Shield Design

As stated in my previous post, we kicked off the new year with a Medieval-themed party (as you do) in which one of the challenges was shield design.

Him Outdoors and I provided the shields (we had made them from cardboard and spray-painted them in background colours) and various craft supplies, and the contestants had to make up a shield. I had previously sent out a link about basic heraldry in case anyone wanted to hone up on knowledge; there were points for the design itself and the acompanying wiffle-waffle. Here are some examples.

The Luminosity with shield

The Luminosity created this powerful depiction of her family crest with swirly designs, ribbons and sheep. It's bright, expressive, and with personal significance. The next design to feature was also yellow and made reference to the holder's title or family name, but maybe not so much of a crest.

Although hard to see in this image, the design on the right features hand-drawn crucifixes, two upright and two upside down, intermingled with smiley faces, to highlight the ridiculous attempt to force religious conformity onto the medieval peasant class who were just trying to get on with their daily lives. The one on the right scored highly with the judges as it indulges the inner child and playfulness through smiley faces, googly eyes and cartoon animal characters. The use of the ribbon, pom-poms and jingly bells also adds to the tactile nature and auditory sense of fun. 

Here we have the importance of description. The very simple design - a single white ribbon and two butterflies belies a complex explanation of the shield representing two parts of the bearer's life: England (the faded quarter from the past) and Australia (the more vibrant three-quarter section at the top in the present). The white ribbon represents a contrail in a blue sky as the transportation occured, and the butterflies indicate the physical transformation.

The explanation for this one is from someone who had clearly read the basic heraldry guidelines so I shall let them tell it. 

A background of GULES (red) symbolising the fiery nature of the bearer. 

An ORDINARY CHEVRON of SABLE almost equally bisecting the shield indicates affinity with justice and equality.

Une abeille OR et SABLE (the gold/ black bee) RAMPANT surrounded by two bees GUARDANT indicates both a watchful nature and teamwork quality. 

Three charges of googly eyes SABLE and ARGENT speak to watchful yet playful characteristics. 

Some challengers went with all the things that are important to them. Hence Purple Lady with images of romance, theatre, family, work, leisure activities and cats. Meanwhile others went with the 'white tears of Henry Cockington' in a design that was very much a single entendre. 

Purple Lady with shield

Henry Cockington

There were blatant appeals to judges with the combination of Liverpool and Burnley football club crests, and a Shakespearean pun, 'a plague on both your horses', involving unicorn heads and coronavirus bobbles. Also (pictured in the group image but no individual photo) was a delightful interpretation of chaos (cats; eyeballs; jingly bells) and the unknown (blank space) summing up that bearer's identity.

Original Gravity with a blatant appeal to the judges

A Plague on Both Your Horses

And the winner was... Gindelle with her thoughtful piece reflecting growth (a tree image), transformation (an origami butterly) and the family foundation of her last name in a replica Lego block. Congratulations to all for the (various levels of) effort, fun and creativity!

Gindelle with the winning shield design

Friday Five: Cross Stitch Crew

And now for the final quintet from Our Country's Good, here are the cross stitches that I made for certain members of the crew. These are all lines spoken by the character I played, Mary (Dabby) Bryant. Based on a real woman from history, this character dreamed of returning to her native Devon, and in fact she did (although not in the play itself). Despite being unable to read, she conducts conversations about the nature of theatre and the meaning of plays, which add the meta-theatrical level to the production.

For one of the cross stitches I maintained the avian theme from previous works (the crimson rosella, because it is one of my favourites), but for the others I chose either the colours of the Aboriginal flag as a representative of this land, or those that remind me of Devon. At one point Dabby says, "I want to see a wall of stone. I want to hear the Atlantic breaking into the estuary", and she also exclaims, "Oh, give me some English rain. I could recognise English rain anywhere. And Devon rain... is the softest in England".

I gave this one to The Luminosity who was the Assistant Director and also ran several line-learning sessions

For the German Rep who made my basket of chicken props (pine cones with feathers). The character follows this up with, 'This is a very stupid line and I'm not saying it'.

