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Friday, April 27, 2012

Not a swinger but a jouster

It's good to experience other people's lifestyles sometimes.  I'm not talking that other thing that bored couples do with other bored couples, 'The Lifestyle'! No no no no!  The only swinging I would participate in is one involving a seat supported by ropes (crikey, that still sounded weird).

I mean walk amongst those that have different obsessions than I do.  I'm not saying I'm not interested in history,   just not to the extent that I would dress up in any of these getups every weekend:


No I didn't travel back in time on the weekend, we only travelled to Lithgow to Ironfest.

And it was fun!  Amongst all the strangely dressed attendees which included knights, damsels, ninjas, medieval French swordsmen, Civil and other period war soldiers, angels, kangaroos on stilts (with anatomically correct hanging bits), futuristic warriors (ie. Mad Max characters), daleks, R2D2, Minecraft real life avi's and roller derby girls, we walked around looking the Inner West Sydneyites we are.

In between sword fighting and shooting arrows at stuffed elk, I turned to The Moneymaker and asked if he also felt we were on the set of Life of Brian.  He did but grabbed a sword anyway.

I was really looking forward to the jousting at the end of the festival (how could you go wrong with jabbing at each other with big sticks on horseback?), but the highlight was just before - The Battle.  It involved various costumed soldiers from different countries and what I think was different centuries.  The commentator said they were the English, the Scottish, the Irish and the French.  And he did warn us about the cannon fire which was AWESOME!  A lot of smoke and big enough BOOMS to shake the old country stadium to its foundations.  And the crowd loved it.  We all cheered when the cannons went off and when an occasional soldier (or nurse or drummer boy) fell we all went 'oohhhh!'.  It was like being part of a giant medieval pantomine.
Even though it took us 3 hours to get home, it was worth it to have a great family day out.

Have you had a day out in a new place with a completely different crowd?

Joining up (for the last time!) with Glowless for FYOB.

2 comments:

  1. That does look like a lot of fun. It's always a nice shake-up to go and do something totally different to your norm. Though I'd like to know what magic you used on your teenager to get her to go along with you!

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  2. The whole event looks very amusing. It was years ago when me and my two daughters went to a horse festivals at ... (gosh, I don't remember the name of the place), but it was really great fun. We didn't know anyone but enjoyed pretty much :) I'm sure you had fun times, too :)

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