Garden update and my take on the Medieval Romp and Stomp

My Garden designer (Graham of course) got 1.5 yards of gravel delivered Friday for the inside of our Garden. It was hard work as we had to shovel it into a bucket then Graham walked it in and spread it around the garden beds as the door to our Garden isn't wide enough for our wheel barrow.  However, a few hours of hard labour and the garden enclosure looks as swish as any botanic garden.  time to show up and the 3 of us went to get Elwood's bones and some libations as I was determined to have a glass of wine in our beautiful enclosure. To be frank, after a glass of wine, we had a quick comfort food dinner of cornflake chicken and sacked out in front of a movie.

Saturday Graham went the extra mile and put tiles at the doorway and gravelled the entrance area. Lucky veggies. Elwood isn't keen on the gravel but he perseveres and follows me around hoping for some ball tossing. Next we went to the ....

The GrandvEwe Medieval romp and cheese stomp.  I was soooo looking forward to this event and had plans of throwing myself into the day with great abandon!! 

Hooray costumes!! I immediately gave them high marks for ambiance. We were greeted by a Monk who directed us to the sheep shed for the Romp and Stomp, and advised us to find “Conan the Barbarian” to find our seats.  Passing several 'wenches' and ‘peasants’ bustling about, we entered the shed.  

It had been set up with long trestle tables, aligned with hay bales with rough wooden planks on top for seating. It crossed my mind-to wonder how many slivers were discovered later. I have to say I was a little nervous when I noticed a spider running in and out of the hay at one of the seats at another table.

The tables were set with a very heavy whole-wheat plate, a knife and a plastic goblet per person, and salad with mice shaped blue cheese, and herb encrusted hard-boiled eggs set upon a rich red runner down the center of the tables, with chunky candles spotted here and there. We looked along our assigned table for our place tags, and grabbed our goblets.

Blue Cheese Mouse with Liquorish Tail

 The back of the shed had about a dozen sheep behind a fence, with one of their relatives on a spit at the other end - (I'm not sure what the sheep thought about that) – however the spit was supervised by the black hearted hangman who alternated his accessories between a giant wooden sword and beheading axe.

As we entered, in the entry corner was the grape stomping station attended by a Medieval milkmaid. A hay bale to sit on while you washed your feet, 2 half wine barrels filled with grapes (grapes and mark were supplied by the local Hartzview winery) ready for stomping with a clean water bath to rinse off your feet when your stomping was completed.  

Graham and I stomped with glee and abandon. OK, I stomped with glee and abandon, I had to cajole Graham into it, and although he started with nervous anticipation, he was soon stomping like a pro and I watched as his smile grew with his enthusiasm! 

Then you were given your cheese to wrap in calico and a permanent marker to write your name on with. 

Next step was outside to the Cheese pit, which was a square hole dug into the ground, lined with hay, ready to receive the cheeses. Thankfully there was a bucket of "Mark" to pile over the cheese - which is the end bi-product of wine making (also donated by Hartzview) and still having a fairly high alcoholic count - so no foot stomped grapes were actually used in the process.  Whew. When all the cheeses were put into the pit, at the end of the day the hole was filled in with hay and the lid closed. They'll call in 3 - 5 months when it's time to take them out.

Our “Mistress of the Manor” told us the history behind this came from Europe where villagers used to bury their food to hide it front raiders. Apparently the villagers found they preferred the flavour of the aged buried chess so much, they just kept doing it. Well it's a good story anyhow. Adding the grape 'Mark" was a new thing the GrandEwe people were experimenting with. (On our cheeses. Go us guinea pigs, and fingers crossed).

Back inside were tables of local wares for tasting and sale (as well as the regular sheep cheese tastings in the restaurant).  A woman from Margate had some jams and chutneys - one outstanding dish was cherries with hot mustard. Wow!  Pagan Ciders were there from Cygnet with a new cider with 40% cherry juice - my personal favourite, Elderberry drinks, and the Harts Winery with their meads and fruit wines and liqueurs. Well, we couldn't go past a hot mulled mead now could we? The plastic goblets with their jewels were a nice touch - you brought you goblet to the stall and they filled it for you.