Said at the end of the play as Dabby dreams of 'my future success'

For our Stage Manager, who did indeed see the whole play, several times

The conclusion of the above line, for our kind and generous prompt

Bloody Long Walk

For anyone who has been following my other blog, you will know that I was planning to walk The Bloody Long Walk with some friends, Purple Lady and Design Diva. Well, we did it, and here are the photos to prove it. We started at the beginning, which is a very good place to start, but a horrific ear worm. See how we are all smiling at the top of Red Hill, before we get blisters and exhaustion. 

 

We were given caps and water bottles at the start line, which was a little annoying as we had been dropped off and I had not planned to carry anything - now I had to wear/ carry these items until our first meeting with our support crew. This is really a minor quibble. I appreciated the clear markers and signs that indicated we were on the right route. Although we have reccied it before, it was nice not to have to keep referring to a map and just follow the signs. 

We had arranged for a support crew to meet us with encouragement and sustenance at regular intervals. The crew comprised Him Outdoors, The Luminosity and TT. At our first stop at Lennox Gardens, about 8km in, they provided us with cheers, energy drinks, water and TT's superb sausage rolls. 

The walk potters round and about through the embassies and posh suburbs, calling past the Southern Cross Yacht Club, where we had phoned ahead for our coffee order from the support crew, much to the envy of other walkers (that's the goal, right?).

I did note that some teams were walking with loud music playing through speakers - I found this pretty annoying, and it didn't help that they were generally playing stuff I don't like. I understand that you might need music to motivate yourself, but that's what headphones are for - not everyone shares your penchant for noise pollution and it's pretty inconsiderate. That is not a point for the organisers, as there is nothing they can do about the selfishness of others, but it's a fairly large quibble. I would go so far as to say I was feeling peeved.

One team, on the other hand, had a stack of questions with which they were quizzing each other as they read them out from cards. As we passed them we heard them ask, 'How many toes have most cats got?' I love the way that question is phrased (to make allowances for three-legged felines and furry freaks, I guess), and we learned the answer is 18. I knew they had four on the back paws but had forgotten about the extra tree-climbing toe at the front. Educational exercise - what a great thing!

Halfway through the official Bloody Long Walk, we paused at the Yarralumla Nursery for further support from the crew. This station included frittata from The Luminosity and fruit cake made by Patience Itself. Design Diva assures us that, contrary to appearances, the cake was awesome. "I was part way through chewing in this picture and trying to smile at the same time and it came out as me looking unimpressed."

There is some pain here, mainly in the foot department; Purple Lady will be the first to admit that this is more of a grimace than a grin. At this point we were half way around Black Mountain Peninsula - the 25km sign says, "Hey, at least it's not a marathon". My, how we laughed! (Joke explained later.) As to why we are crouching in the photo, I've got absolutely no idea. Delirium perhaps?

The next 10km were tough. Purple Lady was in agony, almost tears, and was loosing her will to continue. She swore she would finish (actually, she just swore) and at one point asked us to just talk any old nonsense to her to take her mind off the pain in her feet. For the final 5km around the central basin of Lake Burley Griffin, we played a game whereby we picked a category and ran through the alphabet, taking a letter each. At one point we chose 'dog varieties' and we started out well: Alsatian; Beagle; Corgi; Dachshund etc. Things were flagging towards the tail end of the alphabet however (do you see what I did there?), as we got to Terrier; Ugly Dog; Very Ugly Dog; Weimaraner; Xtremely Ugly Dog; Yorkie; Ze Ozzer Dogz. Well, we were very tired...

But we finished the walk, and here is the proof - The Luminosity celebrating wildly with us as we crossed the line. 

As mentioned before, Him Outdoors pointed out that if I continued for another 7.2km at the end of this Bloody Long Walk, I would have walked a marathon. I felt I had come this far, so why not? Design Diva agreed, so we walked through the finish line, went to the toilet, and carried on our merry little way. Purple Lady could not walk another step, so we arranged to meet her at the conclusion of our unofficial 42.195km at Capital Brewing. 

