Les Grandes Medievales 2015

My gorgeous new tent!

 What better reason to break a long silence than to ramble endlessly about my favorite event of the year: Les Grandes Medievales d'Andilly? This French Ren Faire has been going strong for 19 years.. and I have been a fan since early days.  I first went in 1998, when it was a tiny event held in the heart of a tiny village.
These days, it is the biggest one in France.  Over the five days of the most recent festival, there were 57,000 people attending! And there was a new record set on May 24: 18,000 people in a single day!

Check out Severin being awesome!

And I am happy to say that my family is part of what makes the event fun!
Ever since 2010, I get together a group of my pals from the Music Conservatory and we perform Renaissance music. It started out very casual, but now we have great costumes and a big repertoire of songs.
And of course, my kids are there, looking gorgeous and  doing various cool things like sword fighting, calligraphy, embroidery and music.

There was also a great innovation this year, we have our own camp!
We are now officially "La Compagnie de La Rose Anglaise"!

Severin and Mallory battle it out!

Valentine looking epic and  medieval and lovely.

Mallory in the adorable new outfit I made for her!

Severin, Valentin, Alexa and Mallory

Mallory as Joan of Arc. Wow! She could definitely mess up any English invaders.

Life in camp.

Fancy hairstyle by Valentine.

Sisters

Valentine looking gorgeous!

Relaxing after a long, fun, busy day of  singing.
 I am super proud of the head gear I designed and made.
It was complicated and I owe thanks to Valentine for helping a lot!

Life in camp

Valentine and Mathias are so cute!

Valentine making Illuminated manscripts

Coming soon: Photos of our music performances at the event.

Grandes Medievales D'Andilly 2011:
Part III, In Which My Girls are So Beautiful

Grandes Medievales d'Andilly 2011: Part I, In Which Ae Terribly Geeky and Proud of It!

We spent last weekend in full-on geek mode, enjoying ourselves at the huge Andilly Medieval Fair.


This is the third year we've gone, but the first in which we were actual, official participants!


Since September, Sev has been in a medieval combat group, and when it's time for the fair, they put on quite a show!







As you can see, there's quite a crowd- this is one of the biggest historical fairs in France!











In the photo below, Severin is just behind the flag bearer, carrying the group's blason on his back.







And you can see him in the doorway of the tower, ready to defend it from enemy incursions!

To add to the fun, I managed to convince some of the people that I sing with at the Conservatory to come out to the fair to sing with Tya and me!

Three showed up on Sunday and we had a great time walking around and entertaining the crowds. It reminded me so much of the good old days with the LHS Madrigal Singers!

The fair continues for three more days next weekend and we'll be there for nearly all of it.
And on the 12th, there will be lots more people from the Conservatory to sing - at least 10 besides Tya and myself.

(Also- please note that Sev and Tya's rock band has a concert on the 11th!)