It’s a top spot to stand around with your goblet of grog – watching the activities amongst lush green fields with the stunning view of the channel behind. I loved the 3 dogs which wandered about as well, and secretly hoped for a bone to toss over my shoulder.

They called for everyone to take their seats at noon – telling us, everything on the tables was edible including the plate. We had our knife and fingers, so could figure out what to do, or something along those lines.

A recorder band (who knew recorders could form a band?  I would have kept up my school recorder practice had I known) dressed in period outfits, with recorders like I've never seen before, arrived and set up in the corner. One huge wooden recorder was as tall as a person with a curled brass mouthpiece – which they told us you had to start blowing well before you played the note to get the air flow going. All very interesting and certainly added to the ambiance. Several guests came in costumes, which also added to the festive air. 

Unfortunately the banquet was disappointing. It was quite disorganised.  I would much rather have had  the most excellent centre salad starter setup to be clearly shared between each 2 opposing diners (to avoid confusion on who was sharing in what part of the table centre-pieces) Also a platter set down between the opposing diners with the whole roast dinner components at once would have worked nicely. 

So, the concept was good, the set up interesting, we'll see how our buried cheese turns out, but our feast was disappointing.  An enjoyable afternoon overall.

Rose & Julie's big adventure - 2012 - National Literary Awards - Fellowship of Australian Writers

What a thrill - for our little writing group to win a Highly Commended award in the 2012 National Literary Awards with the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) Victoria Inc. - for the Anthology we submitted to the FAW Community of Writers Award competition.

Rose and I decided we'd go to the awards night in Melbourne representing our group.

Our adventure began with me checking the alarm clock yet again, scratching my head at our choice of a 6:00 am flight. I rose in the dark at 3:30 surprised and delighted at the smell of coffee wafting upstairs. Graham and Elwood were troupers, sending me on my way much more alert with a coffee ingested, waving me goodbye under a clear star studded black sky. Only the wallabies and possums were on the road as I went to get Rose. We grinned at each other - then both laughed out loud, unable to contain our excitement about our trip.

Although Rose had warned me she wasn’t a morning person, and wouldn’t be speaking before 11AM, we nattered our way down the highway. I did wonder if this was her ploy to keep me awake.

We arrived with what we thought was plenty of time for a coffee and toast, our only hold up was me getting checked for explosives on the way through. Hmmm, how did I look more suspicious than Rose? It was a good thing we were early as it took 15 minutes to be served our coffee and toast, leaving us just enough time to scoff our snack before the plane loaded.

We discussed the likelihood of the plane having a flat tire as we were buffeted around on the short trek to lift off.

Luck was with us, when we got to the hotel, as our potential 7-hour wait for the 2:00 pm check in was waived, Hooray!  We dumped our luggage in the room and wandered back to the airport not game to spend over $30 each for breakfast at the hotels. We did a reconnoitre of the Airport shops to work off breakfast after, then decided to walk back for a snooze. 

I had itchy feet, and couldn’t settle, and since I’d previously decided I needed to brave the big city and have a little adventure, I left Rose and headed out. I took my phone so I could call her if I ran into any trouble. At the front desk they told me a cab to the nearest shopping centre was $30 each way, and I already knew it was $50 to town, so decided couldn’t be bothered spending that kind of cash for a few hours of shopping so wandered back to the airport leaving Rose in peace to relax.

Domestic isn’t as interesting to shop in as International. I can’t tell you how many book fly covers I read, but I did manage to sniff out a bargain along the way. Flush with my purchase (I’d convinced myself with the money I saved not taking a cab into town, I was justified in splurging on a beautifully hand painted purse) I came back and laughingly confessed to Rose my big adventure alone in the big city was actually spent walking through the parking garage back to the airport. Some adventuress I was. Rose said as soon as I left, she couldn't get back to sleep but did a lot of reading until my return.

We relaxed watching "the Life of Pi" on the “in room movie”, then cleaned up for the awards ceremony. The front desk organised a "driver and car" as they said it would be the same price as a cab. We felt rather swish at this, and settled into the bar for a pre trip tipple.

