Þóra Greylock

 

It was the first time I had been since before Easter (and only the third time at all). Since my second week at choir was the last practice before their Easter performances at the church (which I wasn't willing to participate in, in part because too new to the songs, but mostly because church/religious songs), it wasn't as fun as my first visit to them. However, today's choir was much better--now that the pesky religious holiday is out of the way, they are working on traditional Swedish songs in praise of spring, many of which I already know from having sung with the choir in Luleå, so it was just a fun evening again. I guess I will keep going."


and for today (Thursday): a visit from my apprentice. While we were in Luleå last weekend Kakwkylla gave me some honey for Astrid, so today, after dropping her small child off at pre-school Astrid came here, and we worked together, with occasional breaks for snacks. It was really nice. I am, of course, trying to convince them that they want to buy one of the houses for sale in Lövånger. Astrid likes the idea, but convincing Josef might take more work.

 

Keldor woke me more than normal when he came in at 03:30 because he was so cold. He didn’t mean to wake me, but his legs and hips felt to me like he had been sitting in a snow bank before coming to bed.

 

It took a bit to fall back asleep, but he warmed up reasonably quickly after i added the extra blanket over our doona.

 

I slept in till after 07:00, so when I went downstairs Styrmir, Kakwkylla, and their dogs were already awake. My hips were aching, so I did some pliaties.

 

By the time I finished Alfarinn and Ranghild were up, and I picked back up sewing, as did Ranghild.

 

It was a a pleasant morning of company and projects. When brunch was served at 09:00 I woke Keldor to see if he wanted some. Yes, yes he did.

 

Just before noon we left and stopped by Kjartan and Caroline’s, where she was hosting a sewing afternoon for friends in her Middle Eastern dance troop, including Frida, the Archaeologist I worked with on the dig at Kirua. While I hubg out and xhatted with David, Keldor enjoyed chatting Norrland Archaeology with Frida. I would have enjoyed that conversation, too, but it was so good to see David, so I can’t mind missing it.

 

We spent perhaps 15 minutes or a half an hour there before continuing south. On the way home we dropped the Shire stuff we’d used at JMBards at the storage, and measured the space so now we know how much bigger is my preferred option for moving the storage to.

 

Once home we set up the pavilion he washed last week, and determined the new poles are about 20 cm longer than they need to be.

 

In the evening I finally traced Keldor’s arms onto the silk for his new banner

 

On the bus the computer didn’t want to start the first several times, so I sent a note to IT, who explained that it is time to update my bios, so that might be why. So I backed up my foders that aren’t on OneDrive, and booked time for him to do that after my morning meeting.

 

I caught the bus home directy after my SGNT exam, and spent a lazy bit of tine on the couch with Keldor. He went to bed at 19:00, I did an hour of yoga, and went to bed just after 20:00.

 

Keldor stayed late to add a water proofing liquid to the tent fabric, which is part of how I managed to make up the missing work hours. He had just finished when I put down the computer and called him.

 

After he got home, we started cutting the first two bits of trim for the attic bathroom loo floor then it was time for Reengarda officer meeting. Still no decision on if/where we will move storage, but before the next meeting we need to go to the existing storage and measure it.

 

During the meeting, and after, I sewed the first half of the container for Charlemange’s camera holder. Keldor fell asleep on the couch, so I stayed up later than I should have working on it, but the first half is done.

 

Today was Reengarda’s crafts day in town, but we decided to stay home and work on our project here (this decision prompted in part by a discussion with my sister in Australia about fuel prices just now, and realising that it cost even more here than there).

 

So today was the day we fixed our newest tent. When we were in Lofoten last summer and needed something in the way of a roof over the outdoor smithy to keep rain out of the forge, they discovered that one of the geteld tents hadn’t been dry when it was put away last summer and was so mouldy that it would need to be thrown away. We pointed out that mouldy canvas couldn’t be hurt any more by smoke from the forge, and they agreed, so the back wall was sliced open with a knife, and it became a lovely sunshade: 

 

At the end of our couple of weeks out there, when we took it down for the end of the season we realised that having it out in the sunlight, plus all the smoke from the forge had worked magic, and while discoloured, it no longer smelled of mould. We couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away that much canvas, so we rescued it.

