15 June

In defence of gigantic grundies

I watched a program the other night "Life Laundry". Its this show where a woman with an obnoxious american accent, helps people get their houses sorted out by putting all their stuff on their lawn and chucking most of it away, while spouting platitudes about "moving on". On the particular program in mind, she discovered this lady's gigantic grundies in the bottom drawer. The grundies got the inevitable knocking from both 'life coach' and victim, and went into the crusher.

But you know, I reckon gigantic grundies have a place in this world. Buried among the thongs and lacy underthings, these behemoths of cotton have a role to play in every girls life. There are times, you know, where you just don't want to bother being 'hot'. Strange, but true. Sure, all of us want to be more desireable, stylish, elegant, and like to own undies that boost our image as best they can.

But sometimes what you want from your undies is pure comfort. A devil-may-care attitude shouting out that what is important is not looks, but feel. The choice of a warm hug rather over a passionate embrace. So ladies out there... embrace your gigantic grundies. Be not ashamed but proud of the baggy elastic and droopy cotton that gives you utterly un-judgemental comfort.

The first medieval weekend of the year: the fete d'Andilly. This festival is particularly interesting as, rather like the renfairs in the US and Rowany festival in Australia, there is no castle or any other real medieval thing in the vicinity. Everything is created for the festival, and it is one impressive event. Over the four days of the fete, hundreds of thousands of people pour into this little valley in France, not far from Geneva, to enjoy the festivities.

The fete has been going since the 1980's and runs like a well oiled machine. There are many things that are done here though, that could never happen in Australia: the sheep running through the place for a start!

There were merchants selling clothes for extraordinary amounts - extraordinary enough that I am considering whipping up some frocks and selling them next year; I am talking a simple woman's long t-tunic with angel sleeves going for 200 euro!

Food stalls sold "ploughman's lunches", roast beast, crepes, and I had an omelette served on a half bun, which was very simple and tasty.

View into the valley & stalls	Costume stall	My friend & I	Roast beast stall
Tavern	Through the crowd	Acrobats	Sheep wandering through
One of the permanent building	More acrobats	candlemaking	The fantasy side of things
Me, and some geese	Another shot of the acrobats	My friend & jongleur	musicians wandering
The village of the fairies	The tent village	musicians	The tourney field
Food stands	Another food stand	Tourney field	Camp for workers

It was fun hearing the bear dance being played by a band of wandering musicians, and hard not to begin twirling. The day was seriously hot, but it was pleasant among the trees in the valley. There was a display of hawk handling, and a very impressive tourney field, with 'knights' making threats to each other prior to the coming tourney.

One of the things that really impressed me was someone with a glassblowing setup! I even got to buy a rather lovely medieval styled glass. I took the details of the maker, as his prices were very good, and he said that his normal quality of work was even better than this, as this was just sample stuff he was making on the spot.

Not bad for a sample eh?