Two Decades of Terpsichore!
The dance event charles_midair started for me is going stronger than ever 20 years later - I can hardly believe it! I was part of many plans to make our 20th Anniversary special, but I had no notion of all the wonderful things that would occur this weekend. So much happiness!
The week leading up to Terp was stressful - the schizophrenic weather meant that I was always on the verge of a migraine, and while I was able to keep it at bay during the day, I woke up with one every night. And charles_midair was also having a difficult, pain-filled week. Even so, I was super excited about the event, and managed to complete all the preparations for my houseguests and the post rev (even though I felt I was running around like a headless chicken for the last couple days - pretty typical, though).
The festivities began Friday evening with a lovely dinner at Mac’s with charles_midair, magda_vogelsang, sionandreas, Philip, niquerio, aelkiss (they could make a Friday dinner there - yay!), Felice, and Mike. Jackie was going to join us, but ended up quite late due to traffic, so just stopped by for hugs then headed to the site. Gwommy and Pat were also late, but joined our table for a little bit - it was not at all intentional that their arrival appeared to be our cue to leave! Wonderful food, as always (Yay, crab cakes!) and even better company!
We then went to the site for pick up dancing, led by Felice, combined with musicians’ rehearsal. Before the dancing started magda_vogelsang and I set up a display to celebrate our 20th Anniversary, including a photo display from Terps gone by, a spread of the Terpsichore books from every year (with the exceptions of Terps 1&2 which I was unable to get), and the cassette tapes from which we played the Terpsichore I ball - boy have we come a long way since then! Magda’s cake, a replica of Gwommy’s boot, was also there - amazing! I also had some of Magda’s marvelous trifle, which has also become a Friday night tradition.
The Friday night dancing revel keeps getting better every year, as more people are becoming aware of it. We ended up with upwards of 30 people dancing - yay! For the first dance, we had 8, and we were all dithering about what dance to do. Finally decided on Goddesses, which I taught. I then promised to call during the dance - thankfully, I did not promise to call it correctly. I kept getting distracted by more friends arriving and calling the wrong next verse - doh! Thankfully, others were more on the ball, and we got all 11 verses in :)
As always, such a joyful reunion with lots of friends! I was particularly happy Jackie made it - she got such evident happiness from dancing, and she had tons of dance requests all ready, which kept things moving (no more dithering). So much fun! We kept dancing til 11pm and then several of us headed back to my place to hang out and play games. The Mao game outlasted me, as I headed to bed around 1pm. Didn’t get a ton of sleep, but had to try! Probably managed to get more than those who stayed up til 5:30am. . .
Saturday morning, I had breakfast at the City Limits Diner and Pancake House with charles_midair, magda_vogelsang, sionandreas, and Jamie. Had a big breakfast, since I didn’t know when I’d next get a chance to eat (omlette with cheddar cheese, bacon, sausage, onions, mushrooms, and peppers, pancakes and fruit - yum!) Then it was off to the site for charles_midair to teach his 9am class (back in the day - featuring the out of period “throwback” dances from Terp 1) and for me to finish setting up the dance rooms with music playing devices, signs, etc. His class was well attended - I wish I could have joined in on the fun! I was also the first to visit Gwommy during his vigil.
At 10am, everything was in great shape, so I went to Jamie’s Turn of the Key class. A challenging dance to teach (which was not unexpected, given the number of rather complex original figures). It helped having Lynette and myself in the set (and having only one set, which is why I scheduled it at 10), as we were familiar with the dance - and even with us, it took pretty much the entire hour to do. Still fun times! He didn’t have time to teach Pennsic Dance, but we danced it once at the end as well - yay!
I stuck around at 11am for Jamie’s dances from Playford with slow sets class - Glory of the West and The Health, which went very well! 4 sets of Glory of the West (I don’t know that more would have fit in the room) - fun dance that everyone seemed to get and enjoy! I enjoyed dancing in a set with Angelle, who I hadn’t seen for a long time! The Health was interesting - not only had I never done it before, but Jamie had never taught it before either. So there were places where we had to decide how to do certain things (who to face while setting and such). Fun to learn a new dance! And there was time at the end (as expected, I’d put the classes back to back in case Turn ran over), so he was able to teach Pennsic Dance after all. Yay - I love that dance!
