St Johns 2015

Over the weekend of the 10th – 12th July we attended the annual Cluain event of St Johns.

This is anSCA camp held in the Waikato region. While normally we would take our tent and camp we decided to make use of the bunk rooms available at the site, and it was very fortunate that we did as temperatures over the weekend dropped to around -2. Fortunately both the main hall and bunk rooms were nice and warm once the heaters got started.

St Johns was a nice relaxed event. While there was archery, which both Wendy and I took part in, heavy combat and rapier outside most of the event took place inside the main hall.

Wendy had offered to run a couple of workshops on beginner harp. These went very well and I think we may have some new converts. While this was going on I learnt a bit about pewter casting with Master Edward Braythwayte. The end result being 24 harp shaped belt mounts. Now I just need to make Wendy a new belt.

On the Saturday evening there was a banquet. The food as always was excellent. Afterwards there was music and games. Wendy, along with Nadia, played harp while Chantelle played flute and sang. I played a bar game that was along the lines of a giant version of shove ha’penny. Followed by a couple of games of Irish, an early form of modern backgammon.