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The first day of spring we headed out to the House of Ick again, despite both of our hope not to return.
It was a nice spring day, so we dodged some pot holes and made the run.

Although my late mother in law’s boyfriend had told my wife we had to come get some items he’d found, there wasn’t much. A few photos, the head rests to the Subaru and a collection of recipes.
Some of the things my wife did want. But I think his asking her to come out has more to do with him being alone 20 miles outside of town and wanting visitors. We brought him some muffins and juice, but didn’t visit long.

After my haircut, we headed over to The Higgins so my wife could do her new sword and buckler demo that she has been working on for the past few weeks.

My wife and I used to do the demos there frequently until we stopped for several reasons. The reasons came down to we believed the demos being put on were not safe, professional or fair. I detailed my objections, as is my way, in a three page long letter to Mark who runs the demos.
But, my wife was lured back by Mark with a promise of new material we’d be allowed to use in Phoenix.
I’m not sure if it is worth it. But, going back there and seeing the demos, even if I didn’t do them myself, certainly brought back a lot of memories.

When arrived, there was still some time until the demo, so folks headed out to the parking lot to go over the material one more time.

The clock was ticking down until the demo had to go on and they were trying to iron out the kinks in the show.

There was some discussion with Mark about if some last minute changes should be made.

After much discussion it was decided to keep things as they were.

Then Mark’s new protoge’s took the parking lot.

There were also a bunch of last minute tweaks with them.
But, as the show was scheduled to start, they headed in and up the stairs to the great hall. (Mark tells me starting 6 minutes late is not too bad compared to other shows...)

The show went OK, and had a very large number of people watching for a warm spring day. Why folks would go into a dark cold museum on this day was not clear to any of us, but they were there.

I ran off to get us some lunch while my wife and the others practiced in the basement.

(I remember when they opened that basement to the guild so they’d have a place to practice. You can tell how well that worked by the earlier photos.)

This photo is funny to me, but probably no one else.

So, spending the afternoon there reminded me of all the reasons I quit the demos. I still like the people there, but the way it all comes together just drives me crazy.

The good news is that with the arrival of spring and daylight savings its still warm and sunny when I’m cooking dinner in our smokey oven.