I’m trying to get back up to speed in this modern world. I spent time on twitter during the MumsOnThree twitter party. I’ve done more washing up, been shopping in a supermarket and visited the osteopath. Oh, and we put the tent up in the garden to air.
And yet, I find myself yearning for a quieter, slower pace. While I was at Kentwell, I felt cut off from my friends, my social media life, my stuff. Now that I’m home I feel suffocated by things, and as if I’m not quite speaking the right language, or finding the right words.
There were things to our faked tudor life that were good. I actually enjoyed the food – potage and bread works pretty well for a vegetarian. I suspect we ate rather better than the average tudor – we had at least two dishes every day, and sometimes three, or even a sweet one. (Fromentymade with pearl barley and stewed fruit. Very nice. I shall be seeking out a recipe. I’d also like to track down one for sod lentils, and I understand sod to just mean something cooked with mustard. It was very yum.) As breakfast was provided beforehand (not that I usually got chance to eat any more than half a slice of toast if that!) and supper afterwards, I’m quite surprised that I managed to lose 6 lbs over the two weeks. It’s making me look critically at our current diet – I think we are just eating too much filler effectively that we don’t need, and not enough good stuff. If you’ll pardon the pun, much food for thought there.
Another part of it all was that there was always something productive to do. The first week when I was on the felters we started by lighting a fire and filling a cauldron, then ppl laid out felt and made things, even if all I achieved were a few balls 😉 During all the time that there were visitors there were things to explain and children to tend. And in the second week we’d manor children in barn school to keep out of mischief, though to be honest they were all pretty well behaved, lessons to learn myself and again, (small) children to tend and visitors to talk to. We were active pretty much all day (another contribution to the weight loss, along with the increased breastfeeding perhaps) and eventually there was the walk back to our tent at Little Melford.
In and out of hours I had sewing to finish off. It took me til the end of the first week to get Big’s kirtle fit to be seen, and in the second week I’d sleeves, hose and a hat to finish. Not that Small ever wore the hose, maybe next year. The hat suited him though. And there were games to be played, and ppl to talk to, and very little online time, which though I missed then, is not really satisfying me now somehow. Sorry, but there it is.
I think the change is in me, not the online world. I’m not going to romanticise the world of the tudors – it wasn’t an easy or fun place a lot of the time I suspect. But at the same time, it was more tangible. We picked and ate fruit from trees. Didn’t worry about grubby children or disappearing boys. Had animals all around us, and time to walk and talk as we managed our day. Much of that will have been realistic. Many tasks were slow and repetitive, but done as a team, so ppl worked together – maybe singing or talking to get through the work. The women in the woolshed sang most melodiously as they carded, spun and combed.
The contrast here is difficult to come to terms with. The world seems overly bright, with sharp edges and corners. And too much stuff. I know that’s not just our house, I have so many friends who have bulging cupboards and heaps all about. It can’t be right. How does it happen? Where does it all come from, and do we really need it? I’m going to start to cut back I think, and to consider carefully what comes in and what goes out.
There are things we can learn from the tudors I think, and it’s not only their arithmetic skills, of which I will speak more at another time.
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