The lunch break featured Gwommy’s bonus lunch time class where he taught his verse of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. I helped find enough people to finish out the 12 person set, including Alex and Sally, who had just gotten their lunch and had not yet had time to eat it - thankfully, their priorities were in order and they decided dance was more important! It went much better than it had at Pennsic (at 3am, and with him having mixed up who was heads verses sides, which made it not work at all). Amazingly, even more complex that Jamie’s verses, which I’m sure many people would not think possible. But very cool and fun to do! Definitely gave us all a sense of accomplishment to successfully do it! Made me want to do my verse again too.
After lunch, I went to Alex’s English-ish dance class. He was surprised to see me there, as he knew I already knew the dances, but I decided it might be useful for him to have a ringer for Two Fat Ladies (and, since it wasn’t in the ball, that would be my one chance to do that dance). Another very well-attended class. He taught his original choreography, North Tower, first, followed by Heralds in Love, and ended with Two Fat Ladies. It was very good that Lynette and I were in the set, which managed to train wreck several times even with us. A dance that many find challenging to learn, but Alex did an excellent job of teaching it. And when we did get through it, such a sense of accomplishment!
Next was sionandreas’s Dance Atrocities class, in which he taught 3 new original choreographies. sionandreas continues to be one of my favorite teachers - I love his teaching style and his choreographies! All very fun, but my favorite was Crossed Purposes, a dance for 12 in a cruciform shape, inspired by Saint Paul’s Cathedral, with a wonderful version of the Two Fat Ladies TAG hey. So lovely!
Last was Felice’s reconstruction experiment class, where she presented her reconstructions of Pennsic Dance (from Maurin’s notes jotted down for his own reference) and a verse of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. (Yes Jamie was extremely well-represented in the classes this year - 2 classes taught by him and 3 others with choreographies inspired by him or reconstructions of his choreographies!) I cannot express how much I loved this class!! The concept was awesome in itself, and Felice’s presentation was nothing short of brilliant! It was fun to learn her reconstruction, which was an entirely plausible interpretation of the notes she was given, and it certainly provides food for thought about how confident we can be of our reconstructions of period sources. We then showed her what Jamie actually choreographed, and enjoyed watching her reactions. It was cool - her reconstruction was dead on for the first chorus, similar but not identical for the second chorus, and completely different for the third.
Sadly, I was unable to stay for the Saint Paul’s portion of her class - I had called in a huge pizza, calzone and pasta order the day before that was due to be delivered at 4:15pm, so I felt the need to collect some more cash, get everything organized, and wait upstairs for the delivery guy. That went amazingly well! Cottage Inn did a fantastic job of handling such a huge order of diverse stuff. The only thing that wasn’t right was they sent a 2 liter of regular Pepsi instead of diet. They also applied all sorts of coupons to give us the best possible deal (which ended up resulting in a very nice tip for the delivery guy). Yay!
After dinner, it was time for court. The church let us use the sanctuary for that purpose this year, which was really nice. Gwommy’s elevation wasn’t going to happen until after the first set of the ball, on the dance floor, but I had heard that there were a lot of high level awards on the list, so I was looking forward to it. So many well-deserved awards! Simcha got a silver oak for her research into period judaism. Renaude received his Evergreen for his food genius! Arielle got a Dragon’s Heart. Jadwiga and Aaron were called up together and both received Evergreens. Michaela and Rannulf were also called up together and were made Court Baroness and Baron, with scrolls in French! Gregoire received a Grant of Arms. So cool!
Anthoinette’s Laurel ceremony was also quite moving, especially the song written for the occasion. Afterward, I followed her out of court to give her a hug and welcome her to the Order (she didn’t realize any of us were doing that, so we kind of had to chase her down, which was kind of amusing). I then went back to my seat and was perplexed to see that charles_midair was not there. I quickly spotted him kneeling before TRM! So glad I made it back in time to see him receive the Saphire!
This first installment of court ended with A’kos’ knighting, which was incredibly moving, and included a quite impressive buffet.
It was then time for the ball - yay! One of the fun things we planned for our 20th Anniversary was a ball scavenger hunt. Ceara did a marvelous job organizing this game. Everyone had a dance card listing every dance in the ball, and there were 20 categories of dance partners you had to fill in and do a dance with (things like someone wearing a gold coronet, someone you’ve never danced with before, someone with period shoes, etc.) The dance cards themselves were quite lovely as well, designed by our own baroness Hannah! It was a great way to encourage people to dance with lots of different partners and people had great fun with it! (Our original idea had been to have dance cards for the royalty and our baron and baroness, but it evolved into this).
