Baroque training, Kensington Palace, Resplendence
Well, I think the Baroque period is not for me. I really enjoyed the day's training (looking in greater detail at parts of Hampton Court Palace I normally hurry through on my way to the Tudor bits and getting to see some rooms that are normally kept firmly locked), but the period just doesn't excite me in the same way that medieval and Tudor do. Ah, well. It's not like I'll lack for work. Plenty of the others I was training with were positively hungry for the period and that just means all the more Tudor work for me and my beard.
I met up with the recently-migrated-south JK and we did lunch and then visited Kensington Palace where there was a live interpretation/wild theatre thing I wanted to see. 'The Enchanted Palace' is a temporary thing while they're doing huge renovations to much of the building and everything I'd seen to publicise it seemed aimed at the 'Pretty Princesses in Pink' little girl demographic but I know they use live interpreters and, frankly, I was hoping for work. As it turned out, I glimpsed a 'Detector' character once or twice, but they were never actually doing anything and were moving in the brisk walk that I recognised as being someone on their way to their lunch break. Mind you, I might not have paid them that much attention anyway since for all I hadn't arrived with much interest in the stories of the many princesses who have called Kensington Palace 'home', the place is actually utterly enthralling.
It was mysterious, strange, creepy, funny, heart-breaking, startling, odd, clever and altogether wonderful. It really rewards close examination and exploration (there are facsimiles of letters tucked in here and there and there are secret messages hidden in some of the most surprising places) and it is very interactive, positively encouraging you to add to the installation. For example, the 'Room of Royal Sorrows' is festooned with paper labels on which visitors have written sad memories, the 'Room of the Sleeping Princess' has a huge book in which you can write a story, the 'Gallery of War and Play' has tens of thousands of toy soldiers lined up in battle array over suitcases and hat boxes and, by the time you reach the 'Room of Dancing Shadows' it's impossible not to join in. It's a wonderful visit and one I'll be making again soon.
The second half of January was taken up pretty much exclusively with preparing for Resplendence, a Flembic player event which was a very great deal of hard work, but worth it. I think. In the end.
We used Wilderhope Manor for a Cardini hosted event four years ago and it was very cool to return there.
Ups:-
- Two good friends enjoying themselves at an event they hadn't expected to attend until very short notice.
- Bird shooting. Always good fun and the lack of wind made it more successful than last time.
- Plenty of PC servants happy to be hired for the day, working hard to make things properly splendid and smooth-running and seeming to enjoy it and take satisfaction in a job well done. (Well, that's why I play a servant, anyway! It's kind of like doing event management IC.)
- Afternoon Tea - The afternoon 'show piece' for which I didn't have to lift a finger. The deeply entertaining sight of the cake competition judges being off their faces on Rantsin and Argenta.
- The return of Cardini truffles. Most especially watching people try them for the first time.
- Very frequent music. There was an 'Hour of Song' leading into midnight on the Friday, mucic accompanying dance practices throughout Sunday afternoon, someone singing for donations, someone playing for pleasure and then a three piece band for the evening ball.
- The seating plan. How to arrange the seating for 72 people - set nine 'fixed places', arrange everyone else more or less randomly and let your guests challenge one another to games/duels/races/contests if they want to sit in someone else's place. Close the challenges an hour or so before dinner and put out the place cards. Makes a lot of game for the guests, makes things easy for the people setting the dinner places.
- The Ball itself. There was some truly dazzling costumes and masks, the dancing practice really paid off in making teach times minimal, the exhibition dances were really good and the 'wild dances' (Hat Dance and Burgundy Brawl) I ran at the very end went down a storm. The musicians were atop tables pushed to the wall to make extra floor space, so we undoubtedly had the very best view of the whole thing. It was, indeed, Resplendent.
- People saying "I can't make the event. Can you sell my ticket to someone else so I can have a refund?", you finding someone to take that place and taking their money only to hear "Oh, I can make it after all. I hope the new person isn't too disappointed."
- People saying "wah, wah, wah, I'm not good enough to do this activity you've asked me to run and I'm kind of busy besides. Can you help?", then ignoring and discarding the work you do to make their task easier.
- People writing and expecting responses to IC letters/emails sent to an organiser the day before the event. Trust me, they are too busy cutting, slicing, gluing, stitching, wondering whether they'll have space in the car for all the set dressings they have to take or whether it would be better to put the passenger on a train, wondering whether they'll have time to sleep when they haven't even packed their own kit yet and wondering why the hell running this damn event ever seemed like a good idea... You're seeing them in person in a few hours. Leave it till then and do your RP in uptime, you muppet.
- People changing their bunk preferences the morning of the event, fully ten days after the deadline. I'm on my way to the event. In my bag is all the paperwork for a carefully crafted arrangement of who wants to share with who in which rooms in what part of the building. It took me several hours to work out, I've printed it out and made notices listing the residents of each room. Ten days ago I'd have been able to do something, but at this point it is entirely unreasonable to ask me to change things.
- The only particular downside at the event itself was a sudden disastrous leak from the showers above made the self catering kitchen unusable. Fortunately, the site was catering four of the five meals from their own kitchen at the other end of the building and we managed the one cold meal we were doing well enough.