Photos from Dom's Banquet

Here we have Dom and Julie standing pround, smiling, and full of hope at the start of the day. Little do they know the ordeal which lies ahead.

Well, actually they do, because they've done it before, but as is the way with these things, selective amnesia comes into play to allow us to do another banquet. One day we might learn, but I doubt it.

Just think of the poor suspension... There's probably something thick and possibly herby in those big vats. Maybe pears in red wine, or roman mushrooms. Can anyone remember? Does anyone want to?

Here's Caerphilly Castle's excellent banquetting hall, at about noon on D-Day. The tables and chairs aren't normally there, so getting them set up was a big job in itself. But oh, it was nothing compared to what came later.

The other panoramas: ready to go, candlelight, blurred banquetteers.

Here we have Julie, Nora, and Sue hard at work in the kitchen, no doubt stuffing or splicing some poor unfortunate vegetables. The stuff in the foreground is kedgeree, a very tasty fish/barley concoction of which we made about three times too much. Note that Julie's smug look has still not been wiped off her face at this point.

At about 6 P.M. I managed to sneak outside with my trusty tripod (yes, the one that didn't make it to Beijing) and take some long - ie 20 to 30 second - exposures of the beautifully lit castle. Here's the first of those.

Another long exposure taken at about 6pm. I'm not sure if I like this much or not - the composition's not great, but the fuzziness caused by the rain is quite nice, I reckon. Anyway...

Long exposure of the gatehouse. Probably the weakest of these shots, I reckon, just because the light doesn't go "all the way up".

Now this is more like it. I can't decide if that lighting's moody or garish. :-)

Come on now, is that a postcard, or what? This is Caerphilly Castle as seen from the front. What a great place for a banquet.

Hmm, what's the plural of Clenneg? Clennegs? Cleneggen? Anyway, here's Anna putting the Clennegen together, ie covering oranges with cloves. I won't go into detail about what the Clenneg is for... Suffice to say, it's a game for near the end of the evening which involves passing the cloves from, er, person to person. Without using your hands.

Mead is the banquet drink - it's great. Everyone got some mead on the way in, and this is what it took to make that happen. By the way, this mead is from a local chap who apparently keeps a stall in "The Hayes" in central Cardiff when they have stalls there (some weekends, and all the time before Christmas). A nice chap with lots of varieties of the good drink, or so I'm told.

This is the second panoramic shot of the banquetting hall, taken at about 6:30 P.M., an hour before the banquet was due to begin. The tables are set, but the candles aren't lit.

The other panoramas: empty hall, candlelight, blurred banquetteers.

OK, now they've been lit.

The other panoramas: empty hall, ready to go, blurred banquetteers.

Here's the final panorama of the hall, taken at some point after the banquet got underway! As you can see, things are getting slightly blurred already. ;-) This is only going to get worse as the evening progresses.

The other panoramas: empty hall, ready to go, candlelight.

Whole roast chickens are such fantastic banquet food. You order them from your local Asda or similar, placing an order big enough that they'll deliver at the appointed time, and that's it! Then you serve them to the hungry banqueteers, one between four, who get to tear them limb from limb in true Henry VIII style. Everyone's a winner! Except the chickens, obviously.

Another long exposure of banquetteers doing their thing. I should have taken some photos when everyone was dancing I suppose, but of course, I was dancing, so I didn't. :-)

Somehow I got landed with the role of a Saracen, which involved being pushed around and thrown to the floor by a bunch of Christian knights. Here I am with my thrilling headgear, anyway.