Another thing we did for the 20th Anniversary was include several “call-back” dances in the ball. We ended the first three sets with an out of period favorite from our 1st ball list, things we hadn’t seen in the event for many years, like Road to the Isles, Korobushka, and Trenchmore (technically not out of period, but still not done). What people may not have realized was that starting the first two sets with a pavanne and galliard was also a call-back to the Terp I ball, in which every set started that way (albeit with pavannes like Duchess Rondalyn’s and Earl of Salisbury). Belle Qui was a common ball opener for many Terpsichores, so seemed appropriate for this one as well. The second set started with a new pavanne choreography by sionandreas, in keeping with our tradition of also introducing new dances at the event. Fun for those of us in the know!
I believe I danced every dance in the ball, even the bassedance, with the exception of the bransle suite, during which I was engaged in a serious conversation (started out as the typical joke that we had something very important to discuss and had to miss the dance, but, in point of fact, I did!). The dancing was all great fun - highlights included being in the performance set of Crossed Purposes and, of course, dancing Korobushka with charles_midair. I was amused when doing Bizzaria d’Amore with Maurin, charles_midair, and Teleri when Maurin asked Teleri what good she was to him (vis a vis the scavenger hunt). Her expression was priceless! I suggested someone who was at the first Terpsichore and found out that’s what I was for. Laugh!
After the first set of the ball, and before the dessert revel, court resumed. Philip had pulled me aside earlier to let me in on the plan for Gwommy’s elevation. Philip was going to keep trying to go up there to beg the boon and was going to get sent away. Felice was then going to be called up for a special award she didn’t know about. After that, they were going to call all the dance Laurels up, and from within the group, Philip would beg the boon. So he asked me to hang out with the other Laurels and have us all piva into court for this purpose. I was all ready!
It started just as planned with Philip approaching and being sent away (many people were convinced this was not schtick, but really happening!). Felice was then called up. She was told she did not have to kneel if she did not wish to (a nice courtesy given her pregnant state, but she did anyway) and they then made her a Court Baroness! Yay! So cool. Philip tried to approach again and was sent off, and I heard the king remark something like, “let’s get Alina up here.” So I was called into court. I thought they wanted me to beg the boon for Gwommy! I did piva steps up to the Crown, as per the plan I knew about, and waited expectantly for them to give me a cue. Then Ceillach told me I did not have to kneel if I did not wish to, and I suddenly realized I wasn’t up there for Gwommy, but for me! My eyes widened in shock, and I knelt down.
At this point, time slowed to a crawl. Ermenrich was reading the scroll, and the salutations part seemed to go on for hours and I knelt not knowing where to look or what honor I was about to receive. Turns out I am also a Court Baroness now - yay! What a happy surprise!
After that, Philip was finally allowed to beg his boon. When the Laurels were called up and we all agreed enthusiastically that he should join our order, Gwommy’s procession started dancing forward. And quickly stopped and danced backward a bit when told to wait for the candidate to be summoned. Laugh - fit right in with Philip’s schtick. He was summoned and processed up with a big procession of dancers to the tune of a new Cascarda that he and Felice are choreographing. His ceremony was also quite lovely, with a very moving letter from Judith of Northumbria (as royal peer) being read into court by Philip, and words in person by Straum and charles_midair (as knight and pelican, respectively). Huzzah!
After court, Giovanna formally took Ceara as her protege in yet another very moving ceremony. So many great things happened at this event! Here is a picture of charles_midair giving her a quest!
The dessert revel was impressive, as always, The highlight, of course, was Magda’s boot cake, but there was a wide array of desserts and savory treats. I had brought soapapilla cheescake bars and Italian lace (biscotti and almonds covered with white chocolate and caramel). The bars all went as did most of the lace. Yay!
We managed to get through the entire ball list, amazingly - we thought we’d probably have to cut something, but we finished just one minute past 11pm! Lynette was the winner of the scavenger hunt. And then it was back to our place for the post revel, feature lots of food (including the dessert revel leftovers, of which there were plenty), great company (including our fabulous royalty), games, and a lovely massage for me by Sionnain (her hostess gift to me and much appreciated). I was up til after 3am - whee!
Sunday was Crepes and Cascarde, hosted by niquerio and aelkiss. So much fun! We picked up the kids about 9am and headed over to delicious crepes for breakfast and lots of dancing. Mostly Cascarde, as advertised - mostly done for as many as well, since that fit best into the space. So lovely to do them to live music, including the harpsichord! We also did Montarde Bransle for 13, getting everyone involved. Various people had to hit the road along the way and were sent off with hugs, and the last of us left around 12:30.
