We moved to Ealdormere in the first week of March, 2025, and started attending our local practice about two weeks later, once we’d gotten access to our apartment, changed over driver’s licenses, gotten health cards, and overall things were trending well. Notably we did not wait for our rapier equipment or garb to follow us and arrive in our new home in order to start attending practice. I found out a few months later that Duke Edward the Red keeps track of the attendees at our local practice and what martial arts they practice, and does some basic analytics on them. (I just looked it up in the online Order of Precedence to check the title, and apparently he’s a quadruple peer before you count the royal peerages - he’s a great guy, helped us make some spears and armor repairs, always so friendly! I’m not surprised that this has been recognized and I’m also not surprised that he never brought up his peerage status to us.) He posts it on Facebook!

Here is this week’s report:

Bryniau Tywynnog fight practice report - Tuesday Mar 17th
Fighting(12): Edward, Trumbrand, Kaylah, Gajin, Kol, Naga, Jaddvor, Matthäus, Zakkai, Thadeus, Maccoy, Ari
Rapier(15): Eyrny, Edward, Kaylah, Kersteken, Jaddvor, Georg, Fritz, Jaromir, Cecilia, Henry, Genevieve, Anne_of_Ostgardr, Aife, Lloyd, Inge
Both(3): Edward, Kaylah, Jaddvor
Visiting(6): Brigit, Sylvia, Isabella, Alice, Aldwynn, Sarina, 
probably more people I missed
Total: 30
Armoured streak: Matthäus - 21 Weeks
Fencing Streak: Anne_of_Ostgardr - 52 weeks
Congrats to Anne on 52 straight practices fencing!
Heads up -- Tuesday March 31st the gym is busy, and we will not have a practice!
-Edward

So this is a post to brag that I have now reached one year straight of not missing a single local rapier practice in Ealdormere.

Number goes up, but statistics can lie, what does it mean?

Practically speaking it means that I didn’t get on an airplane or really go on any sort of more than four day trip in 2025.

It means that I have been lucky to watch Sylvia visit our practice first as a not yet walking baby and now as a toddler (I did have to shout to call a hold last week as she started to run towards the active rapier field, but nobody was hurt, and it’s not that frequent). It means that I got to attend the wonderful pageantry of the engagement party of someone whose father, while not usually active in the SCA, called upon all the champions from tournaments held in honor of his daughter’s birth to support and witness her in choosing a partner.

It means that I got to celebrate my birthday last fall by following the local tradition of fighting bouts corresponding to each year of my life - a feat that I struggled with in 2025 and will likely struggle with again this year as I grow one year older. (I was told it’s a local tradition but I have not seen anyone else opting into that tradition, and you’d think at least one other person would have been born in the last 52 weeks… but that’s ok, I had fun!)

It means that I got my current job through a group sent to me from our local rapier marshal. It means that, when I was in a (extremely minor, everything’s fine) car accident, the first person I called when I got home and needed local knowledge to figure out what to do (a few days before I called my parents) was our local seneschal.

It means that I am every week, even when a week is hard, actively choosing to follow the commitments I have made to myself and to my SCA family (even though my maestra is far away now, and even though mostly the commitment she tries to hold me to is to take care of myself and not burn out).

I am so grateful to have this community enriching my life. I do plan to go on a vacation this year though, so maybe someone else can pick up the streak this summer!