It's been a full week, that's for sure...

 Another week has gone by, and I confess it's been one filled with mixed motional triggers.

At the start of the week, I received a message out of the blue from the person who was there at the very moment, I made history as the first customer of Games Workshop, Sheffield. In fact, it was his insistence that we travel to The Moor ( a paved precinct in Sheffield city centre) to visit Virgin Records so that he could acquire a 12 inch picture disc by Tygers Of Pan Tang, which led to us finding the store which was still being fitted out and stocked at the time. It's an afternoon, literally etched in my mind.

Anyway, the message simply said 'I start chemotherapy in the next few days.'

Now, it had been 11 years since I'd reached out to this former sidekick, when I was writing and fact checking my book, so this sort of hit me out of the blue. We've both gone our own ways in life for reasons I'll not go into as they are private to my friend, but let's just say we became incompatible companions in our mid teens, and by mid 1984 in our last year at school, we didn't mix much beyond a bit of lunchtime gaming at school or Stav's house (he lived 37 seconds at Hi-Tec speed from school, whereas we needed ten minutes at full pelt to get to our own homes.

Well, yesterday I reached out to see how he was, and we had a brief chat... I remarked on the fateful day, and another when we had gone into town after school, lost track of time in Beatties model shop, panicked that we would miss the bus and set off at great speed to try and intercept it, only to be chased and brought to the ground by the store manager who incorrectly assued we were shoplifters. I was so late home in the end that I was grounded for several weeks.

I remarked to my friend that those tales had gone into the book, and he asked if it had indeed been published, to which I said it had, wherupon he enquired 'Did you put the fateful bike ride in?'

Well of course I did. I mean it's not every day you literally cut off a friend's ear with a bike wheel in Barnsley, is it? (A 6 week home arrest resulted, for that jaunt)

So, that got me towards reappraising my life since 1981 and questioning whether I'd do the same again. And I decided that there were only two things I'd have changed really...

1. I'd not have become attached to the red-haired bunny boiler whom I spent 3 years with before meeting my wife.

2. I'd have not allowed my friendship with Roger to become so distant for 2 and a half decades.

Oh what a difference 20/20 hindsight can make. Mind you as for the rest there were a few fuck-ups that maybe I could have avoided, but then my book would have not been 380+ pages.

Gaming-wise, my New Model Army (well most of it) went to new quarters, and I immediately commissioned a Scots Covenanter army to replace it. It's an army I always wanted, but for some unknown reason, one I never got my teeth into. Well, with 9 guns, 12 regiments of foot, and 12 of horse/dragoons, that's now been rectified. Apart from the frame guns which are Warlord, the models are all Perry Miniatures.

I ordered the flags yesterday from Flags Of War and GMB Studios and it cost me an eye watering £98 with an additional £34 bill for the steel pike. But, if a job is worth doing it's worth doing properly. Roger, who by comparison to me is Croesus, is more inclined to print out or paint his own banners, but look, I paint every day, and although I can knock up a nifty flagmyself, the thought of painting 64 of them is a horror too foul to contemplate. Steel pike are getting a bit expensive for my tastes, but they do look better and they protect your valuable models from fuck-handed fellow gamers if properly attached.

I also picked up barrels, gabions, artillery tools, wattle fences and camp equipment from Renedra, Cran Tara and the evergreen Irregular Miniatures, who must arguably have the nicest staff of any company perhaps save Dave at Q.T (now Museum) Miniatures. Oh and I received a lovely resin Bastle house from Hoka Hey Wargaming yesterday morning.

As I type I am just waiting for the basing and varnish to cure, on a little two and a half hour 'flavour piece' vignette of a Highland crofter and his cattle. Here's a pic, but please excuse any 'shine' - It's not quite dry yet:

On Friday I received my Ringworld RPG and a new copy of the Universe RPG. I'd paid £75 for the game and the GM's screen a few weeks ago, but when they arrived, the staples were rusted to the point that it had eaten away the paper, so I returned it to the seller. In the end, I found the GM screen for £15 and the rules for £25. The screen arrived at the start of the week, and so you imagine my surprise when the game itself arrived on Friday, to find that the screen was also included in the deal... Well, I suppose I can have a 'to use' copy and one to keep and gaze upon.

And that's about it for this instalment. As I siad, it's been a full week, and one which had me mentally running in several different directions at once.

Take care and I'l see you all soon,

M