Him Outdoors parked there and came back to meet us, jollying us along for the final stretch - as our own jollity was stretched a little fine by this point. We had to do a lap of the carpark to make up our distance, but reader, we made it. I know we look exhausted; we were. There are easier ways of getting a pint, but the beer at the end was very satisfying. 

It was a long day, but very rewarding. To 'cap' it off, I soaked in the bath and had a glass of bubbles. Cheers to my walking chums and the superb support crew. Here's to us all. We achieved a thing. 

Friday Five: More Puzzles

I haven't quite reached the above stage of puzzling yet, but my enthusiasm is not quite what it was. As the evenings lengthen and the weather warms, perhaps it's time to put them back in the box for now. But, while I was still in full iso-puzzle mode, here are some that I did earlier. 

1. Friends Dr Kay, Patience Itself and Design Diva lent us this puzzle of some old dude with odd sleeves in a study. It's one of those ones with the picture on a piece of paper rather than the cover of the box, so you don't have to look at the image if you want to make things harder for yourself. The pieces are quirky and the result is that it's almost easier not to look at the big picture.






2. This was lent to us by The Luminosity. It's tough. Those floral-type speckled edges nearly finished us off. But we persisted... Similarly to my feelings after completing a Monet puzzle, I may have gone off Escher for a while. I'm not sure I should attempt any more jigsaw puzzle reproductions of famous artwork as I end up swearing at the artist and thinking, 'it's a good job you're dead'.




3. This one, lent to us by Miss EU, was a lot of fun: forget what I said above. It is a reproduction of Vertumnus, a painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo; a portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, re-imagined as Vertumnus, the Roman god of metamorphoses in nature and in life. Many of the fruits are the first fruits of the season and, together with the vegetables they symbolize the abundance of the Golden Age that has returned under the Emperor's rule. While we were completing the puzzle, we referred to him rather more prosaically as 'Pumpkin-Head'.






4. One of my favourite places made up of whimsical pieces. Another one from the Dr Kay/ Patience Itself/ Design Diva collection.





5. Things I learned from this one: Miss EU has an eclectic puzzle collection; some people don't break all the pieces apart when they put the puzzle back; the white dragon was harder to do than the black dragon. That last bit is pretty niche, to be fair.

Friday Five: Iso Puzzles

We ordered a new table a while ago, and it arrived on the day that the government banned gatherings of more than two people and prevented us from welcoming folk to our house to share meals and laughter. So we might as well put it to use as a puzzle board until the restrictions are lifted. 

The Painted Ladies, San Francisco

I did the easy bits, and left the gradations in colour of the sky to Him Outdoors.

I was surprised to learn that not everyone does puzzles the same way - some people don't do the edges first. This knowledge has confounded me completely.

Portland Head Light

This one was lent to us by The Luminosity and it was quite tough, but (although there were lots of similarities in the pieces), I couldn't be cross because... well, just look at their fluffy faces emerging!

Lena, Linus and Luke

Another pack of borrowed pieces - from Doctor Kay and the Design Diva - this has fantastic shapes, which are wonderfully easy to slot into place. The laser-cut wooden pieces are very satisfying to touch and arrange into the picture, and the puzzle incorporates several 'whimsy' pieces. These pieces are apparently a historical link to the Victorian puzzle-making past; as the name suggests, the original Victorian puzzle cutters added the individual pieces on a whim and so the term 'whimsy' was born. I broke with my usual method to finish areas first, before completing the edges. I didn't like that. 

Picture frame in the water

Motorcar and butler in the sky

Elephant in the walls

Dolphin in the gondola

St Mark's Square

We also borrowed this last one from Original Gravity. It has no edge pieces. That was challenging for my OCD puzzle building method. The picture on the front is not quite the same as the completed image. And there are five extra pieces. Some people are sadists, pure and simple - can you have a pure and simple sadist? Yes, they design puzzles like this one. 

Take a Coffee Break

The extra five pieces

Special chewed-by-the-dog pieces