Holiday Prep Weekend: Sunday

Up at 5.30am to drop a friend at the bus station for 6am. Then home and packed for my two weeks away - to include reenactment, camping, hiking, and general partying, in two countries and over several counties.

Arrived at Berkeley for 1pm (4hr drive), set up camp and was ready to roll when it came to the big fight at 4pm. Fielded with the 'Scots Guard' a I was the only one of my group, and it was commented on that we looked incredible dashing and handsome in our matching tabards.

I chose to fight with shield and short sword as not many people do, and most people don't expect you to get up close and personal on the field. We had a really fun fight, with scraps against a large variety of different groups an weapon combinations.

Unfortunately, in the last 3mins of the battle, I managed to deflect a sword with my lower lip (totally accidental on their part as they were being attacked by someone else). It didnt feel like much, but I could feel the blood running down my chin and could stick my tongue in the hole that ha appeared. Considering I was right on the crowd line an didn't want them seeing a load of blood, I 'died' an waited for a chance to leave the field 5 mins later.

A brief chat to the Red Cross (well they were wearing red and weren't St'Johns) and was told to get to A&E straight away for stitches before it got infected and fell off.

So by 5.30pm I'm seeing a rather nice nurse called Sarah at Gloucester A&E. 'And how did this happen?' 'Got hit by a sword.' 'Oh, right.'
She managed to get me fast tracked so that I was stitched and back at the beer tent by 8pm to a chorus of 'Why so serious?'. Ha.

Ended up drinking an discussing geeky TV series round a campfire with a group from Plymouth I haven't seen in 3 years. Sweet.