A Knight's Tale abroad - in Trakai!

Okay, so the first thing you need to imagine about this weekend is that it's properly hot. As in 35 degrees. The guys are all wearing linen shirts, covered by padding, covered by chain mail and/or metal armour, and 3mm steel helmets. The sun beats down on the metal and gets it properly uncomfortable. I spent most of the afternoon topping up 5L water bottles - I reckon the 4 of them went through maybe 25 litres. Even our hosts (that's Karolys, below) were feeling the effects.
Nothing was gonna stop the crowds though, who climbed on top of walls, palisades and up trees to try to get a good view of the arena. Bouts were full contact, with headblows and all and 'round robin', with the winners from each group of 4-5 fighters competing the second day. Probably just as well then each fight only lasted 5 minutes.I am so proud of my blokey - that's him with the yellow shield - Cundall colours and the family coat of arms. Not only was he up at 6am the morn before to finish hand stitching his tabard, but he commanded the crowd's attention from the moment his helm was fastened. Most of the crowd would not have understood his growled 'make way!', but they parted like a biblical ocean. Sadly, years of kite shield fighting have left Antsy with a bad habit - see below for the moment before his knee and tendons got smacked and damaged, forcing him to retire even though he was winning. The crowd hated him for it, but I'm just glad he's okay. And we're gonna fix that fighting stance!!
Once our fighting days were over (none of our lads progressed - but we've loads of ideas for being more competitive next year!), we could get on with the serious business of eating, drinking and watching the entertainment.

And what a show! From live fire arrows being shot into the palisade we were all standing on (and a few that went over the top and into tents behind, prompting much scurrying about with fire extinguishers) to a midnight fire and light show, followed by a game of 'let's make the crazy English drink 14 kinds of vodka' in the Polish camp. For the record, my favourite was the hazelnut.
This Italian drinking horn won prizes for sheer 'yerhavinalaff' size. Suddenly it was 3am and the sun was coming up, so we downed some water and went to bed to nurse our budding hangovers. What a night!