Back From The Past

Photo by Bill Trojan

The above photo is my father and my son. (I was in the tent either tidying up or getting dressed at that time.) Grandpa eager babysat and was rewarded with getting his picture in the paper with Bubby. :)

Bethgem will recognize the wagon, except that I had painted it. What a great purchase that was! Bubby loves his wagon!

Anyhooo......The re-enactment went very well. Hubby, Bubby and I arrived on Friday at around 1:30 pm. After some "hellos," we started setting up camp. Bubby did so well! I barely had to worry about him. He stayed in camp. He played on his own, and even helped out a bit. He was quite the happy baby.

It took us a lot longer to set up because of the heat and because I was being very particular about where to put things for utmost manageability and organization. When all was done, our tent was quite comfortable and neat.

Friday evening was a bit frightening, though. My father called up from home and told us about severe thunderstorm warnings for our area that included 70 mph winds and penny-sized hail. Bubby was asleep by this time and I wanted to go to bed, but the National Weather Service warned for people to seek shelter immediately. So, I fixed up the back of the truck for sleeping in. As soon as the wind started to pick up, I grabbed Bubby and camped out in the truck. Bubby hated it. He cried nearly the whole time we were in there. Thankfully, it was only for about 1/2 an hour because the storm never came. It took a strange and sudden swoop upwards. Nature? Or an answer to my prayer? Hmmmmm....;)

I finally made it to bed by 11 pm, way past my bedtime, but I slept like a baby among the down feather comfort of my full-sized four poster bed. Bubby slept through the night.

Saturday, I got to sleep in. It was quarter after six when Bubby and "nature calling" woke me up. I decided to start my day since I had brunch duty and knew it would take quite some time. A quick clean-up of the tent, change of Bubby, and slipping into my work clothes for re-enacting, I began to prepare a classic Turkish brunch of light cheeses, bread, yogurt, stewed apples in honey with raisins and walnuts, borek, cheese cake (18th century version), dried figs and apricots from Turkey, dates and hard boiled eggs.

To drink, I served grape juice and lime serbet.

It was difficult preparing the meal because hubby disappeared (he tends to do that at re-enactments because so many people want to talk to him, or someone needs assistance). Bubby wanted to be with me and see what I was doing, but I was working among two hot braziers and an open fire pit. He finally went down for a morning nap, and I got most of my work done. Brunch was a hit.

Afterwards, it was major clean up, getting dressed and heading into "town" for some shopping at the sutlers....almost. By this time, Bubby was whining up a storm and seemed to need a nap. Turned out, he just needed a bottle and was ready to go shopping......

I'm exhausted and starting to doze off. I'll continue this post tomorrow.