Last Day, Holiday Blues, But Lazy Like Sunday Mornin'

 Well I woke up this mornin'...

Bugger off, I'm not going to think up some witty lyrical exercise in the style of B.B King at 06:30 on the last day of my holiday!

Actually, my holiday has been pretty good after two disatrous years previously due to one reason or another beyond our control. And as I sit listening to Spyro Gyra (how can I have missed such wonderful music?) I'm feeling rather chipper.

I've hosted two games and as of yesterday afternoon, cleared 122 figures from my 140 figure pile of leaden shame (AKA, the stuff I was too tight to pay for having painted, or which I actually said; 'Hey, I'll paint that myself!' about).

OK it was a 20 minute paint job, but it did get those numbers well over what I had planned and with 6000 fantasy figures, the imperfections and slapdash style will blend into the background:

 

Actually, it also included that bloody big palanquin too, so that's a bonus.

The truly liberating thing, is that I can switch off my normal 'professional' levels of work and just paint in the same way I did when I was 14, which I find to be very satisfying and a great way to keep myself in the mindet that so many reject - that no matter what, you are still the same person you were when you were a kid. And you should embrace that, not hide it away in embarrassment as so many of my peers seem to do.

Trust me, they were wankers too... No matter what they may argue.

I'm now literally itching for some historical gaming now, not that I'm in anyway 'off' the old fantasy; no sir...

I just need me a fix of some men in wigs, stockings and maybe the odd perfumed lace cuff. 

I've gone back and forth between the 1690s and 17-Oh-whatevers and I think the 1690s will be the victor. Now, this has been largely driven by the fact I've also got a large commission for a similar set-up, but it's also one of those times when I've been reflecting on my sordid and sometimes shameful past, where wargaming synchronicity is often found lurking, like the fat kid at the party, with yet another plateful of grub, in a shady corner, whilst every other child is playing pass the parcel or doing that demonic folk dance known as the hokey-cokey.

The year after my wife and I met, we were struggling - and I mean struggling (see earlier pieces) as well as having a 6 month old baby, and she somehow managed to scrape together monry to buy me the British army at Killicrankie from Steve Royen at the Sabre show in Harrogate along with a copy of the excellent 'Bonnie Dundedd' for my 22nd birthday.

Admittedly now, I should have refused to let her do it, but young me and old me are two different countries.

The army is long gone, but some 35 years later, I still have that book, and surprisingly despite my stupidity and general grumpy demeanor, the wonderful woman who bought it for me.

So you see, it's only right, after celebrating our 31st wedding anniversary, that I finish what I bloody started, but doing so in the 'Go Big Or Go Home' manner I have adopted in the last few years.

As my long lost friend, Roger said, 'Go deep, not wide.' - He was right of course.

I think that the 1690s is appealing to me over the slightly later wars because there's the wonderful background of the Williamite Wars, with all the domestic fracas, as well as less uniformed headgear and the somewhat symbolic, but still visible presence of the pikeman. After all, I'm a sucker for a man with a big pole, as you'll know by now, I'm sure.

So, the last few days has seen me ordering an inordinate number of books from all over the place and they are piling up on my 'to read' pile, rerady for a cramming session.

Speaking of books, whilst on one of my visits to the Peak District over my holidays, in search of serious gastronomic delight - of which there is much, as the Duke Of Devonshire's domain, has a plethora of excellent silver service establishments and some you'd pass thinking 'pub meal' but which actually provide seriously high quality viands, once you get inside, in surprisingly nice surroundings. In fact, I found that the decor of the Devonshire Arms in Baslow, was better than the supposedly more up-market Cavendish Hotel just up the road, whilst having the same quality of menu:

Devonshire Arms:

Crisped beef salad with a chilli-balsamic dressing

Wild mushrooms on sourdough, with garlic, mozarella poached egg , dressed with creme fraiche and micro herbs

'Proper' sticky toffee pudding with cream (NOT the mass produced sugary junk) but an unctuous soft sponge in what I can only describe as liquid cinder toffee.

Cavendish Hotel:

Vodka cured trout with pickled cucumber

Pan fried seas bass with lemon butter, asparagus and confit potato

Strawberrys with strawberry sorbet and vanilla clotted cream 

 

There were many more gastronomic adventures including three excellent 4-course lunches at the Cavendish Restaurant in the grounds of the Chatsworth estate.

But I digress...

Where was I? Ah yes, it was whilst on one of these jaunts I came across a charity shop of a singular level of sophistication wherein I found an unread copy of the first volume of the 'Hellblazer' graphic novel, collected from the first however many issues of this late 80s comic, of which I was a great fan.

I sold my first 12 issues way back around the time of the Killiecrankie army, for a king's ransom and so you see, how synchronicity rears it's head again?

Well, the die is cast, obviously and so like Elric or Von Bek, I must accept my fate...

Well, it's 8AM and I need my second coffee of the day, so if you will excuse me I'm off to brw one and then perhaps enjoy a long with Mark Allen and his uniforms...

TTFN