Farewell To A Friend and Hello To A New Gaming Period.

Life's a right old galimaufry of emotions and occurrences.

Tomorrow, we have to attend the funeral of the Mum of an old friend, who passed away on Christmas Eve.

Margaret, was another Mum who, allowed a bunch of teenage ingrates, invade the back room of her home and cover floor and table with either roleplaying stuff or sometimes wargames, as well as some legendary 40K games which covered the back lawn.

Moreover, when I was going through a really bad stage of my life, having been estranged from my peer group by my newly found 'friends' in the realms of the Goth subculture, and at a time when my girlfriend of the time was fucking her way through around a dozen people whilst driving a wedge between me and several remaining 'old' friends, Margaret was always there to give me a place to find some peace and listen to my woes or just let me doze in an armchair in her living room. She also made sure that I was eating properly and she could cook an amazing stew, which she did in massive quantities, and which we were known to devour in equally large quantities.

I'll always remember her kindness. 

When I settled down with the memsahib a couple of years later, I'd often take our baby daughter over to see Margaret and she's coo and cuddle Ceridwen. I was proud to be able to show her that despite my somewhat erratic lifestyle, I was getting it together.

So, it's with a heavy heart that I'll be paying my last respects to Margaret on Monday. Rest in peace, Mrs B.

I was also saddened to hear of the passing of Chub Pearson, who owned and sculpted the superb Denizen Miniatures ranges. His figures still more than hold their own against modern sculpts and  his Dwarves were unmatched in my humble opinion!  So many gamers will have never heard of him, but there's a cognoscenti of Grognards who had the distinct pleasure of owning Denizen models and will miss this hobby innovator. Rest in peace Mr Pearson.

Meanwhile in a happier world, I took delivery of the Napoleonic unit I mentioned in my last post and this morning, got it rebased after giving it a nice smooth coat of satin varnish.

 

I've been able to come to an arrangement with the painter to paint the remaining 6 units of the Light Division at Salamanca and have also agreed to buy any other units he may have for the Peninsula.

I was also looking over at the WoFun site yesterday and my attention was snagged by two new ranges for the Plains Wars and Tex-Mex War. I'd really like them to do the Mexican-American War too... I may have to indulge myself, because whilst I want to game several odd periods, I really cannot be bothered with the fuss of buying and arranging the painting of lead or plastic figures.