Ship Shape and Shaping Up

Went to Janesville this weekend.

Firstly, it was AWESOME! I loved being back as AnneDrew, the pants I made worked out very well, and I spent two days with people who make me feel normal.

However, I seemed to have either pushed the envelope a few times, or I'm just not in as great shape as I thought I was.

It's possible that both are true. I've been battling a lot of stress lately and haven't been able to eat properly for the past week or so. I was only able to eat one meal without trouble this weekend. So I snacked a lot and drank a lot of water. That is how I usually eat at Faire, so I wasn't sure why I was having issues.
Possibly the issue is that I haven't had the rehearsal month of walking around and getting used to the heat and acclimating myself. Instead I threw myself into 70+ degrees of heat and added humidity. However, I made it through each day without coming close to going down. A few rough spots, yes, but nothing that I would label as serious.

So now I have to evaluate my level of physical fitness. To most people, I look really fit. For the most part I am very fit. I dance, I walk and jog a little, I stretch, and do my best to eat healthy. Now I'm considering endurance training of some sort. Swimming would be a great option for summer, and better for my joints than running on a treadmill.

Now for the Bright Side of things.

I really like where AnneDrew seemed to be going this weekend. I noted some things that I need to improve on and learn, but overall I was pleased with the direction that Anne's character took. I think that the word "spunky" and "underdog" was mentioned more that a few times. By the end of the season last year AnneDrew was only starting to get her confidence, she was still very wary of being discovered. This whole weekend AnneDrew wasn't concerned at all, in fact, she was confident and assured about her place. Sure she'd joke about becoming Captain, but she's content to be Apprentice/Ship's Boy for the moment. I think she'd make a good life for herself in time.

A while back I said I was going to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with this blog. I've made a Facebook page for AnneDrew to do some fun stuff, I'm planning on working on my ship vocabulary through some posts there. I'm working on some stories (some of which were told for the first time at Janesville) that will be posted here and this blog will keep on as a record of my Ren Faire Adventures. I'll try to put some historical articles and essays up here as well, and updates will always be linked through my Facebook Anne-Drew Page. My other performance opportunities. For those and the rest of my adventures head on over to my other blog- Astonishing.

So- if you want to get updates from this blog- go and "like" my Anne-Drew page! It would mean a lot for you to support me as I continue my fledgeling career.

---Kait (Anne-Drew)

Peaking Around the Corner

With a breath of spring air, I feel suddenly.....

homesick.

Bristol is calling like the sea calls to the sailor. I hear piped tunes in my head and sea shanties are on repeat in my mind all the live long day. I'm longing for the day when I can dig out my notes and history books on Tudor England and dive back into something that I love learning about. Maybe I'll actually master those knots this year.

I've been away from this blog for too long. Life has explode and I've had good reason to put Anne (and my other characters) on the back burner so that I can take care of reality. I'm still "taking care of reality." In other words, college finals are in two weeks and I have a 15 page paper to write for my history class, and a few things for my acting class that sort of take precedence over AnneDrew. Sorry dearest Anne.

However, that doesn't mean I'm not daydreaming about the stories I want to tell, or that I'm not planning and thinking about the upcoming Bristol season.

I feel like I could do more with Anne. Maybe something slightly more educational? Like essays or little fact filled posts? Maybe a short series of pirate lingo lessons. It doesn't really have to be too serious.

Things I have done for Anne-
I've made my first Anne costume! Last year I started amassing the things I needed to make my sailor costume and with one shirt that I purchased at the Faire (quality over my poor sewing skills), a jacket turned into a doublet from Goodwill, and a sewn pair of PANTS that I am very proud of, I have made my AnneDrew costume.

I want to get back to Bristol. I know it's only a month away and there's a faire in between that, and a few other delightful things coming up this May. Anne is starting to tap her foot and look at me like I'm neglecting her. After school is over I shall have time!
And more posts!
And a plan for this blog!

Until 14 days from now!

Anne in a Dress

Instead of a Jack in the Box, an Anne in a Dress!
Just a bit of fiction I came up with around midnight of last night. It's very reminiscent of a few...erm...complications I discovered that come with wearing a farthingale. I hope you find this humorous.