I knew Terp 20 was going to be something special, but I really had no idea! Yay, dancing!!
The week leading up to Terp was stressful - the schizophrenic weather meant that I was always on the verge of a migraine, and while I was able to keep it at bay during the day, I woke up with one every night. And charles_midair was also having a difficult, pain-filled week. Even so, I was super excited about the event, and managed to complete all the preparations for my houseguests and the post rev (even though I felt I was running around like a headless chicken for the last couple days - pretty typical, though).
The festivities began Friday evening with a lovely dinner at Mac’s with charles_midair, magda_vogelsang, sionandreas, Philip, niquerio, aelkiss (they could make a Friday dinner there - yay!), Felice, and Mike. Jackie was going to join us, but ended up quite late due to traffic, so just stopped by for hugs then headed to the site. Gwommy and Pat were also late, but joined our table for a little bit - it was not at all intentional that their arrival appeared to be our cue to leave! Wonderful food, as always (Yay, crab cakes!) and even better company!
We then went to the site for pick up dancing, led by Felice, combined with musicians’ rehearsal. Before the dancing started magda_vogelsang and I set up a display to celebrate our 20th Anniversary, including a photo display from Terps gone by, a spread of the Terpsichore books from every year (with the exceptions of Terps 1&2 which I was unable to get), and the cassette tapes from which we played the Terpsichore I ball - boy have we come a long way since then! Magda’s cake, a replica of Gwommy’s boot, was also there - amazing! I also had some of Magda’s marvelous trifle, which has also become a Friday night tradition.
The Friday night dancing revel keeps getting better every year, as more people are becoming aware of it. We ended up with upwards of 30 people dancing - yay! For the first dance, we had 8, and we were all dithering about what dance to do. Finally decided on Goddesses, which I taught. I then promised to call during the dance - thankfully, I did not promise to call it correctly. I kept getting distracted by more friends arriving and calling the wrong next verse - doh! Thankfully, others were more on the ball, and we got all 11 verses in :)
As always, such a joyful reunion with lots of friends! I was particularly happy Jackie made it - she got such evident happiness from dancing, and she had tons of dance requests all ready, which kept things moving (no more dithering). So much fun! We kept dancing til 11pm and then several of us headed back to my place to hang out and play games. The Mao game outlasted me, as I headed to bed around 1pm. Didn’t get a ton of sleep, but had to try! Probably managed to get more than those who stayed up til 5:30am. . .
Saturday morning, I had breakfast at the City Limits Diner and Pancake House with charles_midair, magda_vogelsang, sionandreas, and Jamie. Had a big breakfast, since I didn’t know when I’d next get a chance to eat (omlette with cheddar cheese, bacon, sausage, onions, mushrooms, and peppers, pancakes and fruit - yum!) Then it was off to the site for charles_midair to teach his 9am class (back in the day - featuring the out of period “throwback” dances from Terp 1) and for me to finish setting up the dance rooms with music playing devices, signs, etc. His class was well attended - I wish I could have joined in on the fun! I was also the first to visit Gwommy during his vigil.
At 10am, everything was in great shape, so I went to Jamie’s Turn of the Key class. A challenging dance to teach (which was not unexpected, given the number of rather complex original figures). It helped having Lynette and myself in the set (and having only one set, which is why I scheduled it at 10), as we were familiar with the dance - and even with us, it took pretty much the entire hour to do. Still fun times! He didn’t have time to teach Pennsic Dance, but we danced it once at the end as well - yay!
I stuck around at 11am for Jamie’s dances from Playford with slow sets class - Glory of the West and The Health, which went very well! 4 sets of Glory of the West (I don’t know that more would have fit in the room) - fun dance that everyone seemed to get and enjoy! I enjoyed dancing in a set with Angelle, who I hadn’t seen for a long time! The Health was interesting - not only had I never done it before, but Jamie had never taught it before either. So there were places where we had to decide how to do certain things (who to face while setting and such). Fun to learn a new dance! And there was time at the end (as expected, I’d put the classes back to back in case Turn ran over), so he was able to teach Pennsic Dance after all. Yay - I love that dance!
The lunch break featured Gwommy’s bonus lunch time class where he taught his verse of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. I helped find enough people to finish out the 12 person set, including Alex and Sally, who had just gotten their lunch and had not yet had time to eat it - thankfully, their priorities were in order and they decided dance was more important! It went much better than it had at Pennsic (at 3am, and with him having mixed up who was heads verses sides, which made it not work at all). Amazingly, even more complex that Jamie’s verses, which I’m sure many people would not think possible. But very cool and fun to do! Definitely gave us all a sense of accomplishment to successfully do it! Made me want to do my verse again too.