 

Today it was time to fix it, so it will be usable at Double Wars. So we took a strip of canvas from a hammock Keldor found at a second hand store sometime this winter (the hammock looked new and unused) and sewed it (by hand) to the knife-cut tent wall. Keldor did the first pass of sewing, while I cleaned the dust off the under floor layer in the attic loo. (the rest of the hammock is a good size to make a bag for storing/transporting the tent).

 

Then I folded the strip of canvas over the seam and sewed down to seal in the cut edges, while he went upstairs and installed the linoleum floor.

 

Then he did top stitching through all the layers of the seam to strengthen it, while I painted the the first layer of paint on the wood trim that will go between wall and the floor.

 

Then we took the tent out and put a stick of rattan in the top channel of the tent, staled down the walls and lifted up the ridge pole and compared the tent height with pavilion poles from our sunshade. This tells us that we want uprights that are about 2 m, 30 or perhaps 40 cm tall, so he will make some.

 

Then we pack the tent fabric into the car. Tomorrow after work he will use the high pressure wash on it, and hang it to dry in the shop overnight. We don’t expect it to be perfect, but it should be useable for Double Wars. We have quite a few people who need crash space in tents in our camp, and the price for this one was right.

 

Then we curled up on the couch with some popcorn before I went down to paint the next layer of paint on the trim.

 

I must not have remembered to plug my computer in properly yesterday evening when we did training, as when I got on the bus this morning, the computer started to turn on, and then abruptly turned off again. Normally I just work on battery power on the bus, and it is fine. I got out the cable and plugged in the computer, but it took a while before it would turn on. Luckily, today was a day I had a messenger conversation with my SCA mother, so I was glad of the excuse to not have a computer on which to work.

 

By the time she said goodnight my computer was functioning again. But by then we were close enough to town that it didn’t seem worth working, so I updated this instead, and looked up physical therapists in Umeå. There is one whose office is reasonably near the uni, so I may call them—they open around the same time I will arrive on campus.

 

I blame the hip discomfort on the part where I forgot to pack my water bottle, so all of I have had to “drink” during my morning bus ride is the apple and orange I brought with me. So, as soon as I arrived I went straight to the lunch room, and found a 2 liter carbonated water bottle someone had left, so I rinsed it out and filled it, and had something to drink from the rest of the day.

 

I did try calling a couple of physical therapists, and sent messages to a couple of others, but didn’t manage to find any with time today, though one I messaged said that they regularly get last minute cancellations, so it is always worth it to check.

 

During full department Work Place Meeting I was having problems hearing the speaker, so I pressed the button my hearing aids, and suddenly I could hear the sound from the microphone piped directly into my hearing aids. This is the first time I have neededthat program, usually a microphone playing in the room iis good enough.

 

While I was in that meeting, they delivered my office soffa. Yay! After the meeting I met with one of the PhD students who had been involved in digitising a lot of old documents associated with an archaeological excavation back in the 1990’s, to find out what they did and get an introduction to the collection. I have volunteered to see if I can make sense out of the information and transform it into an archaeological report to turn into the county in which the excavation happened. Apparently as one of the archaeologists who ran that dig later got a PhD from us, we are responsible to write the report, and if we don’t the county may forbid us to ever be involved in another excavation in their county limits.

 

My motivation, on the other hand, is to get a bit more directly archaeology related experience, and I think it will be fun to look at the artefacts and write the report. It will certainly need an introduction that says something to the effect of “for reasons beyond our control some of the information from this excavation is no longer available, but…”

 

So this afternoon I looked up the name of the person who led the dig and found them on FB! Much to my delight, I have one friend in common with them, so I sent the mutual friend a note and asked for an introduction. This got me permission to send a direct message, so now I have sent a note introducing myself, and asking if it might be ok to do an interview. I hope they say yes!

 

Keldor had planned to stay in town and catch a hocky game, which didn’t sound interesting to me,so it seemed like a good opportunity to do someabout the shire “tablecloths” (they are black cotton bedsheets, but they work fine as tablecloths), which had gotten wax dripped on them.

 

Just after I sent a photo of the project to the shire chat, with the caption “I am not saying I don’t like hockey, but this sounds more fun”, Keldor walked in the door, feeling sorry for himself, as he didn’t get to see the game after all. Poor thing. Apparently they normally play the game at the theater in Folketshus in Skelleftåhamn, and he likes seeing it there, in comfortable seats, with a crowd of fans, but it didn’t happen this time.