“Anne Elizabeth Hawkyns!” Anne cringed at the sound of her father’s voice above her. She dropped her skirts and turned demurely on the stairs, looking at her father. Captain Sir John Hawkyns was leaning against the railing of the stair landing, a slightly bemused expression on his face.

“Aye, father?” Anne blinked innocently. Anyone else wouldn't have been able to tell that she had been climbing the stairs with her skirts hiked up nearly to her knees. Hawkyns’ was not to be fooled by his daughter’s charade. Anne was having a bit of a hard time adjusting to her new life as a privileged daughter of a knight. The cumbersome weight of her skirts made her feel both beautiful and restricted. Only a few days ago Anne had tried moving over a bench (something she would have easily jumped over in her lad’s clothing) and had to get help when her farthingale trapped her in place. Even the clothing she had worn growing up was much simpler than the finery Hawkyns had procured for her. The clothing was sometimes the least of Anne’s troubles.

“Ladies don’t bring their skirts up so high when ascending the stairs.” Hawkyns admonished with a grin. Anne knew that he was being lenient. “Where is Elizabeth?” She couldn’t go anywhere without an escort now, where as a lad she had been able to come and go as she pleased. Anne looked down the stairs and failed to see the other red haired girl that had been behind her only moments before. Elizabeth Cecil, the daughter of Lord Burghley, had befriended Anne within minutes of being introduced. Elizabeth, while studious and much better bred than Anne, had her own streak of mischief and fire in her.

“She was just behind me.” Anne replied loudly, hoping that her friend was within earshot.

“I’m here!” Elizabeth’s voice came through the door as she pushed the heavy oak. “They didn’t catch us! I had to see if one of my father’s spies was…” She looked up and spotted Hawkyns, and Anne’s warning facial expression. “Good day Captain.” Elizabeth smoothly floated up the stairs, hardly raising her skirt. Anne let out a long sigh. Why did Elizabeth have to be so good at all of these feminine things?

“I thought my daughter had lost you, Lady Elizabeth.” Hawkyns observed after reverencing. “What sort of mischief are you two young ladies getting in to?”  

“All sorts.” Elizabeth laughed. “But aren’t you a pair of my father’s eyes and ears as well?” Anne bit her lip to conceal her laughter. Even laughing was painful in these corsets and bodices. Of course Hawkyns was a spy, he’d been a double agent as well.

“I had thought you to be a positive influence on my daughter.” Hawkyns chuckled. Anne felt light headed and leaned against the rail of the stair, frowning. “Are you all right, Anne?”

“It’s this damn dress.” Anne muttered, earning a stern look from her father. “You never said anything about my language when I was the ship’s boy!” Anne pressed her side as the lightheadedness passed.

“I’ll take her to sit down for a while.” Elizabeth led Anne up the stairs towards Elizabeth’s rooms in Lord Burghley’s estate.

Almost out of earshot of Hawkyns, Anne turned to Elizabeth and with complete seriousness uttered, “I want my trousers back.” Hawkyn’s laughter at Anne’s words could be heard throughout the house. 

Fin

 

Anne's Log- The Reveal!

Anne tried desperately to crawl out of the grave she’d now dug for herself.

“But Captain!” She protested with more than an edge of desperation in her voice, “I didn’t mean too!”

Only moments before had Anne blundered into a game of Towers that Captain Frobisher was about to win. Now Captain Hawkyns and Captain Drake were splitting the money that Captain Frobisher didn’t have. Anne picked herself up from amid the blocks she had toppled over with and scooted away from her irate employer.

“I don’t care!” Captain Frobisher roared. Anne dashed in between the other captains, using them as a buffer. She wondered why she had let the Captain into the wine so early in the morning, even if it was a festival day. “Get back over here!”

Anne slowly trod towards her captain, ready to duck and cover or run as fast as her legs could carry her. Captain Frobisher had lifted men bigger than her clear over his head and tossed them off the ship. “It is a festival day, Captain.” Anne said hopefully, “Mayhap we can simply forget about this?” It was a stretch and Anne knew it.

