Beltane Fun and a Little Sun! (by sarah)
Sunday saw us awaking at Ulrike's and Mikes in deepest darkest Yorkshire - we were upstairs in the 'computer workshop' a.k.a the spare room and another friend Rob was downstairs in the lounge on a pump up!
Ulrike like me loves dressing up for events and she had found a cool looking event to light a Beltane Fire in the three Henges at Thornborough.
I had bought along my new floaty skirt and fluffy big collored jumper from a charity shop and Alaric had his black velvet cloak (I had ummed and ahhed about weather to bring that on or the rugged out doors one he inherited from Lionel but as Helium had been sleeping on the other on I thought the velvet on best - plus its more dressy).
For Jeany I packed her Gizel Dress - Ulrike had lent us the film Enchanted where the princess makes her dresses from the curtains - Jean wanted to be Gizel so mum made her a dress from an old set of curtians :/
I was a bit worried that our outfits weren't that good as Al only had his cloak but then Ulrike rescued us by having a buetiful dress and headdress I could wear and a tunic for Alaric.
She herself had a fantastic flowey dress with a green braided belt that came down to a point and a fresh flower garland in her hair.
My dress was a bit long but made me look like an elfan princess I feel and maybe be replacing my wedding profile pic once reduce file size etc!
Alaric and Mike were in the tunics from Mike and Ulrike's wedding (this was the one that I still haven't put the photos from the phone up from but was one we catastrophically broke drown coming home from (well one of the weddings we catastrophically broke down on the way home from!)).
Alaric looks so good in his outfit too!
Rob on the other hand had bought a kilt - which was very complicated to put on! He had a lovely broach and a sporen too 🙂
Once we were ready we made our packed lunches and headed out
- got lost and then arrived (after asking people with brightly coloured guitars where we needed to go) just in time to see the fire lit!
It was very sparkly 🙂
It was actually a lovely sunny day in patches but also very windy resulting in Jean hiding underneith Daddy's cloths and us all huddled on the picnic blankets! Later we were huddled underneith the blankets!
I don't think that you can actually tell there that Jean isn't Ulrike's!
There was a play and things but unfortunatly we had arrived late and there was a big crowd and we couldn't see anything - also as a group I think we were a bit shy and so remained right on the edge for most of it. But there were some stalls we went around including a catering tent where they had made all the flap jack in the field that morning! Which was actually very very cool 🙂 They also used real mugs which I approve off from a waste point of view.
We found a cute knitted princess mouse for Jean and fiary hair braids for me - my friend Taz had these at university and I always wanted some but at the time they where far too expensive!
We joined the circle just in time to see the hand fastings (a wedding ceromony - there was a priest there who mentioned a goddess of the henges though I can't remember what he called her). They then closed the event by everyone holding hands in a large circle and facing the fore winds.
We were then cheeky and took a free calander with the wheel of seasons on it!
Ulrike looked so good in her woollen cap and picnic basket I just had to point out this photo seperatly!
I found it very interesting and me and Ulrike went around talking to the stall holders - by this point the boys had mutinied saying they were cold and gone and hunddled in the car!
We found an archeologist to talk to who has a side line in pottery including jewellery and I found a fairy door to put in Jean's fairy garden - it's quiet big and was £3 covered in purple glitter - the man said it was outside safe - we shall see!
There were some cool masks for sale and hair garlands.
There was also a tent were everybody was collecting with instriments which looked fun but alas and alack the boys decreed it was too cold and home time 🙁
To be fair Alaric was very sad as I had packed his nice indoor cloak and it blew up onto the barbed wire and now has a rip in it 🙁 I spent most of the time wearing it!
Also it started hailing just after we left! So maybe they were right.
The festival made me a bit home sick and I was sad that I didn't see any actual morris men (my dad will disown me for saying that as he thinks they are silly and always groans when I make him watch them) - Rainham Essex tends to have a Mayfair around the church in the middle of the road with stalls, and plays and music and hot dogs and morris men dancing and a man dressed as a sort of green stag and the church has hot drinks for everyone - the roads are closed and it really alot of fun! The last I went too was when I was pregnant and I bought some lavander knitted booties (I thought well if its a boy they haven't got any flowers on them and he'll be too young to notice!).
Apparently there are Morris men that visit the village but as we don't go to the pub we never get to see them :/
Still here are more pics of us looking all medievally and stuff!
I ment to get more pics of the boys but somehow didn't 🙁 I remember asking them to line up but assume something sistracted us!
When we got back I decided the fluffy jumper was going to be worn anyway 🙂 as I'd lugged it all the way from Gloucestershire!
The rip in Alarics cloak 🙁
The silver headdress was a suprize - I expected it to hurt but it didn't! And I wore it all day! I think this style of clothing suits me in a way nothing modern ever will - ho hum!
The Family | sarah | 
Tue 5th May 2009 9:18 am
Subscribe
By Ulrike, Tue 5th May 2009 @ 10:25 am
That is a lovely picture of me and Jean - I really wish I could have kept her!
Shame we were too chicken to join the crowd, we missed out on all the fun by the looks of it... if only it had been less windy, I think we would have been up to more!
Still, we got to dress up, and it was a nice day out all in all 🙂 You looked really pretty in the dress!
Is there no way of fixing Alaric's cloak? 🙁 Maybe putting some black velvet underneath it to patch it up?
By Ulrike, Tue 5th May 2009 @ 10:26 am
Is there a way to "register" at your blog so that it actually shows a picture on the side rather than the grey anonymous looking placeholder?
By Ulrike, Tue 5th May 2009 @ 1:09 pm
The goddess they mentioned was Brigantia, the goddess of the North of England 🙂
You can read up more about her here: http://www.sacredbrigantia.com/brigantia.php
By EelKat, Thu 1st Oct 2009 @ 9:15 pm
love the blue & white dress!
By EelKat, Thu 1st Oct 2009 @ 9:15 pm
@Ulrike
if you start your own WordPress blog (it's free), than post comments here, using your username and email used on your blog, and post the link to your blog in the URL box - it'll show your picture. You have to have a WordPress blog though, and upload a user profile pic for your blog.
By sarah, Fri 2nd Oct 2009 @ 9:00 am
It's Ulrike's dress she lent it to me for the day 🙂 anything velvet is mine or Alaric's though 🙂
An I still need to sort my avatar out - been on the todo list for forever :/