Park Life

A slightly belated post, but wow, gosh and fabaroonie - what an amazing weekend. It was a year ago that I was the other side of the barriers watching the prof holding forth on the history of the sword.

This year I was holding a sword and trying to convey to members of the Great British Public that swordplay is simply the most undiluted, pure, unadulterated, downright fun that you can have with your clothes on. Through the weekend there were a handful of folk that I talked to who got that particular gleam in their eyes and started to grin when they picked up a sword for the first time - I hope that that wave of enthusiasm will carry them through to their first six hour workshop and beyond, and that we'll be seeing another group of newbies alongside the rest of us in a year's time. There were a lot of kids who seemed to have been bitten by the bug as well - it is a pity that we don't have any way of teaching them as well, but I guess there would be a lot of problems with it - insurance, safety and suitable equipment for starters.

The other side of the weekend was the superbly surreal spectacle of watching Greeks and Romans parading alongside American Civil War troopers, Arizona Rangers, German soldiers, Vikings and countless others in a living history camp. On Sunday night as we walked amongst the tents and admired the different camp fires it was very easy to imagine that we had stepped through some sort of strange time warp to another dimension with voyeuristic intention (and we didn't even have to get dressed up in basques and stockings to do so). The rest of the weekend is somewhat of a blur - I can remember various fights in the arena, not least the big melee where I got my fingers rapped with a sword before being wrestled to the ground, teaching hordes of kids how to use a cutlass effectively, chatting to strangers and friends in equal measure, camping for the first time in umpty-something years (and being kept awake by a bloody hooting owl), bacon and avocado sandwiches eaten al-fresco, coffee by the fire, putting on my yellow sash for the first time and watching the weather change from a chilly drizzle to scorching sunshine in a few hours.

I now have aching muscles, bruised fingers, a sun burnt face, fatigue to my very core and a strange urge to do the whole thing over again. I'd booked Tuesday off and slept for most of it, as it was back to work and and overflowing inbox on Wednesday with a 6:00 am start - groan. Ah well, if all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work ...