“Certainly not.” Captain Frobisher insisted. “I’m revoking your land privileges and you’re going to get ten lashes.”

Anne steeled herself. She could take a whip so long as the captain didn’t find out she was a girl. “Administered by whom?” She couldn’t help the quaver in her voice.

Captain Frobisher looked at Anne like it was the most idiotic question in the world. “Me!”

Flailing around for words Anne sputtered out “But you can’t!”

“What do you mean I can’t! I’m the captain! You’ve got to learn to take punishment like a man, I’ve been much too lax on you.”

Anne looked to Hawkyns and Drake. Hawkyns seemed ready to jump into action, but as always he waited to see what Anne would do. Anne had told him in no uncertain terms that she could take care of herself.

“But Captain!”

“What?” Captain Frobisher was already starting to walk away from the towers. “Come on, I haven’t got all day.”

Anne tried to find an excuse, “It’ll ruin my shirt!” Was all that she could come up with?

“That doesn’t matter- you don’t need it anyway, Andrew!” Captain Frobisher stared at Anne with annoyance. “Just take it off now!”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”  Captain Frobisher pulled at Anne’s arm. “You’re not going to get any blood on it. Act like a man, Andrew!”

“I’m a girl!” Anne blurted. Everything seemed to stand still for a moment.

Captain Frobisher blinked. “What?”

Anne looked to Drake, who looked astonished. Then she looked to Hawkyns, who looked a little surprised. Then she looked back her Captain, who looked skeptical. “I’m a girl, Captain.”

“You lied to me!”

“Not technically.” Anne wheedled. “I never said I wasn’t a girl.”

“I distinctly told you girls are bad luck on ships!” Captain Frobisher protested.

Anne nodded, “But you never asked if I was a girl.”

“Naturally I assumed you’d be a boy!”

“Martin.” Hawkyns interrupted. “Do you recall my cabin boy ‘Bob?’”

Captain Frobisher gaze Hawkyns the same annoyed look he had given Anne moments earlier. “Of course! Rather rubbish of you keeping a girl on board.”

“I had my reasons.”

“We all knew your reasons.” Anne couldn’t help herself. Hawkyns gave her a cautioning glance.

“Glass houses, Anne.”

“WAIT!” Frobisher burst between the two. “Anne-Drew.” He looked at Anne in shock. “That’s a boy’s name!”

Captain Hawkyns rolled his eyes and stepped in between the increasingly outraged Frobisher and the petrified Anne. “Oh, come now, Martin.”

“You’re not just getting a whipping!” Frobisher yelled. “I think a good old fashioned keelhauling is in order.”

Hawkyns put his hand protectively on Anne’s shoulder. “As Anne’s father, I take responsibility for her actions and forbid you to touch her.”

Anne and Frobisher looked at Hawkyns in disbelief. “Father?” In reality, thought Anne might have played her cards to gain a little from each Captain by teasing how they might be her father, she had no idea which of these famous captains her father was.

Hawkyns’ pulled a piece of paper out of his doublet and handed it to Anne. “That is my signature, isn’t it?”

Anne glanced at the paper,

I, Father Peter of the church of England, do provide witness to the baptismal and christening of this child, Anne Drew, born to John Hawkyns, Captain, and Fanny Drew, a most common woman, on the seventh day of September anno domino 1556. While this child is not of a legitimate union, both parties do recognize parentage and accept responsibility of this child and do claim the child to be their own.

Witnessed By

Father Peter

Fanny Drew               John Hawkyns

            “While your mother might have had copies of this particular letter.” Hawkyns raised an eyebrow at Anne, who almost blushed from embarrassment. “I do claim you as my child, since it seems that you finally have gotten yourself into a scrape you can’t get out of.”

“John!” Captain Frobisher sputtered, trying to make sense of everything that he had learned in the last three minutes. “This doesn’t make any sense!”

“What doesn’t make sense Captain?” Anne asked exasperatedly. Hawkyns gave her a look that told her to let him do the talking.

