Tears, Memories & A Bedroom At Last

 AT LAST!

We now have a bedroom again, the remedial work is done and the glazing and blinds fitted. Now we are taking a 9 day 'breather' to recover, but also because I have a medical procedure to endure on my hand... BOOOOO!

Then our builder will be returning to renovate the living room, fit what used to be the dining room but which is now a sort of 'dead space' with cabinets, retro tiling and a breakfast bar, turn the front garden into hard standing and resurface the two back gardens with resin, before redocorating throughout.

Hopefully, this will future proof the Dark Tower.

We maximised the storage space in the bedroom at the cost of floor space, but, it's called a bedroom for a reason, and now looks like a 70s starship interior crossed with Bag End - It's all very cosy, and has smart speaker, internet radio and lighting for all moods. At the centre is a contemporary four-poster, where I fiully intend to sprawl like Kublai Khan in Xanadu.

I'm also looking forward to getting back in the games room now that the bad isn't in there...

I have been using the 'down time' to really go over all my gaming plans for the rest of my life - sort of like the Chinese 100 year plans - and I really can see a road map to a fun retirement.

I was sitting at my desk the other day, working hard (as always) and listening to Fugazi by Marillion, when I realised that I had tears pouring down my granite-like cheeks. I had a 'total recall' moment to a sunny day in 1984, when I was sitting at my Mum's dining table, in the last weeks of school, painting. I was absolutely deluged with sensorial memories, and witnessed a sort of high definition, high speed flashback through several of my early gaming memories.

It left me pretty drained, and somewhat fucked up for the rest of the day.

I have a very good long term memory, which is both a blessing and a curse at times.

Anyway, when I got myself back into shape, I was thinking of some of the stuff which inspired me back then, and I recalled the wonderful games put on by Joe Dever and the Player's Guild, as well as photo features in the Tabletop Heroes section of the early White Dwarf mags, where minis from all over the place were featured. In fact, it was in this section, that I first saw Essex Miniatures Medieval figures deliberately used in a fantasy setting. They looked great, which is why the majority of humans in my own collection are such deliberately used models. True, it pisses off my staunchly historical bggamer friends, because they have banners from all over the place making them unfit for proper historical gaming, but that's sort of the point isn't it?

It let's me indulge in wilful anachronism, and as I type, I am thinking about a unit of Medieval minis, painted in yellow with lot's of chequerboard trim and red hearts on shields and flags, because that's how I roll these days. I am intent on allowing the 14 year old me, to run wild and buy the things that £3 pocket money couldn't get.

'Gaming cred' doesn't matter to me anymore, it's all about collecting pretty armies and playing games with friends and shit-talking each other's dice rolls.

I'm definitely undergoing a sort of 'time travel' existence at present though, and I've dreamed in vivid detail about the old Games Workshop crew, Peter, Pete, Chris, Josie and Lisa, several times of late, with long conversations with several of them which I can recall, even two weeks later, as if those were genuine 'real world' experiences. This of course has me wondering about the nature of reality and all that jazz. 

I was in the games room the other day and rediscovered the large collection of 25mm Minifigs ECW I bought for a song at Hammerhead, still sitting there, so I suppose I ought to crack on with rebasing those soon. After all, unused lead is a waste of space, money and effort isn't it?

I really can't understand people ho collect thousands of figures and do nothing, literally nothing, with them and then moan when they rot away to dust.

I have lots of things on my mind at present, related to gaming but truth to tell, I just don't have time to sit and mentally sift and edit them into a series of posts. It's all memories and images at present, but I'll get around to it I'm sure.

I also noticed that I had 35000+ hits on this blog last month - Thank you all!

Well, work calls, so if you will excuse me, I must head off to the studio.


TTFN


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