¡Gato estúpido!

Biddy gave us a fright this morning.

I forgot to lock the cat flap last night. I usually set it so that Frank can come in, but not go out again, but it slipped my mind and I left it open. When Jan came down to make a cup of tea Biddy was nowhere to be seen, so we rushed outside to look for her in the snow. Biddy had found her way out and then must have got lost wandering around the side of the house, and then somehow into next door's garden climbing a six foot fence in the process. Fortunately she didn't seem too cold and wet, so she can't have been outside for long, but it took her a while to stop shivering even tucked up in bed with us.

Fencing was much the same as usual, which is to say completely and utterly ACEBEST SUPER WIN GET ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US R0XX0RR!!one!! The rapier 8pps really seems to be coming together now and working with Rachel we were able to work on some fine details of technique between us. Next came some Di Grassi dagger work, which turned out to be surprisingly tiring but very satisfying to get working properly. After lunch we had two hours of Hutton sabre and then finished with some new cutlass material.

The prof had unearthed some instructional material written by a certain Lieutenant William Pringle-Green in 1812 as a guide to combat techniques rather than the standard cutlass drills which were aimed more at keeping sailors fit and giving them something to keep them occupied in between the rum and the sodomy. Cutlass is all about getting into close measure as quickly as possible and finishing the fight in one or two hits with no messing around. We covered plenty of techniques to deal with an opponent charging at you by side stepping and either hitting them on the back of the neck, chopping their sword hand off, or disarming them and then stabbing them in the face. Lovely.

We are privileged to be the test subjects for this material and as far as we know, nobody else in western Europe is doing anything remotely like this with these weapons. Hurrah and huzzah, and roll on next month!

Now, time to watch Primeval ... :-)