Painting a Thing

[purplecat]

Late on Saturday night, while playing Cthulhu in Stoke I observed on my iPhone a plea on the huntleywood "This Year's Thing" page for more people to help. "Huntley Wood is quite near here" I thought (somewhat drunkenly). "We could pop by tomorrow and lend a hand."

Huntley Wood is a newly developed Live Roleplaying site being run by some friends of mine, I'd say from my F&H days but, in fact, I've known JE since I was about 4. "This Year's Thing" is their annual project to spend a week building a temporary structure that can be used for the following year by games visiting the site. This year's thing is intended to be customisable tunnel complex built out of pallets but they were nearing the end of the build time and were concerned it wouldn't be water-tight (or at least -proofed) in time.

In a fit of drunken sanity-compromised enthusiasm I posted a note on the Facebook page saying we would come along today. Of course, in the sober light of morning we realised that, among other things, we had no suitable clothing for painting or building with us in Stoke and that it wasn't, perhaps, the wisest event to inflict suddenly on an 11-year-old. In the end B. dropped me off at the wood. EK magicked up some rather large fluorescent work trousers and a spare T-Shirt for me and I was all set.

I then spent about three hours painting wood-preserving paint on the Thing while other people tried to cover bits of it in canvas.




You can see here the (very pinky-orange) results of about half my labours.


This shows the whole of the thing, including the tunnel complex and long entrance tunnel leading off into the woods.


A closer view of the complex. Hopefully this will be covered in canvas by tonight.


These are the on-site cabins for larpers to stay in. They look even nicer in the flesh.


This is the ladies. I suspect people who have never encountered a toilet on a LARP site will not be particularly impressed by this, but I was reeling after encountering the toilet block. Varnished wooden doors! Clean facilities! Wooden counters! Soap! Apparently there is also underfloor heating though I didn't appreciate that detail at the time, but they certainly felt a lot less godforsaken than most LARP toilets.

Comments

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

That's all very civilised! And yes, that is probably the best LARP toilet block I've ever seen. :-)

[purplecat]

I'm sure it helped that there were only 6 muddy harpers present rather than 60, but still...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It's odd, I always think of them as being so beautifully turned out ... ;-)

[purplecat]

*curses the auto-spell check*

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I've been very interested in Huntley Wood for a while. Must go and scout it out one day...

Especially if they think toilets are the most important thing about LARP sites. Toilets, kitchen, showers... get them right and the rest is gravy :-)

[purplecat]

The person who I think is their builder said, when I commented favourably about the toilets, that EK had been particularly insistent about them.

I can't speak for the kitchen I saw, not being an expert nor looking closely. It had range cooker, a microwave, mains water, counters and tables (and wasn't up a flight of stairs!) and felt clean, bright and airy in a pretending-to-be-a-wattle-and-daub-hut kind of a way. However, as Huntley Wood acknowledge, their prices do reflect the fact that the place is comparatively luxurious.

I'm sure there are limits to how well anything can cope with a couple of hundred muddy larpers though - there were only six of us on Sunday.

[fififolle]

Good Lord! That looks positively luxurious!! And the Thing is very impressive *g* Well done you.

[purplecat]

Thanks! It's such a far cry from the old days when we were all stuck in a muddy field in tents with one chemical toilet.