Fighting at Sir Tom's place

Ginny did decide to go on a float trip with her friends yesterday. So I plotted out some wireless points between here and Cedar, MN and threw all my gear into Luce’s truck and Luce, Little John and I took off. Got there pretty close to 11 am. Tom’s property is a nice chunk of land, including an area that will be an excellent woods battle site. There were some dead trees back there and we warmed up by hauling fallen wood out of there. Tom gave Sir Tarrach his chainsaw to run, Brrrr-brrr. We hauled logs and branches up towards the house so they’d be ready to burn.

So, geared up, forgot my kneepads and borrowed knee pads. No idea what happened to to them and that bothers me. Are they floating in the laundry? Littering the park? Warm ups were good but I’m having trouble with adrenaline build-up, finally feel the breath loosening up and the want to tackle yet another fight coming in. It was hot out there, with the metal helmet on and the layers of protective gear.

Yeah for Peg, who held onto my phone while I was fighting! Never did get a call from work but a couple from shire people.

I fought Zadok, Peter, Beth, Tarrach and someone else. Five warmups. Some of them being a couple of rounds and then a break to cool down. One ending short because I had the tremblies for some reason. I just pushed through though - this was no time to be wussing out and it did go away.

Melee work. Luce and I were teamed up; I need to learn better how to keep her in mind, how to work with her. I suggested to John we do some team-building exercises back home here. We would run a couple of melee battles, then pop tops and find shade. There would be training in the shade and one time, freezy-pops. I remember one battle where I was the thin point in the shield wall and getting shield rushed and flying backwards from the impact, landing on my butt and then my helm whacking the ground. Got up and killed someone after that. I remember another where the charge had my group of four going to the right BUT I was flank-man and there coming up to flank my own group was this group of three - I addressed them rather than staying with my own group and I’m not sure if that was right to do or not. That group of three, two after Luce died, stayed alive for a while through the battle. I am hoping I kept the three busy for a bit, maybe 10-15 seconds before they got me to drop the shield enough for a polearm blow to the top. I’d made eye contact and was not going to turn my back on them at that point.

So I got to a point I couldn’t do anymore. I was not the first out of armor, though! I was in the shade, watching the last couple melees and Tristan started organizing a spear class. I paired up with Roisin and using polearms - same idea, long poles just not as long. I had a sticky end to mine, though, and wore a dime-sized blister up and then off as the skin just peeled back. Ick. Ouch. Luce found me a bandaid.

Then meat and chips and watermelon and talking. While Roisin and Beth continued to fight. They kept going for about another hour, maybe.

We must have left about 7...I got home at 9:30. This morning I’m a bit sore and my neck is stiff from that fly-backwards bit. I’ve a page of notes I wrote down on the way home.

Today, Gin and I are shopping and I have some work to do for WW plus laundry. Eventually. Soon. Yesterday was a lot of fun, and I hope we do it again.