[Sca-cooks] Report from England

[Michael Gunter]

Well, I've gotten several reports from Selene
as she tours London. Unfortunately she has
a cold, bleeding feet and the world's smallest
hotel room.

But she has spent considerable time at the Victoria
& Albert museum as well as several other spots of
interest. I'm afraid I would have either killed her
or wandered off in search of entertainment after
a while. Y'see, she spends this time cooing over
fabric.

She also scored a major coup in the Museum of
London. She managed to sweet-talk a curator, who
cleared it with Sir "Soandso" to take photographs
of the Medieval and Tudor collections. She thinks
they were shocked that an American, even worse an
American from Arizona, would be able to discuss the
Cheapside Horde collection.

She plans on spending a couple of hours in the
Hampton Court kitchens taking a bunch of photographs
for me. Woot!

Here's an interesting observation she had (with permission)

"The more I see of period stuff, the more surprised I am at
how much the SCA actually gets right.  Something that's
really surprised me is how gawdy some of the Elizabethan
jewelry and fabrics really are.  I have to confess I've
sneered at some people's costuming attempts in the past as
being too garish and modern looking only to discover almost
identical examples of real stuff.  Some of the shot silks are really
modern looking and a lot of the Elizabethan jewelry looks like it
could have been raided from my grandma's costume jewelry collection."

It's neat when we get to see the reality over the fantasy
we build up about our period. I remember I used to believe
that Medieval knights wore armor all the time.

She's having a good time although she's a bit mopey, sick, lonely
and homesick.

British television is very...interesting.

Yers,

Gunthar





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