I’m still amazed to be typing 2004.

The B&B we’re in (Y Fon, in the Caerphilly suburb of Pwyll-y-Pant), is about 160 years old and was a hunting lodge for the Marques of Bute, who’s the guy who commissioned all of the Victorian medievalesque decoration in Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch. The dining room has a high ceiling and one stone wall with a fireplace.

I wish I could fully imagine what the place originally looked like, but it’s almost impossible in our bedroom (which is on the third floor, all stairs). It’s got blood-red swirly 70s carpeting and faded 80s art prints on the walls, and plastic light fixtures over the beds. (There are four twins, two pushed together—so we can’t even cuddle, dammit). The problem with staying in B&Bs is that it’s entirely hit-and-miss as to what you get. None are squalor, but you often don’t know whether you’re going to get charming or tacky.

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We got up Saturday morning and had breakfast. Started chatting with the other couple in the room, who were American. Turned out they were here for the event. (“We do reenactment,” they said, “We’re going to what we can Coronation—“ Got it, thanks!) Turned out they know Caitlin & Otto, who were also staying here. So we got to lurk in wait in the dining room and see their shock when they walked in and saw us. Bwahaha. So evil. Love it.

Went to Caerphilly, were surprised to see the castle gift shop had moved. In some ways, things are so familiar, that it doesn’t seem like we’ve been gone for two years. It seems like a few weeks. So changed things are startling. Anyway, we surprised more people, chatted with various folks, then settled down for Court.

When we first got to Drachenwald, the general feeling was “Court is boring; make it as short as possible”. Our response was “If Court is boring, make it interesting”. We went to several Coronations where the changing-over ceremony amounted to little more than “Here’s your crowns, bye”. Between the Peregrine and the Valkyries Coronation, and the Elffin Becomes Holy Roman Emperor Coronation, we injected a little fun and pomp into things. (I won’t say we did it single-handed, but I do believe we influenced things.) This one lived up to our expectations. Apparently Marcus and Anna, the stepping-down Royals, aren’t married—and Anna is dating Peregrine (see above. He’s a friend of ours, one of a number of people who wistfully asked after the hot tub that day.). So Anna admits to an affair with Peregrine (stating that her time with Marcus couldn’t be called a marriage because he didn’t, ahem, fulfill certain bedroom duties), and Marcus calls Peregrine into Court and threatens to execute him, and Anna abdicates her throne to stand at Peregrine’s side, and Marcus banishes them both to the Tower. Then he calls Elffin into Court, but Elffin had been at the docks about to lead the armies to war, and is chomping at the bit to go, and isn’t entirely happy to be crowned. But he is, with Signy at his side, and all is well.

The castle got awfully cold during the day. After lunch I asked the Event Steward about the status of the heaters (which were not hot), and she was surprised, as they’d been on earlier in the day. It turned out to be a rather serious problem—I saw the maintenance guy peering into the main heater, a cell phone clamped to his ear—but they did get things fixed. Alas, I got a chill I had trouble shaking, and after watching Umberto fight in Queen’s Champion Rapier for awhile, I spent a goodly amount of time huddled by one of the heaters.

There was a brief second Court, and then many people changed for supper, and then there was a nice feast. Not outstanding, but certainly by no means substandard. The lasagne was fabulous, as were the apple tarts. We did our presentation during the Feast (just gifties for Elffin and Signy), and Elffin embarrassed us by standing up and talking about how we ran the first Coronation at Caerphilly and it was due to our hard work and good relations with the castle folk that it could be held here again, etc. Sheez.

I helped clear tables and clean up (despite our plan to just sit and enjoy this one), and we went back to the crash site for a little bit, then headed back to the B&B for a good sleep.

We hung out with Caitlin and Otto and the couple from Ansteorra (we have their card, but I’m blanking on their names) at breakfast, then Ken showered and I puttered, and we packed up and headed out. We went to the crash space yet again to say goodbye to people, and schlepped some people to different places (train station, etc.) before making our final farewells. We went to the castle giftshop and town giftshop to pick up gifts and things, ate at a local pub, then left town.

We kept changing our minds on where to go. We were going to stay in Newport tonight, because Ken’s going to copy some information and see his old boss at Trikon tomorrow. But Newport’s less than half an hour away. First we decided to go to Hay-on-Wye, because we could (and because we need a UK guidebook, all ours still being packed away), but then we revised the plan and went to Llancaiach Fawr, one of those places we never got to when we lived here, primarily because it’s English Civil War era.

It turned out to be quite lovely. The house was built in 1520, but they’re re-creating 1645. There’s a nice display with background information, and then when you get to the house, you’re guided around by people in period dress, speaking in a period style, etc. We were quite amused to run into another SCA couple there. The guides were very efficient, and although the information was fairly basic and of the “interesting tidbit” nature, it was well presented.

After that, we nipped into downtown Newport in the hopes that a bookstore would be open, but they weren’t. So we checked into a Travelodge (the UK equivalent of Motel 6—we don’t know of any good B&Bs at this end of town, and the motel is right next to Trikon). Ken showered, and we spent some time debating which of our favourite restaurants we should visit again. We ended up at the Groes Wen Inn, within sight of one of the houses we lived in (we drove by all three, just because). We shared a goat’s cheese and red onion tart for a starter, Ken had a beef and pepper Wellington, and I had a crunchy lemon chicken. Before we even ordered, I fixated on the raspberry and apple crumble with warm custard, only to find out at the end of our meal that they were out! I was crushed.

Given that Newport isn’t exactly a rocking place on the best of nights, much less Sundays, we swung by the movie theatre, but nothing was starting for another 45 minutes to an hour, so we came back to the motel and will relax and read for awhile.