A Very Johnny Renaissance Festival, Part 2

The Feast of Fantasy would occur in Bad Manor at the end of the day.

They did a good job on the building (although the interior is a little worse for the wear.)

 

We arrived a bit early and so we rested and watched the dancers on the green in front of the manor in anticipation of the upcoming feast.  Since we had a little free time, I decided to go off on a photo safari. Here are some of the random images that I snapped.

This must have been a precious conversation!

 

This woman was a bit on the frenzied side, she had white on her nose and I wondered if she had the plague.

 

Guess who again?

 

The king is always accompanied by his guard.

 

And the Queen by her Ladies in Waiting.

I watched this guy load his pipe, but didn't get the camera out in time, for that.

 

 There is something so beautiful about the curves of folk harps. (They seem to be matched by the smiles of the harpists too!)

On the green the next dance group had come on. It was so hot and yet the Morris dancers gave it their all.

Meanwhile the lords and ladies began arriving for the feast.

This was one of the singers. For me the band and the singers are the most important part of the occasion although clearly I am in the minority opinion.

 

Everyone disappeared into the side door and so we waited a bit longer!

 

 

 In the meantime, the Morris dancers had moved on to stick dancing.

 

And then the singers appeared outside the manor and began their serenade to wassail.

 

 

 

And then out came our hosts Lazlo and Jim.

I have to give them credit for trying to come up with a new routine. They did not yet have the kinks worked into it yet. It didn't run smoothly, but at least it wasn't the same thing as last year (which many of the performers seem to do.)

They chose a feastmaster, Bob, who was here with 15 other people and we were off.

The appetizer was a tomato on toast. (I forgot to take pictures of the most interesting dishes - we were both very hungry by that time.) The singers came in and entertained us. Of course they had stuck us way off on the end of the table again, so I couldn't get any good pictures. The room was dark and I was a million miles away from most of the entertainment. Still, the fuzziness of pictures sometimes lends an air of the distant past, so I am posting a few fuzzy shots anyway.

 

These were singers on the other side of the room. Our singer was very nice, a young man in blue (on the very left of the balcony picture above). He didn't wear a beautiful dress, though, so I was more interested in pictures of the women.

 

The salad was beautifully herbed  and the pork chop was okay, but nothing to write home about. It was served with roasted potatoes.

Spousal unit D and I always enjoy the dancers. Theor drummers were late and Lazslo and Jim thought they could stand in for them with water jugs, which disappointed me greatly (and I'm sure was very difficult on the dancers. The guys pounded on the jugs but clearly had no sense of middle eastern rhythms.

Here they are doing their best.

 

This woman in the tribal costume was very good.

Here you can see the fish course served with some kind of beans.

 

I was happy to see Zilch the Tory Steller and was hoping they had replaced Arthur Greenleaf Homes with him, but alas no such luck. Zilch did his version of Freebird and then left us to  that other poets bad taste.

 

Of course there was a visit by the King. I do think Henry VIII might have looked a lot like this man in his youth.

He gave a kind toast (rather than the raunchy ones we had up to that time.)

I turly do not understand why everyone loves this guy (below). Say one word considered inappropriate and everyone howls. 

 

Thank goodness our last entertainer more than made up for the bad poet. Yes, there he is agian, Johnny Phoenix.

He did a nice fire eating routine in our wooden building full of dried herb decorations saying, "What could go wrong?"

 

We got a lovely mousse dessert on a cookie that was the best food of the evening. I really enjoyed every illicit (to my diet) bite. Then we were released into the evening to hear the final drumming.

 

The belly dancers had found there way to the lawn and accompanied the drummers.

 

On the way out, guess whom we saw getting into a car? Yes, it was Johnny Phoenix! We said goodby and watched his car head off into the sunset to be followed shortly by our own! It had been a wonderful day and now it was time to go home.