Traquair Medieval Fair

It's been a while since we've had a day out some doing something event-y. Traquair House is one of the oldest houses in Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots lived there for a time, and it's not far past Peebles, so it's in a lovely spot in the Borders. 

The grounds were perfect for a medieval fair - traders and reenactors were all set up in the walled garden, full of very old fruit trees in a beautiful setting.  The road to the house was lined with food vans, then the avenues was set up for a joust and further traders.  There was the usual medieval fair stuff, reenactors cooking food, doing arming and costume displays, archery and firepower demonstrations, a group playing early music, all good stuff. 

The weather came and went, but luckily wasn't wet enough to wash everything out.  Highlights were definitley the jousting - the pictues is of the 'bad knight' Fitzpercy completing his joust at the quintain as a warm up to the head to head bouts.  The guy playing Fitzpercy, clearly had the best job as he was riding around pulling faces, calling his competitors names and glaring at the crowd.  His horse was also very chill and very well handled.  One of the competitors was having a bit of bother with his horse who was obviously upset by something and not wanting to run the tilt and even threw him off at one point.  Think he and the horse were all okay though. 

The other highlight was the haggis street food van - the veggie haggis was super tasty and it was easily the quickest and best value food there.  P enjoyed it so much he went back for seconds.