A farewell to arms.

 ..and with the stroke of a pen Henriette went to live with a friend.

My musket since 2014 (although first used on the field of Leipzig in 2013) has been given up for several reasons. We are moving in a few months and a new place would require a new securi-chord being bored into the wall, not a huge deal but my licence runs out next year anyway and renewal now requires approval by a doctor and mine has been quite negative about signing similar things before. It can also be quite expensive for what it is.. and I might not actually use a musket in any given season.

It was nice to have incase an event was short of people who could fire or a filming opportunity came up, or if there is a post apocalypse scenario where I have to defend the house but meh, I'll just have to use the machette. A musket is also too slow to load if facing multiple zombies. 

I am now there to save people, mainly, I did stab a riflemen at Crouch ridge, but I consider that just part of my civil duty. 

New research on 45eme kit also means much of it requires change if I go to an event as a soldier and again it isn't worth adapting or buying new gaiters, breeches, shirt, stock etc and not using it. My veteran campaign trousers have retired. 

We had some grand times together (with Henriette, not the trousers), I remember a particularly satisfying double-loaded shot at Waterloo! and skirmishing in the woods at campaign events was always fun.. but things move on, Let it go!  

And what of 2022?  Sadly what would have been my first event has just been cancelled. After two years of covid cancellations.. we emerge into the light of a new summer with restrictions ended.. then Putin's darkness swallows the false dawn. 

It would have been near Hanover at a small palace occasionally inhabited by Jerome Bonaparte and I would have enjoyed a royal appointment for the weekend, think how that would have looked on my CV!  

It is sickening that we can have war in Europe in 2022 but I feel cancelling an event over it being inappropriate is not something I can really get behind, events didn't stop because of war in Syria or Yemen or Iraq or Afghanistan or Yugoslavia. 

What of Waterloo?  Will that go the same way? Assuming a new covid variant doesn't emerge. Some reenactors I know have said the covid slump drained their enthusiasm, got them out of the habit. 2022 needs to get them back out there! 

A big event in Russia (Borodino 2022) was still inviting participants just a couple of weeks ago.. suffice to say it was lots of non/no/nein/ne's from the international community. 

Reenactment is a community, I remember having breakfast with some friendly Russians back in 2013.  Hopefully we will all come together again. At the same event there was a small protest that the reenactment glorified war..  everyone involved knows better than the average person how much death, wounding, hunger and sickness goes hand in hand with any war. Education is often a goal but it is still a hobby meant to be enjoyed. 

I look forward to the day I can post about an event with friends from around the world! Maybe that will still be this year.  Stay safe!   

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