Frobisher looked at the ground in an attitude of deep thought. “Wait…” He said as he put two and two together, “You’ve been a girl this whole time.”

“Yes.”

“How many people knew?”

“Everyone but you Captain.” Anne grumbled. It hadn’t been her plan.

“Am I really that thick?”

“Come along Anne.” John Hawkyns held out his hand to his newly recognized daughter. “Let’s go get your things from the ship, you need to get some women’s clothes.”

“I don’t own any.” Anne winced at the thought of losing the freedom that trousers and a doublet had given her. “What about the Captain?”

“He’ll work it out eventually.”

Anne looked over her shoulder at the dumb-struck Captain Frobisher. To be honest she didn’t have much of an understanding of what just happened either. Still, something inside of her leapt with joy that she belonged to someone.

However, something inside her said that her adventures had only just begun. She’d need to keep her boy clothes around just in case.

The Red Ribbon, Earring, and Shell Necklace.

The Red Ribbon, Earring, and Shell Necklace.

“What have you got there Andrew?” John piped up from across the galley. Anne tried to stash the earing she’d been gazing at, but Captain Frobisher’s hand caught her wrist before she could hide the bauble.

“Ah-ha!” Captain Frobisher laughed, “I knew you had a girl somewhere, Andrew!”

Anne’s brain raced, “It’s nothing sir.” She tried to twist her arm away but Captain Frobisher plucked the earing out of her hand and held it up to the lamplight.

“This is quite the pretty piece. Who’d it belong to?” While the rest of the crew knew of Anne’s disguise, the captain was still blind and Anne preferred to keep it that way.  Whether through brotherly friendship or bullying she had gotten the crew on her side, but she hardly knew how Frobisher would react to finding out that his ship’s boy and protégé was a lass. 

“A girl back home. We’re promised to each other.” Anne supplied quickly, hoping that it would shut the captain up. The Captain handed the earing back to her. “I don’t think she’ll wait around long, might even be married by the time we get back, she is a few years older than me.” Anne heard a few of the men snicker and she gave them a vicious glare, which only made them chuckle more.

“An older woman?” The Captain roared with laughter.  “You’ll learn Andrew,” Captain Frobisher swung an arm around Anne’s shoulders, “women are as changeable as the tides and plentiful as the fish in the sea. We’ll just find you another one, won’t we men?” The crew gave a resounding assortment of cheers and laughter.

“Sir, I’m only sixteen! I went to sea to get away from women!” Anne protested, only making her situation worse. “I appreciate the offer captain, but-“

Frobisher waved Anne’s pleas away with a punch to her shoulder, “No buts Andrew! When we dock in Bristol the first order of business is to find you a buxom lass to have some fun with.”

“As you wish Captain.” Anne rolled her eyes and ducked out from the galley and scurried away to her hammock. It seemed funny to her how she’d grown up around men all her life, and yet she had barely known anything about men until she had signed on with a crew of them. Once there she pulled out the earing again and looked over the small metal hoop with the glass bead embedded inside. It had been one of her mother’s things, a mismatched earing that Anne had played with since she’d been young. It had been a bracelet until Anne’s wrist had grown too large for the opening. It was the only thing she carried of her mother.

Anne’s hand found the shell that hung from a string around her neck and she gave the good luck charm a small squeeze. Once again she’d just barely escaped another awkward situation with the Captain and crew. Captain Frobisher was mostly bluff and blunder anyway.

“You all right lass?” John’s head peeked over the edge of Anne’s hammock and she nodded. “Whose earring is it?”

“Mine. Same as the ribbon.” Anne stashed the earing and rolled out of her hammock. “Does the captain need me?”

“We’ve got watch now, c’mon.” John patted Anne on the shoulder and the two of them headed up to scan the horizon. 

Look for the last installment of "Anne's Clothes" tomorrow- The Shirt. Hope you have enjoyed reading these little stories, if you've missed any just look for the tag "Anne's Clothes" to find the rest of them! 

