Rosalie Gilbert

Well, try as I might, sometimes there's no escaping!

Ha ha! Actually, this video was just a walk through of the castle by Shad from the Shadiversity (his Youtube channel) but hopefully this means that our extended chat about medieval women and bathing and hygiene may not be too far away. he may have a lot of ideas about a lot of things, but with education comes enlightenment.

Stay tuned, fans of medieval baths!

The Abbey Medieval Festival was great fun. Here's the round up:

My helper girls were all pretty fantastic. Two had not been before and were full of the wonder of seeing it all for the first time- the Jousting, the Turkish oil Wrestling, the Trebuchets, the Knights... they skipped in and out of the tent and had a great time!

Here's Alicia, doing just that!


Book sales were phenomenal for me, and I sold out almost completely on the first day and had to ask someone from Brisbane to bring more the following day. This led to a comedy of errors where my cat sitter hadn't left the keys where he should and the person couldn't get inside without a detour to pick up the keys. Not a big drama, but I was trying to conserve my phone battery, so that was annoying.

The giveaway with the secret word was a ton of fun and was won by a very excited patron.

My talks on Medieval Women's Secrets was well received with not enough seats but keen listeners sitting on the grass.

My Grandbabes visited the festival in costume! He as a dinosaur looking very dragon-y and she as a little llama. I'm to make costumes for next year and I can't tell you, I'm excited about that!

The Opening Ceremony was well received by the audience and the CEO of the Museum who hadn't seen it yet, so that was a relief. All the props I made for it were lovely and did what they needed to do.


I wasn't able to see any jousting myself, but was excited that friends made it through to the final and a lady jouster won overall for the weekend. Lady Elizabeth was completely amazing! She's in red in the top photo. (both photos by James Niland)


Thankfully, it didn't rain, so my wet weather prep for the weekend wasn't needed and everything stayed nice and dry. Heavy overnight dew on the last night meant having to allow the tents to dry before pack up on Monday.

Tania who did my cover art swung past the tent and we got a few photos together. I'm looking forward to the workshop tomorrow to brush up my skills.

Shadiversity I've already talked about.

Good fun had by all. Of course, people in my tent and in camp have come down with Covid and my ex was a twit, but more about him later.