Damn but it feels good to have “Tudor Tan” again!

Our first show as Nero’s Fiddle was a success!

The pay was crap, but everyone had a good time, and our audience, while small, enjoyed  us immensely, and it looks like we’ll be invited back next year with better pay.  I’m very happy to welcome runesmith to the group as well!  You fit just as perfectly as I’d imagined, and everyone is happy to have you!  Hooray for just jumping in and going with the flow!  It was also great to see the_songbird and drtns out there with their beautiful new baby.  Our little family is growing!

Hurricane Owen was a gem for most of the day, and I shall have to add singing with the lovely ‘Ladies, in a shady grove, in a lovely park on a beautiful summer day while my happy baby curls up with his head in my lap and sings along, as one of those moments of perfect contentment that you hang onto for later, when times are hard and you need a touchstone.  Like when he tries to FORCE the big cat to share his lollipop, insists on wearing MY shoes before he’ll get in the car, or refuses to take a bath without his underwear on his head.

Hurricane Owen amazed Sweet Hubby and I both by being an almost perfect angel all day!  He had a good time chatting with all the new friends he made and exploring the Faery Festival.  We had a bit of a cry when we dropped our snow cone, but got over it quickly.  Otherwise, a delightful child all day, who was chatty, friendly and POLITE, and I was a very proud mommy!  Sweet Hubby and I have said since he was about three months old and coming to Renaissance Festival rehearsals with us, that if it weren’t for him being so agreeable about our odd habits, strange costumes and unusual choice of hobbies, we couldn’t do half of the things we do.  Some of Owen’s favourite people are fire eaters, jugglers, sword swallowers, armourers, jousters and all other manner of misfits.  Fortunately, that includes us! 

We thanked him for being such a wonderful child by taking him to the other end of the park to ride the real life miniature train around the park.  Over and over and over.  I thought he would DIE from joy!  His mantra since getting off the train is now “Owen ride a REAL TRAIN!  Owen ride a REAL TRAIN!”  He chanted it in his sleep all night, those were his first words this morning, and it confused the wonderful women at daycare all day today.  If you have a train mad toddler, Riverside Park in Guelph is the place to go!

We got home around 8pm, exhausted, sweaty, sunburned and dirty, and it felt just like coming home on a Festival day used to.  We saw a lot of familiar faces from our old show, and it’s always bittersweet.  I miss them all so much, but no other show will ever be the same.  That said, I think runesmith said it best.  Lots of people from our Rennfest family are now basically just throwing a ton of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.  The upshot is that we have a whole pile of little, one weekend faires popping up.  Some may make it, some won’t.  We’re all kind of sharing a common bond of perpetual hope mixed with a sense loss that’s still almost as strong now as it was the day we got the bad news.  It’s odd.

The next big milestone for us will be recording on July 8&9, then off to Royal Medieval Faire in Waterloo in September with cd’s to sell!

Off to go email another faire organizer regarding next year.

Watch this space for more.