The Knife and The Belay Pin, the Pouch, and the Journal and Pencil

Today's first post reviews how Anne got a hold of that knife you see her wearing. Look for the post later tonight (I think around 9pm) about various little trinkets that Anne carries. These two posts are pretty short so I thought that they'd make a good single post length.

The Knife

            “You’ve got a knife, lad?” The boatswain, John, asked. Anne’s hand went to her belt and nodded, feeling the wooden handle in her palm. “Let’s see you use it then." Anne drew her blade and sawed away at the rope John had told her to cut.  “Where’d you get it?”

“Someone threw it into a wall.” Anne summarized as she drew her arm back and forth. It wasn’t a lie, the knife had been thrown, probably by a drunk thug, and had stuck in the wall of the inn she stayed at the night before. When no one came running after it, Anne pulled it out of the framework and made it her own. “Will it do?”

“It’ll do quite well, I think.” John caught the two pieces of rope and Anne stashed the knife back in her belt. The boatswain noted the ribbon that the cabin lad secured his new weapon with. “Got a girl back home, then?”

“What?” Anne looked at the boatswain with alarmed eyes and looked back at her knife. “Oh…erm…aye.” She lied, hoping that no one would question her too much about the few baubles she carried.

The Belay Pin, the Pouch, and the Journal and Pencil

Captain Frobisher’s papers were a mess. How the man had managed to keep the ship running with everything out of order, Anne couldn't fathom. She spent a good hour just putting everything in order and another two hours deciphering the captain’s haphazard scrawl and spelling. Everything needed to be re-logged into the leather bound journal she had found at the bottom of the writing desk. Captain Frobisher, while an accomplished sailor to say the least, was absolute rubbish when it came to keeping track in documentation.

A severe hand cramp caused Anne to put a pause in her copy work. She folded the page she had stopped writing at. Carefully she slid the journal and pencil into the pouch Stretch the sail maker had helped her to sew out of some old clothes. It wasn't as if Anne didn't already know how to sew, but if she was going to try and act like a boy she wanted to at least seem ignorant of sewing. 

The sound of the boatswain’s whistle “all hands on deck” resounded round the ship and sent Anne running out of the captain’s room. Before Anne knew it the crew where all rushing at her and she leap up among the rigging, not stopping her climb until she reached the crow's nest. She didn't come down until the men promised not to haze her any more and went back about their work.

No one noticed that during the next week they were short one belaying pin, or if anyone did notice the appearance of the new item on “Andrew’s” belt, none of the sailors said anything. Even if she did have a knife, Anne felt it was better to be safe than sorry.

Come back around 9pm!

The Hat

Tonight's installment features the lovely Robertina, also known as Bob (yes like Blackadder)! I'm so glad I have a real Bob to interact with on the weekends. Every time I see her it makes my day a little happier because of all the havoc we bring to the captains, and the mirth we give to the patrons. 

Enjoy!

 

The Hat

Robertina handed Anne a hat. “Don’t ask where I got it, all right?” Anne inspected the oddly shaped cap. It almost looked like a question mark and flopped oddly when Anne shoved it onto her head.

“Will it be missed?” Anne adjusted the fabric and pulled the tasseled end over her shoulder. It was almost endearing in a completely mad sort of way.

“Only by the dead.” Robertina gave Anne a smile that said that more than the dead would be missing this hat. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you saw everyday.

“Robertina-“

“Bob in public, please.” Robertina shooed Anne up the stairs of the inn and into a room. “Can’t have the mates thinking I’m a girl, now can we?”

“How long have you kept it up?” Anne plopped into a chair, her feet were killing her in their new boots.

Robertina smirked. “From the crew or captain?” She laughed at Anne’s flabbergasted expression. “None but Hawkyns knows my true identity. He’s a good captain.” Anne noted the shine in Robertina’s eyes and wondered what exactly was so fascinating about sailors that made women constantly fall in love with them. Robertina couldn't have been more than a few years older than Anne.

“He might be my father.” Anne blurted. Robertina’s eyebrows raised most the way up her forehead.

“Do tell.” She crossed her legs and propped her head in her hands. “I want to hear everything.”   

