If last year's trip was hell on wheels, then this year's trip was heaven on wings.
While calamity and depression seem to sell the big clicks these days on news and product...
there is something to be said about delight, friendships, safety and adventure combined as well!
The traveling was (thankfully) without incident and except for the occasional wild tractor trailer driver, the road conditions were just super. We got ahead of a storm on the way down...and we sidestepped a storm on the way back! WHEW! Lucky!
was turning Santa back into HARRY!
So I bought him a pampering day with a "Hot towel shave!"
Harry said it "was fantastic!" He felt like a million bucks afterwards! <3
We visited and stayed with friends in our love of communal gatherings, we worked at the Fort Myers Medieval Festival and enjoyed playing with the other minstrels and with the patrons!
We performed for an early morning news program, live on the air at 6am on a Sunday morning IN GARB, ON SITE. This is no small feat if you've ever had to get into garb at 5am for performance!
Oh, it was also 38 degrees. Did I mention that? We were fine. Harry's guitar got a new crack in the finish from the cold. We got free sandwiches, coffee and Meade for breakfast. It helped. :)
Our first faire weekend was chilly but fun! Here is a clip of friends of ours (Jay & Abby of The Harper & The Minstrel) and hammer dulcimer babe, Barby Holder) playing with us after the pub closed. It's pretty fun and special.
Click on it.
Minstrels off on a tangent :)
Our midweek found us doing a slug day (our traditional minstrel holiday) on the Mondays after faire. Slug days include padding around without a brain for 1/2 day. ...errands to the liquor store and otherwise laying around, eating, drinking, smoking and binge watching something awesome on Netflix or Amazon prime. Our choices this year was "Reign" which was really quite grand! We also absorbed "Mozart in the Jungle" 3rd season. We all binge watched the first two seasons last year! Excellent. Highly recommend you watch it if you love stories of sex and drugs and rock n' roll (only it's sex & drugs & classical music!) It's a soap opera based on classical music aficionados.
Our midweek gig playing at The Celtic Ray in Punta Gorda was great. This was our third year playing here. Great food, nice people. And we loved a secret sign for all the performers there which said:
"Please...no buffet, no wagon wheel, no country, no skynyrd, eagles, etc."
(this sign...a message for performers...and those who come down the stairs...only visible from the stage). Ha!
Needless to say, we played Celtic music all evening. And other than leaving the pub and accidentally going the wrong way on a one way street (we blame the GPS), a very nice Florida cop only gave us a warning and wag of the head. We DID say we had just come from the pub too. But with all the gear and instruments in the back, he believed we worked it. Also checking our website with it on our gig calendar showed we weren't there drinking all night too :)
ADVENTURES!
Our first adventure was to the Salvador Dali Art Museum in St. Petersburg.
Click here to surf it
Salvador Dali Museum
Now THAT'S a moustache Harry!
And as luck would have it, we were also able to enjoy the exhibit of Frida Kahlo's work as well!
Surf here for more info:
Frida Kahlo Art
It was all so inspiring and consuming! How'ere, something weird DID happen there. Whilst I was wandering the Kahlo exhibit, I was becoming more and more aware of becoming achy in my body...and then I was in flat out PAIN. I'd measure it at about a 6 or 7 on scale of 1-10. Why? What was happening? All of a sudden, my lower back, hips, legs and feet were just excruciating! I didn't know how to get to the car fast enough, which was a good stretch of the legs distant to walk it.
I was at Frida Kahlo's exhibit and that's when I became SO aware of her, the bearer of pain!
Well, silly Merlyn...you ARE an empath! Her paintings were very much about her pain. Her pain in her lower back, hips, legs, feet. OF COURSE I must've picked it up. It dispelled more and more the longer I was not around it. I would however, HIGHLY recommend you see and view her art work! Just put up your shields and learn and don't dive in like I do! She was FABULOUS as was Dali's artwork! Mindblowing!
I leave you with this WALL of flowers for her!
Stay tuned for more pics and stories tomorrow!
