Demo at the Virginia Scottish Games

We had a great time this past Saturday and Sunday demo'ing at the Virginia Scottish Games.  This is always a fun festival -- we've attended for years, but this was the first time we'd "worked" the event.   We were asked to be a part of the Living History demonstration as colonial blacksmiths.  

 

As part of the demonstration, we renamed our forge for the weekend and became "MacPherson's Forge" in honor of our family, Clan MacPherson.  We had a great time catching up with our clan cousins.  Next year, we need to get a clan banner...and the kids want kilts!

Our tent was directly across from the bagpiping competition -- Jeff thinks he'll hear pipes in his sleep for many, many days! 

 

All in all, it was a fun weekend -- lots of great music, good food and friendly people.  We knew we were going to enjoy scotch eggs and colcannon (like I said, we are loyal attendees to the Games!) but this time, we also discovered a love for eccles cakes -- I definitely need to learn how to bake them at home!

 

We primarily made colonial nails as a demo piece because it shows people a quick project from start to finish, and also is a great teaching lesson about the colonial time period.   Of course, we also made other items as well and got to answer a LOT of wonderful questions.  The folks at the fair were a super appreciative audience and it was a pleasure to chat with them.   Jeff got a lot of requests for classes -- we'll have to look into that further.  He'd be great at it, if we could figure out the logistics.

We want to thank our friends for coming out to the festival -- it is so much fun to see familiar faces!  It was also great to run into folks and discover connections from the community -- it's a small world, indeed!  We might start out chatting about nails and then discover that they are a veterinarian at our local animal hospital....and that sort of thing happens over and over.   One funny thing is that people are starting to come up to us and tell us that they've seen us various other events. 

At the end of the weekend, we felt like we'd made lots of new friends ---what a great way to spend the holiday!