The story of the Boots will be up sometime around 9pm methinks, mayhap a bit earlier.

The Slops

So I write ONE POST about how to break your captain out of jail, and Anne starts knocking about in my head and won't shut up until I write something about her. The conversation went something like this.
Anne: "Write about me!"
Me: "Why? I have 20 (not kidding) other characters that need to be written about this week."
Anne: "But I want you to write about ME, not just about how I *almost* got Captain Frobisher out of jail!"
Me: "Wait. Your. Turn."
Anne: "Not a chance, and I won't shut up until you write about me."
Other Characters: "We're going on strike anyway."
Me: "What? How can you go on strike- I don't even pay you!"
Other Characters: "Oh yeah....well, we're going to be unreasonable and uncooperative this week. We thought we'd give you a heads up."
Me: "Gee thanks."
Anne: "Now will you write about me?"
Me: "Some people's children! Yeesh, whatever, I'll write about you if it will make you pipe down."
Anne: "Yay! Plus you owe me for turning my shirt pink."
Me: "We made it white again!"
Anne: "Moot. Point."
Me: "I'm writing about you, PIPE DOWN OR I'LL TELL THE CAPTAIN." 

So Anne got to tell the stories behind most of what she wears. I'll be posting a story or two every day and we'll see what happens. If it's rubbish you can blame Anne. She rushed me.

The Slops

Anne looked into her mother’s room as the first rays of sunlight came in through the window. Two figures lay in the bed, sleeping soundly. The landlord would be up soon, wanting the rent for the month. That would wake them up if nothing else did.

Anne was used to creeping around silently. It was the only way she didn’t get tangled up in her mother’s affairs. Without making the door or floorboards squeak, she danced across the floor and searched the john’s pockets. Holding up the john’s clothing, Anne wondered just how slight he was. She could almost fit into his slops.

No money, but his clothing reeked of the smell of the sea. Anne shook her head. Her mother was always soft for sailors.

 “He can’t pay.” Anne thought to herself. “Looks like he’ll be leaving without his trousers.” She flung the slops over her shoulder and took the rent money from the false bottom of a chair. They’d be able to stay for another month at least, and the idea of the john sneaking out without his trousers made her snicker.

How to get a Captain out of jail

This was prompted by a street bit that I did on Saturday where I asked patrons how to get Captain Frobisher out of jail without having to pay the bail money. I combined all of the ideas into one fantastic escape attempt! 

Anne's log Monday July the 23rd

Today we plan to break Captain Frobisher out of jail. We do not wish to pay bail since it would require the crew to forgo our own pay and most of the men haven't been paid yet. We have yet to find where the Captain keeps our pay, though Captain Hawkyns did leave a few clues. I have since asked many people who are versed in the art of escape and they have given me many ideas as how to sneak the Captain out of jail without actually paying the guards.

Firstly, the crew should try to bring gifts of strong beverages that will make the guards drunk and unable to understand fully what we are about. Then some guards will be served stew with herbs that will turn their stomachs sour and they shall have need to leave their posts to empty their stomachs or bowels, whichever ailment the herb shall cause. Then John and Stretch shall set a rat (or two) on fire and distract the remaining guards as I slip into the jail and find the Captain.
As soon as that has been done, the rest of the crew shall disguise themselves as farmers and with the aide of a borrowed herd of cows, send the cows into a frenzy charging towards the jail. The crew shall behave as if they lost control of their herd and will require the guards assistance in rounding up the beasts. While this distraction is going on, I shall unlock the Captain's cell (since I have acquired the key from the pickpocket Maggie Pie), and we shall run out the back entrance to a waiting straw filled wagon and I shall drive off with the Captain Frobisher hiding under the straw.

However, if worst comes to worst and our plans do not succeed we shall try the use of gunpowder to blow up the wall of the Captain's cell and hope that he does not perish in the process.

Fortunately, the crew's plan is put on hold as Captain Sir John Hawkyns has just sent me a message saying he is seeing to the release of Captain Frobisher this evening and I should ready the crew for the Captain's return.


Hope you all enjoyed the idea of the charging cows! It was my personal favorite.