Beetroot Fair

Inspired by the idea of brownies with with prunes made by Julie last weekend I decided to make my own.

I've never baked before, so these were no cheap brownies since I had to buy everything bar a bowl to melt chocolate in, including the baking parchment and deep baking try I think I spent around 8 quid, taking away the things I can use again the cost is possibly nearer 3 quid, although cost doesn't really mater its the fun of making your own and the novel ingredients you can put in.

For my brownies I used Delia's on line recipe for Brownies with prunes and then swapped most of nuts for beetroot.

The chopped beetroot and prunes.


The recipe was simple, no technical cooking terms, a bit of maths to adjust the quantities to suit my baking tray and then nothing harder than mixing stuff in bowl.

The melting chocolate and butter.


The final mixture was a possible a bit too moist since Delia said to spread the mixture, my mixture was quite fluid and filled the baking tray without any spreading, I had a egg left so chucked it for good luck, possibly not the wisest decision.

The runny mixture.



After the required period in the oven the brownies were taken out and the hard top had raised leaving the moist brownies to crumble apart as I cut them, perhaps to long in the oven or some other mystery of cooking that I'm not aware of.

Just out the oven with the unwelcome crust.

The final result tasted wonderful and I have eaten about a third, which is probably a good 200 grams of sugar and butter based on the ingredient used, yikes that's a lot of calories to burn off.

Yum :)


On Saturday before making the brownies I went to the Living History fair with Julie and Dave, ran into very few people I knew Doug and Izsy from Larp and Alan and Jayne from reenactment, I'm never quite sure why this fair is not as popular as TORM since in my opinion it is the slightly better fair.

The car park though was a quagmire on yellow clay mud, which plastered everything, Dave described the mud on the tracks as potters slip, which about some it up, since it splashed up you jeans.

While there I bought some animal skins and Larp safe spear, I nearly didn't buy a hat, but while walking by the fudge store with Julie, she pointed out a tall hat on stall, which I found attractive and within no time I had my cash out buying the hat in the photo below.



Julie bought some smoke peanut butter, but also tried some citrus relish on the same stall Martins Jerked Meat which made her eye water since I think it should have been labelled citrus chilly relish. The smoke beetroot on the same stall was also nice, but the small jars a tad expensive.

Fairs and battles

Over the past 3 weeks or so I have been to International Living history fair in Warwickshire, The Foreign Field LRP Kit Fair in Yorkshire with Julie and Dave.

At both fairs I bought very little, shirt, second hand sword, I was talked out of spending hundreds on other costume items which I think was the correct choice since as they where not what I wanted.
I did buy a cheap second hand top hat for bargain price and loved the steam punk kits the same store had for sale, but most of the content was stuff I already had.

I did buy the odd Christmas present though and enjoyed myself running into people I knew and just seeing all the interesting items for sale. I also got to encourage other people money spending.

This item was not bought by Julie she was testing the clasp



This weekend was the table top battle or should I say battles to conclude a season of many Ascendancy battles, to be bigger and better than last year we decided to run it over 3 continents which meant 3 battles
Never again will I coordinate 3 battle in one day it took 3 1/2 hours just to get started, with briefing people, placing the terrain and taking the figures out their boxes, luckily I had made the battles fairly small in scale so they could be played quickly.

Overall it was fun

Here are a few pictures

The commanders and their lieutenants.


Carnelium Battlefield


Frontier Battlefield


Stronghold battlefield


For one the battle was not that exciting.


Snow getting run down by Cavalry

15th Century out, 19th Century in.

This week I got rid of a bit of Medieval gear, none of my costume just weapons and armour, this includes 5 polearm's including Katherine my pole mace which I made myself while having welding lessons and I'm already kinda of regretting selling it. I also got rid of 3 swords and a sword blade, remarkably that still leaves me my best sword and a very good two handed axe which is extremely light to use. I also got rid of my weighty Milanese arm armour, my fully enclosed leg armour, a breast and back plate that looks like it had been through several wars, and a pair of steel gauntlets, so all the armour I have left is my padded jack, my visored English style great Bascinet 14C, a very rusty 15C sallet and a 12C open face great helm, I call my crusader helm.

Picture of 4 of my polearms.

So I'm feeling a little de-cluttered and clad to be rid in the most part since I have not fought in a battle for about 5 years and not fought in full armour for about 12 years I can't see the point in keeping it, especially since the only reenactment I now do if any is the odd murder mysteries and living history Henry the VIII court costume so don't need fighting the kit.

Other than that I spent the weekend visiting car boots & charity shop looking for tat to turn into steam punk tat and found nothing, so I visited my favorite scrap metal / antiques shop in Wirksworth where I found a few bits and spent nearly £ 12 on 3 items, £8 of which was spent on something called a Viltalator see the picture below I couldn't resist, hardly needs jazzing up to use in a steam punk Universe. The Vitalator is 19C electric shock therapy machine, I just need to plug it in and find a volunteer ....muhaahar, although it needs a modern plug with square not round pins and no idea if it works, since on the internet in good condition which this is not, they sell for a £100 or so.

A Vitalator

I also finished the 1st of my gadgets for the Science of Murder Ascendancy Larp event, but can't put pictures here since I want the gadgets to be a surprise for the players.