dancers. Also who doesn't like playing with sparklers?
4. Trenchers. The Wooden Spoon is the best eatery in Anvil. Fact.
5. The Gathering of Hunters Dawnish council members selection. This was mental. It was supposed to be a bit of harmless fun where the Houses wanting on the council were to hunt volunteers through Anvil. This almost resulted in a war between Dawn and Navar. Safe to say it got sorted in a diplomatic way. Was bit of an "oh shit" moment IC. Not that I knew until much later because I was gloriously hiding in a ditch. However I am now the Dawnish hide and seek champion, because no one found me before the game was called off.
All in all I enjoyed myself. House de Loup is growing, we've got a few more people joining next year. More people to play with yay!
If Empire sounds like your thing then feel free to use my recruitment code
9066.16781 You get £15 of your ticket, and it helps me out too.
Bonus content.
We took a little detour on the way home and took a wee trip to Lochmaben Castle. Lochmaben Castle is situated next to Castle Loch just outside Lochmaben (funnily enough). It once belonged to Robert the Bruce, so if you like a bit of Scottish history, it's worth a visit. It's free and not a lot of people outside the local area know about it so there's no bugger there, giving you time to have a good nose round.
