winterbadger | Fort Ward event

We had a good time, yesterday, despite it being desperately cold. There was a pretty decent turnout of units: half a dozen 23rd, about half a dozen of the wonderful Maryland Loyalists, six 42nd and four RA, a pile of different Hessians--Joe Mallet commanded the British, which made for some language barriers :-), a goodly number of the Guards, and a handful of 84th. Oh, and the Enemy! :-) Greg Ehrman was there with his ?3rd? VA, the milita that Mr Borek is in was there and stole away Nick, our recruit, to swell their ranks, and there were plenty of 1st Virginia! (There may be more groups in there, but they all meld together with their rabbly uniforms and lack of distonctions ;-)

I had brought copies of the directions to the after-party Mr Borek was kindly hosting, but I only realized at the last minute that we had no recruiting material with us. So I quickly formatted what we had on our website into a four-page flyer and stuck in some copies of the short 42nd history I had kicking around and took those along. I had to edit out some contact info, because I couldn't actually remember who we'd elected to what new positions this year :-), but I did but in current info for Bryan, Susan, Ben, and myself. Well, I thought myself, then I noticed it still had my Verizon address. That is to say, I notice after I'd handed it out!

And hand out we did. One guy actually came right up to us after the event was over and asked for recruiting info! I quickly handed out stuff to a couple of other folks who at least stopped and talked to us for a while; don't know if we'll get any nibbles, but one guy's GF was very enthusiastic about his joining us.. :-) Altogether we gave away six packets, though I know one of those will be bringing me nothing but headaches,

Because our friends the Russian naval attache was back. He recognized us fromt he Scottish Xmas Walk and wanted to tell me all about the good photos he'd gotten of us, and how he'd like to pass them on. I gave him a packet, because it had (I thought) my contact info on it, and then he sid, Well, the photos weren't digital, and could we have lunch sometime and he could pass on copies to me. Yes, having lunch with a foreign military officer, who is almost certainly a spook, and passing pictures back and forth; I'm sure my security officer would love my doing that...

Our schedule for the day consisted mostly of standing around chatting, drilling a bit, standing around a bit more, getting some coffee, drilling a bit more, having lunch, doing the "battle", and the n packign up and going home. It was *bloody* cold, and by the end of the day I bitterly regretted having forgotten my fingertipless wool gloves. My musket was being cranky to begin with and not firing consistently, but once I'd snapped it a couple of times and wiped off the flint when it fired, it did OK. We started off being part of the line (our numbers depleted by one private getting a call on his mobile right after he arrived from his wife telling him to come home and anothe private being yanked off to help on the gun) but after the action commenced Mr Mallet asked us if we'd like to form a skirmish line to link up the infantry to the gun; so we did that, and potted at the Virginia artillerists (I think Bryan got one) until the final charge, at which we jumped in and formed up on the right of the infantry. We all charged the enemy line (and got a bit too close, actually), and mostly dies in a horrible volley of death. The remains of our line scampered off (I think it was the MD Loyalist officer, two highlanders, the Welch's drummer, and one Hessian) and lived to fight another day.

The after-party was quite lavish, with food and drink galore and entertaining people to talk to. Mr B has a very nice house, furnished with all sorts of 18th century gear, some repro, some original, clearly showing his love of and fascination with the period. What a generous host!

Really (other than the cold), the only bad part of the day was coming back. I was coming down the ramp from Braddock to 395 and to my surprise the red/green light that regulates traffic flow on weekedays was on. So I braked hurriedly and waited for it to change. Just as I was about to proceed, two huge vehicles (an SUV and a van) *SPED* around me and cut me off. I blew my horn repeatedly, at which one of them stopped and the driver got out and started abusing me for stopping. I pointed out that one generally stopped for red lights. He inisisted there was no red light. I assured him there was, and would he like to walk back and see. He switched to "those don't work on Sunday!" I suggested that they clearly did, since they were on, and was about to observe that "It's Sunday, so I didn't think I had to stop for traffic lights" would probably not convince a policeman to refrain from giving out a costly ticket when the b*stard got back in his car and drove away. Since I was behind him for the next few miles, I took the opportunity to point out the next few ramps, where the same regulating lights were running and people were, in fact, stopping at them. I don't think I made much impression. Wanker.

Mr. B had fed us all so well that I hardly felt I needed more dinner, so I ran a huge hot bath and soaked for a while. Than an evening of BBC America from the TiVo (some other time I think I'll let loose with my opinions on all the things I think the writers of "Monarch of the Glen" have done wrong) and so to bed. Got up at the usual time (6.30) to feed the cats, and then went back to bed and slept until after 10. Time for some breakfast, now, I think, and then to compile a (huge) list of all the chores I need to do today. C&M get back from their trip tonight very late.