Another Simply Beautiful moment...


'Venice Palazzo Da Mula'(1908) - Claude Monet

I love water, being out on it, and I just love the beautiful colours in this painting. Simply beautiful!

I have been reading with great interest the current debate on festivals in Ancient Worlds. In comparison to others I am a newcomer to AW having joined late last year. I was so impressed that I subscribed about 2 weeks later. As someone who is not yet jaded by the AW experience here are my thoughts for what they're worth:

On the plus side it has been great to find a place where I can share my interest areas and also learn - not only from the interests and posts of other members, but also by participation in events, some of which are traditional eg. Yule in Germania, but some of which are more lighthearted. Social activities also provide an opportunity to connect with other AW members, because why bother to offer us a friends list if we are only going to do stand alone random scholarly posts? As we all know not everyone comes to AW just to post their own knowledge - some come because they are interested in learning about a time in history. Other people come to make a social connection with people who they may feel share their interests. Some of us join for all these reasons.

However, out of basic courtesy and not to mention the hard work of scribes and volunteers, I do agree that a major festival in one world shouldn't clash with another.

Another issue here seems to be frustration with the posts on the daily index, especially at festival times. The bottom line for me is: you cannot completely control what other members post (within the Code of Conduct), whether they be scholarly or fun social posts. I read what I think maybe be interesting and don't bother with what I think is not - 'one man's meat is another man's poison'. Perhaps, as has been suggested, finally categorising the Daily Index into separate Social, Historical, and Role Play indexes is the best answer.

There will always be a fanciful element to ancient worlds, in my humble opinion: after all we have Egyptians visiting Germania and Celtia to post for example, Celts and Romans visiting the America's etc etc. ... think about it.

I offer no opinions as to why AW members have become inactive - it is just speculation unless those members have been asked and given a response as to why they no longer visit/post on AW.

And since I'm posting my '15 minutes of cybertime': Onto the negative side - the major frustrations I've found, especially in the beginning (a novice will relate to this) were: huge amounts of wasted time searching for interesting groups to join only to find that they are inactive - obviously the founder and members of the group have lost interest for some reason so what's the point of joining?; and secondly getting lost/wasting huge amounts of time in inactive boards and in boards for long ago held events, where there have been no posts, sometimes for 3 or 4 years or more. This is what becomes, quite bluntly, frustrating and truly boring.

Posting limits can also be frustrating too, but I understand that is a benefit of patronage of course. Ditto the limit on group memberships.

On the issue of properties: the figures indicate that far more guests visit our properties then members - but of course guests can't comment/leave a post. Maybe some people find it a little disheartening to spend countless hours developing a property only to find other members don't seem really interested in reading the often well done historical information/threads/posts created within their property. I've also found property sites with great potential that seem to be abandoned - is this because their owners were unable to create the threads which only patrons and above can do? Again it's speculation unless you ask the owners why!

I know the scribes are taking action to resolve some of these issues - by asking the people of their particular AW their opinion of festivals and by reviving old board threads and work on neighbourhoods - those people are to be congratulated for their work and effort ... and yes 'scribe burnout' is another issue too, particularly with regard to festivals - I can see the decision to become a scribe is not one to take lightly - volunteers can walk away whereas a scribe cannot.

So, in summary, my 'vote' in regards to festivals is for consensus among the scribes and members of AW as to how many, what, where and when - and maybe if members vote in favour of a festival going ahead we could put our hand up to help out sometimes... and unless some clever person comes up with a way to keep festival posts off the daily index, well ...

A big thank you to everyone involved in the organisation of the Valentine's in Germania '08 event held last weekend (9th February). It was a fun event to participate in, and of course Attila the Hun not only took a few more brides but got to sacrifice a few more horses. Elenwe's puzzles were lovely as were her lovely stationery templates. Sementawy Horemheb's "Fat, Bald and Ugly Nickname Quiz" and it's graphics very funny.

It's 'done and dusted'!

What a relief to have all the springcleaning done ready for the new season just about to come.

The additions to our Estate Manuscripts are completed for now and, I hope, should keep our friends and guests at the Colchester Estate entertained and very busy reading about Who's Who of Saxon and Norman Britain, and some fascinating manuscripts about Arms & Armour including swords, lance, and battleaxes, chain mail, and of course the magnificent destrier, a horse maybe, but not just any horse - a potent part of battle for the mounted knight! Enjoy!

Tomorrow Jhon & I leave for his homeland of Normandy, an area of stunning natural beauty and towns full of interesting Norman architecture.
We of course will be visiting his family, as well as calling on old friends. Our journey will take us through Rouen, Blois and Mortain. Unfortunately this time we will not go south enough to view the magnificent Mont St Michel.

Some images of our last visit:


The countryside near Mortain


Blois, Loire Valley


Mont St Michel (Mount St Michael)