One of the coolest weekends. Ever.

The lovely Anthony turned 35 on Saturday...(Teehee!)

To celebrate, we took a coupla days off and hired a car (I know, evil Georgi. Moo!) to head up to the Royal Armouries at Leeds, about 3 hours away. I swear, it's re-enactor's paradise.

We spent nearly 3 full days madly photographing and documenting everything we could find, plus watching displays of pattern welding swords, Tudor hunting, horseriding. and falconry. The renaissance armour from Italy was stunning...

There were suits of armour owned by Henry VIII and Robert Dudley....(That's Henry VIII's armour Ants is standing beside below - funny how weapons make him strike a rugby pose. Hmm. Primal.)

These masks, from the same era, were pretty trippy too - handmade, as gifts (?really) to Henry VIII... personally, I think it's as mad as the dinner set frenzy that was showered over Wellington after he defeated Napoleon (check the rant on March 9, 2006, if you can't remember this piece of giggle).

For mine, there's way more to see in Leeds even than at the Tower of London...

I loved this boar spear... I want one!!

But the most amazing bit came out of a natter with the horse display guys after their show. They were at Hastings, we were at Hastings, they've studied fighting from manuscripts, we've studied fighting from manuscripts, the usual re-enactor patter. Then Ants offered them a special day out at Warwick... and they returned the favour by offering to have a word with Phil-the-chief-librarian... Next day, we were wandering around the fencing weapons section when the phone rang. "Hi, it's Chris, would you like a really cool finish to your weekend'??

Suddenly we're down on level 1 (the 'no public access' floor), meeting Phil the Librarian, who handed us a pair of white gloves each and pointed us towards a big cushion on which was resting... i33. Yes, the original.

Those who don't give a rats about history won't care that it's believed to be the oldest extant manual of swordfighting, published circa 1270 AD. The rest of you, please wipe the drool off your keyboards now. We spent about 40 minutes leafing through it, admiring the piccies (neither of us reads Old German, or Latin....), and half laughing, half wincing at the bits where some generations' past toddler appears to have coloured over the diagrams with crayon...

We left feeling really special.