Yesterday I fell in the stairs and hurt my tailbone pretty bad. It's not broken, but it's painful enough. I stayed home from work today because I can't really sit. It is getting better and I'll be able to go to work on Monday. Believe me, I am extremely glad I got a laptop instead of an ordinary PC.

These pictures were supposed to be posted on Wednesday, but I was still beat.

A banner with my device, which is in the process of being submitted. In the SCA we can choose a device/arms. There is a possibility to register them, but the process takes at least six months and there are bazillion rules only heralds can make sense of. I hope everything goes well and I will be able to use this device, unaltered.

Just for fun we made an Aarnimark banner for our house. We all come from either Aarnimetsä or Nordmark so we combined their devices to make our own.

The blue tunic in action. The sleeves are tied at the back and I just hung a piece of linen from my belt for an apron. There will be a proper apron in the future. It took an eternity of trying different ways to wrap the headcloth before I hit on the one that looks even remotely like the illuminations in the Maciejowski Bible. This one is one of the illuminations I used as an inspiration for this outfit.

The head table ready for our distingushed guests. The Viceroy and Vicerine of Insulae Draconis came to our event. We had three 3x3m gazebos in a row and straw for warmth. It was a cozy and fun event.

Some fencing action.

Party action.

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Man, I'm tired! We had an SCA event in our back yard this weekend. I think there were about 16 people altogether. I was the cook for the event. Fortunately one of the housemates volunteered to take care of the Friday night dinner, breakfasts and Saturday lunch; I concentrated on the banquet.

All the dishes were from Medieval or Renaissance cookbooks. I love medieval cooking and recipes, there are no set amounts you have to measure. Sabina Welserin even tells you:

'And taste it, however it seems good to you, make it so.'

That's how I cook anyway — by feel and taste.

This is a beautiful example how the basic househols cooking adapted to what was available:

'Cook whatever meat you wish in water, or in a little wine, or in meat stock, wine and bacon to give flavour, then fry your meat, then grind ginger, saffron, parsley and a little sage, if you wish, and egg yolks poured in slowly with a slotted spoon, raw, for the liaison, or ground bread moistened with stock, and put all to boil together with verjuice; and some add cheese, and it is all right.'

That stew was a hit. I will probably make it again some time. I was also asked for the recipes. I will put the menu with recipes on the web as soon as I can muster some energy for it. Right now all I have are ugly printouts of the original / translated / transcribed recipes themselves.

Besides researcing for the banquet during the past two weeks, I painted my banner. The intention was to find the same kind of paint we used for our walls. Something that does not stink, is plastic and water soluble. Don't ask me how it happened that I walked out of the shop door with toxic, carcinogenic and volatile paint that requires solvents. My brain must have switched itself off and left me clueless.

Anyway, the paint stuck to the cloth I had hemmed for that purpose and it's now waterproof to boot. One shouldn't hang it near candles, though...

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Edgar Valter is dead. He was the beloved illustrator of hundreds (literally) of childrens books in Estonia. He also was a caricaturist with a sharp wit and warm humour. Nothing I am able to say will ever conway the full extent of what his work has meant to us, or the depth of sorrow at his passing. So I will stop now.

Rest in peace. Olgu muld sulle kerge.

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Soon it is time to visit Estonia again. Somehow it has become a tradition (can three years make a tradition?) to visit my folks in Estonia during Easter. The vacation is approved and the tickets are bought — I'll be visiting Tallinn from 14^th to 16^th of April. I have a Monday off too, but there were no flights back to Dublin then.

I want to visit the cats in Stockholm too, but we haven't figured out the best way to do that. We both miss them terribly. They are doing fine and are being themselves, but I wish that I didn't have to leave them behind.

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It snowed esterday! Real snow, not raindrops masquerading as snow. Beautiful. Cold too. When I stepped out of the office building it was sunny and about 10 degrees. In 10 minutes it became about -1 and snowing. Of course the flu that I had barely gotten rid of flared up again. Loved the snow, pissed about my nose turning into a rainpipe in rain.

I've discovered the perfect time to knit. It is the cab-waiting-time every morning. IBM provids taxi dockets for us who begin work at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. I order a cab every night for 5:40 the next morning. This should give the driver ample time to reach the office which is bare 10 minutes away. This works in theory, in practice not a single cab has ever been on time. Twice they have arrived 5 minutes early, as a rule they are late. Sometimes even 25 minutes late. Now you do the math and answer the question: How many times have I been on time to work?

So every morning I am ready by 5:35 and knit waiting for the cab. My frustration levels have gone down remarkably since I began knitting in the mornings.

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