Cluain hosted another magnificent event over Labour Weekend, October 21st to October 23rd. As always this was at the marvellous setting of Braythwayte Manor just outside Rotorua, New Zealand.

We had 3 days of camping, eating wonderful food prepared from scratch in the camp’s open kitchen and cooked over a fire. There was also dancing, music, fighting, archery, games and craft work.

Labour weekend camp is less structured than most and is very much a ‘bring what you want to work on’ style of camp. While my current health doesn’t allow for much in the ways of physical activity I did spend time playing games and talking with friends both old and new.

Another year and another St Sebastians event. This year about 90 people attended the event. It was truly lovely to see so many people enjoying themselves

While St Sebastians is traditionally an archery focused event, we also had both heavy and rapier tournaments happening.

The heavy tournament had a random weapon wheel. Each fighter was weapons were determined by 2 spins of the wheel, one for each hand. There were also some special weapons, such as a haddock, a broken bottle, rolling pin and troll club, that added to the mix.

St Sebastian’s was a special event this year. It marked the 10th anniversary of Ed and Elizabeth running this on their property. As such Ed had made some extra special site tokens, individual pottery cups, for the attendees.

As always there was a game running over the weekend. The prize this year was a crossbow. This was eventually won by William de Cameron.

The main event at St Sebastian’s is the archery tournament.
This year it was broken down into 3 categories, all shot at the same time.

Within the SCA there are a number of Kingdoms, each ruled by a King and Queen. Every 6 months a new King and Queen are appointed by a heavy combat tournament, with the winner becoming the next Monarch along with his or her consort.

Within Lochac these tournaments take place in May and November. The in July and January the new King and Queen are crowned.

This year the Midwinter coronation was held in the Canton of Cluain, at the beautiful Hamilton Gardens.

As we have been doing lots with the SCA here we haven’t done much actual living history camping where you have no modern conveniences. This weekend will be different. Master Ed Braythwayte of the SCA is once again hosting a camp at his property but this year he has deemed that the house is off limits, except for the toilet. There is access to fresh water as well but aside from that everything will be stored, prepared, cooked or worked on in camp. There will be no modern tools, like gas cookers or torches. so it is back to open fires and candle light