Looking Ahead, Whilst Delving Into The Gaming Past.

 My weekend has been somewhat painful as I seem to have screwed up my rotator cuff in the painting arm which is pretty bad news and a lot more painful as I need to keep using the arm to earn my crust.

Last night saw me dosed up on three types of painkiller and capsaicin ointment, to no avail. I am a little more comfortable today but I need to keep on top of it until next Friday night as it's my hardest week in the working month, working on some seriously high end brushwork which will see the completion of a two year fantasy project for a highly respected member of the gaming fraternity over in the U.S.

I've been taking it easier this afternoon having put in some serious hours yesterday and this morning on the extra-curricular stuff I mentioned in my previous post.

The date of the Christmas game was announced yesterday and the response has been brilliant. Getting around a table with some of my oldest friends is something I always enjoy and I'm sure the banter will be pretty good too.

The day after, the Memsahib and I will be going out for a 5 course lunch at the Cavendish restaurant in the grounds of the Chatsworth pile, having booked that this morning and then a more low-key lunch on the 30th of December with family at the Fox House hotel on the edge of the Peak District. A nice rounding out to the Christmas festivities, allowing us 9 more days before we return to work in early January, the brats having all returned to school and thereby making days out more enjoyable.

I sat and worked out the budget for 2024 and I have to say that I am already well in pocket just with the unspent gaming fund for the current year, let alone my projected gaming budget for next year.

It may therefore end up that I have all of the spending done for 2024, by March, at which point I think I may just not bother with shows for the rest of the year.

As it stands, the shopping list is as follows:

20 Vietnam: VC porters, 2x 105mm howitzers, downed aircrew, war correspondents, a LRRP unit and a MACVSOG team along with a few hooches and a couple of Jeeps. - I'll paint these

Full Thrust: 60 or so ships and a few terrain pieces. - I'll also paint these

28mm Fantasy: 12 Ents, 3 Giants riding elephants, 24 Pixies - These will go to my painter.

Speaking of my painter, I got some shots of the next few hundred models the other day and I'm very happy with them. There's a shed load of human Dark Ages cavalry and infantry with a distinctly Rohan vibe, a load of Trolls, 60 Lesser Goblin wolf riders and 140 Elves.

My main painter has agreed to take on a small and steady flow of additional work, despite his retirement from commission painting. We enjoy a great relationship. I simply pay for everything in advance and then wait for it's return as and when he completes this or that. It's refreshing to find another painter with a similar view of the business to myself. And I know that the fact that I don't have to be chased for payment goes down well with him. There is nothing worse than having to chase up a client, so I'm minfdful of this and keep up my end of the transaction. I'm very grateful that we have been able to come to this arrangement.

I've really found myself going back to my roots as you will have read previously and I'm finding it really enjoyable. I'm 55 now and in over 4 decades of gaming, it's been the same few things which give me the greatest pleasure. The only thing I cannot face is the ECW now after the terrible game last year which led to the estrangement of Roger and I for reasons still not disclosed. 

I was talking to a few friends recently and they just advised that I leave said former friend to his own devices. It's not what I want to do, but I think they're right. It has meant that my will had to be changed which was a pain in the arse, but so be it.

On the up-side, it does mean that I've been more inclined to drill down and rediscover the stuff I want to play. Most of my friends like me, have self curated collections, with some cross-over, so we all have something we can bring to the table apart from emotinal baggage. It's also been good to reconnect with some people with whom I never expected to be able to do so.

Sadly, one person I wish I could sit an d talk to about the hobby and painting is the late Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong, I was watching a re-run of a 1979 Top Of The Pops last night and The Jam were performing 'Eton Rifles'. It was whilst I was reseraching and writing my first book that Pete sent a message which simpy read 'What a catalyst you turned out to be'.

Every time I hear this song, I think of Pete. I and I know many oithers of our peer group, miss him terribly. Some of us suffered unmercifully at the hands of Pete as teenagers, but as we grew older, he was a gentler soul (most of the time) and even though we told him how we held him in high regard, I don't think he ever truly understood just how much.

I've been pleasantly surprised in the last couple of months to find that several people who historically, I thought held me in contempt, actually wanted to reconnect. I'm hoping that this can be achieved, and I think that I may spend more time in 2024 rebuilding and strengthening those relationships.

I'm in a way better place than I was 10 months ago, emotionally. I think that broadening my horizons again after trying to please one or two friends exclusively, is paying dividends and that's just great. Not perfect, but still great.

One thing I have learned is that if you put your self image before friendships, you will have a less fulfilling live. As I have always said, it's important to never forget your younger self, even if your childhood was less than perfect. As kid I had what I thought was a pretty good home life. Only in my 5th decade did I find out about several dark stains on the family record. I could have wallowed in them, or denied that they happened, but what is the point? I dealt with my emotions, and moved on. At the very least, I understood why relationships with family were strained at times. 

I've found that many of my friends had similar strains, whicgh as kids we never talked about. Now we can, and do, and the catharsis that this engenders is great.

We talk about gaming and the conversation wanders off. As one friend pointed out a couple of weeks ago, as we had a brief coffee and a chat, just because you don't want to hear something, doesn't make what someone is telling you, untrue. You can simply agree to not talk about something if one of you finds it disagreeable. After all, this hobby is about playing games, not arguing.

The fact that I have a circle of friends all over the world with different views and experiences but with whom wargaming acts as connective tissue, is fucking awesome. People who would otrhgerwise never have met, get together and find commonds ion a common subject - how good is that?

Play games, share experiences and make every gaming second count. Just leave your ego at the door...

 

TTFN