Our driver was fun and we joked a lot about what we might find when we got to the Masonic Hall, sandwiches, cookies and cakes from the local CWA (hmmm, does CWA in the big city mean City Women's Association?).

Pulling up to the Masonic Hall at 6:30 we entered the foyer, were given a name tag, marked present, asked to sign a waiver as they had cameras on site to film the event, and sent through the doors advised we were booked in on table number 15.

I think the funniest moment of the trip for me was the look on Rose's face as we walked into the Hall. She stopped dead, eyes widening as her hand fluttered to her chest, then her quick recovery. Our feet shuffled on the worn wooden floors as our eyes slowly took in the room, the walls were lined with multi coloured banners of various designs like those of knights gone by... or football teams. I wish I knew what the Masonic significance was. There was a stage at the end of the room with a podium and mikes set up, a table with some projection equipment and raffle prizes which drew our eyes to the number 15, sitting on our table, front row centre in front of the stage.

The hall was filled with long lines of tables, adorned with vases of tall brightly coloured silk orchids. The scrapping of plastic chairs rang out as people claimed seats along the flimsy coloured poly table cloths dotted with our appetisers for the evening, little bowls of nuts, chips and lollies. We stopped at the bar on our way to our table, to be asked if we would find a seat and bring back the empty glass at our pace, a job I was quick to fulfil.

As the event progressed, we appreciated the resourcefulness of this bunch of dedicated volunteers on a shoestring budget. This Masonic Lodge kindly loans their venue to the FAW for free for their regular meetings, workshops and events, which caused us to review the room in a new light. We warmed to the venue, and appreciated the efforts, as we listened to them speak about the passion of the wholly volunteer staff of FAW who’s focus is supporting Australian writers of all ages and genres within the limited resources they have to hand. Their work is commendable.

Not that we need to name drop - but Chris and Sue Marsters were there (Sue fresh from winning a Logie - both of them investigative journalists - having worked on Four Corners, Date Line, Insiders etc) just to reinforce the calibre of those associated with FAW. Chris won the FAW Excellence in Non-Fiction Award and spoke very highly of the work of FAW.

We were seated at a table with other award winning Tasmanians young and old – the organiser mentioned to Rose, there must be something in the water in Tasmania as an inordinate number of Tasmanian writers had won awards this year.  I was pleased to see people there from all over the country - Cairns, Perth and other interstate winners. 

We had a Mother and Son across from us - the Son was the winner of two awards. The Mother’s unbridled exuberance soon necessitated my quick return to the bar but she did provide some interesting suggestions on places to look for competitions and submissions, then the lights dimmed and the awards started. 

I kept sniffing the air hopeful for a hint of what dinner would bring, or even that it was imminent, rueful we hadn’t had a snack before we came. The awards went solidly for an hour as everyone was called forward who had won anything from a commendation to the winners. Most folks gave a quick thank you, but here was still a fair pile of envelopes on the table when they broke for dinner at 8.

Our award was called mid way before dinner, and up I went, thankful I didn’t stumble on the steps, and was given first go at the mike - which I took.  Don't worry, I was quick - thanking FAW on behalf of the group for the honour and expressing our thanks for the encouragement and validation this award provided to pursue our various creative writing projects.

Rose thought the most tiresome part of the night was queuing for the food, for me it was the wait, as we were the last table called  number15 (for crying out loud) so didn't eat until around 8:30. I considered eating my shoe at one point, but was glad I waited for the roast dinner, which was tasty and well presented.  

I would have liked to see the kids get called for their awards earlier as they weren’t presented after we started up again around 9. It was really encouraging to see so many kids interested in writing, most of which after thanking family and friends remembered to say a special thank you to an encouraging teacher - and to FAW for organising the competitions for them to enter.

We enjoyed the whole adventure but admittedly we did bolt at the end of the evening, feeling the strain of our 3:30 wake up call, but both felt the trip was worth it.

That special moment which came when our group's name was called, drove home the satisfaction from being acknowledged, and having worked on something, which an external audience had enjoyed.  Well done "Write Offs".