After lunch, I went to Alex’s English-ish dance class. He was surprised to see me there, as he knew I already knew the dances, but I decided it might be useful for him to have a ringer for Two Fat Ladies (and, since it wasn’t in the ball, that would be my one chance to do that dance). Another very well-attended class. He taught his original choreography, North Tower, first, followed by Heralds in Love, and ended with Two Fat Ladies. It was very good that Lynette and I were in the set, which managed to train wreck several times even with us. A dance that many find challenging to learn, but Alex did an excellent job of teaching it. And when we did get through it, such a sense of accomplishment!
Next was sionandreas’s Dance Atrocities class, in which he taught 3 new original choreographies. sionandreas continues to be one of my favorite teachers - I love his teaching style and his choreographies! All very fun, but my favorite was Crossed Purposes, a dance for 12 in a cruciform shape, inspired by Saint Paul’s Cathedral, with a wonderful version of the Two Fat Ladies TAG hey. So lovely!
Last was Felice’s reconstruction experiment class, where she presented her reconstructions of Pennsic Dance (from Maurin’s notes jotted down for his own reference) and a verse of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. (Yes Jamie was extremely well-represented in the classes this year - 2 classes taught by him and 3 others with choreographies inspired by him or reconstructions of his choreographies!) I cannot express how much I loved this class!! The concept was awesome in itself, and Felice’s presentation was nothing short of brilliant! It was fun to learn her reconstruction, which was an entirely plausible interpretation of the notes she was given, and it certainly provides food for thought about how confident we can be of our reconstructions of period sources. We then showed her what Jamie actually choreographed, and enjoyed watching her reactions. It was cool - her reconstruction was dead on for the first chorus, similar but not identical for the second chorus, and completely different for the third.
Sadly, I was unable to stay for the Saint Paul’s portion of her class - I had called in a huge pizza, calzone and pasta order the day before that was due to be delivered at 4:15pm, so I felt the need to collect some more cash, get everything organized, and wait upstairs for the delivery guy. That went amazingly well! Cottage Inn did a fantastic job of handling such a huge order of diverse stuff. The only thing that wasn’t right was they sent a 2 liter of regular Pepsi instead of diet. They also applied all sorts of coupons to give us the best possible deal (which ended up resulting in a very nice tip for the delivery guy). Yay!
After dinner, it was time for court. The church let us use the sanctuary for that purpose this year, which was really nice. Gwommy’s elevation wasn’t going to happen until after the first set of the ball, on the dance floor, but I had heard that there were a lot of high level awards on the list, so I was looking forward to it. So many well-deserved awards! Simcha got a silver oak for her research into period judaism. Renaude received his Evergreen for his food genius! Arielle got a Dragon’s Heart. Jadwiga and Aaron were called up together and both received Evergreens. Michaela and Rannulf were also called up together and were made Court Baroness and Baron, with scrolls in French! Gregoire received a Grant of Arms. So cool!
Anthoinette’s Laurel ceremony was also quite moving, especially the song written for the occasion. Afterward, I followed her out of court to give her a hug and welcome her to the Order (she didn’t realize any of us were doing that, so we kind of had to chase her down, which was kind of amusing). I then went back to my seat and was perplexed to see that charles_midair was not there. I quickly spotted him kneeling before TRM! So glad I made it back in time to see him receive the Saphire!
This first installment of court ended with A’kos’ knighting, which was incredibly moving, and included a quite impressive buffet.
It was then time for the ball - yay! One of the fun things we planned for our 20th Anniversary was a ball scavenger hunt. Ceara did a marvelous job organizing this game. Everyone had a dance card listing every dance in the ball, and there were 20 categories of dance partners you had to fill in and do a dance with (things like someone wearing a gold coronet, someone you’ve never danced with before, someone with period shoes, etc.) The dance cards themselves were quite lovely as well, designed by our own baroness Hannah! It was a great way to encourage people to dance with lots of different partners and people had great fun with it! (Our original idea had been to have dance cards for the royalty and our baron and baroness, but it evolved into this).
Another thing we did for the 20th Anniversary was include several “call-back” dances in the ball. We ended the first three sets with an out of period favorite from our 1st ball list, things we hadn’t seen in the event for many years, like Road to the Isles, Korobushka, and Trenchmore (technically not out of period, but still not done). What people may not have realized was that starting the first two sets with a pavanne and galliard was also a call-back to the Terp I ball, in which every set started that way (albeit with pavannes like Duchess Rondalyn’s and Earl of Salisbury). Belle Qui was a common ball opener for many Terpsichores, so seemed appropriate for this one as well. The second set started with a new pavanne choreography by sionandreas, in keeping with our tradition of also introducing new dances at the event. Fun for those of us in the know!
I believe I danced every dance in the ball, even the bassedance, with the exception of the bransle suite, during which I was engaged in a serious conversation (started out as the typical joke that we had something very important to discuss and had to miss the dance, but, in point of fact, I did!). The dancing was all great fun - highlights included being in the performance set of Crossed Purposes and, of course, dancing Korobushka with charles_midair. I was amused when doing Bizzaria d’Amore with Maurin, charles_midair, and Teleri when Maurin asked Teleri what good she was to him (vis a vis the scavenger hunt). Her expression was priceless! I suggested someone who was at the first Terpsichore and found out that’s what I was for. Laugh!
After the first set of the ball, and before the dessert revel, court resumed. Philip had pulled me aside earlier to let me in on the plan for Gwommy’s elevation. Philip was going to keep trying to go up there to beg the boon and was going to get sent away. Felice was then going to be called up for a special award she didn’t know about. After that, they were going to call all the dance Laurels up, and from within the group, Philip would beg the boon. So he asked me to hang out with the other Laurels and have us all piva into court for this purpose. I was all ready!
It started just as planned with Philip approaching and being sent away (many people were convinced this was not schtick, but really happening!). Felice was then called up. She was told she did not have to kneel if she did not wish to (a nice courtesy given her pregnant state, but she did anyway) and they then made her a Court Baroness! Yay! So cool. Philip tried to approach again and was sent off, and I heard the king remark something like, “let’s get Alina up here.” So I was called into court. I thought they wanted me to beg the boon for Gwommy! I did piva steps up to the Crown, as per the plan I knew about, and waited expectantly for them to give me a cue. Then Ceillach told me I did not have to kneel if I did not wish to, and I suddenly realized I wasn’t up there for Gwommy, but for me! My eyes widened in shock, and I knelt down.
At this point, time slowed to a crawl. Ermenrich was reading the scroll, and the salutations part seemed to go on for hours and I knelt not knowing where to look or what honor I was about to receive. Turns out I am also a Court Baroness now - yay! What a happy surprise!
After that, Philip was finally allowed to beg his boon. When the Laurels were called up and we all agreed enthusiastically that he should join our order, Gwommy’s procession started dancing forward. And quickly stopped and danced backward a bit when told to wait for the candidate to be summoned. Laugh - fit right in with Philip’s schtick. He was summoned and processed up with a big procession of dancers to the tune of a new Cascarda that he and Felice are choreographing. His ceremony was also quite lovely, with a very moving letter from Judith of Northumbria (as royal peer) being read into court by Philip, and words in person by Straum and charles_midair (as knight and pelican, respectively). Huzzah!
After court, Giovanna formally took Ceara as her protege in yet another very moving ceremony. So many great things happened at this event! Here is a picture of charles_midair giving her a quest!
The dessert revel was impressive, as always, The highlight, of course, was Magda’s boot cake, but there was a wide array of desserts and savory treats. I had brought soapapilla cheescake bars and Italian lace (biscotti and almonds covered with white chocolate and caramel). The bars all went as did most of the lace. Yay!
We managed to get through the entire ball list, amazingly - we thought we’d probably have to cut something, but we finished just one minute past 11pm! Lynette was the winner of the scavenger hunt. And then it was back to our place for the post revel, feature lots of food (including the dessert revel leftovers, of which there were plenty), great company (including our fabulous royalty), games, and a lovely massage for me by Sionnain (her hostess gift to me and much appreciated). I was up til after 3am - whee!
Sunday was Crepes and Cascarde, hosted by niquerio and aelkiss. So much fun! We picked up the kids about 9am and headed over to delicious crepes for breakfast and lots of dancing. Mostly Cascarde, as advertised - mostly done for as many as well, since that fit best into the space. So lovely to do them to live music, including the harpsichord! We also did Montarde Bransle for 13, getting everyone involved. Various people had to hit the road along the way and were sent off with hugs, and the last of us left around 12:30.
I knew Terp 20 was going to be something special, but I really had no idea! Yay, dancing!!