Father's Day

This year seems to be destined to be a year of buildings and books. Not a single figure paintbrush on the horizon.  On Sunday I steered by wife down to Toy World where she bought my Father's Day present. I've had my eye on thus model for a while and even though I have other church models I thought it might go well with the Italieri stone house I made last year. The model has mixed reviews but I still think it is quite an imposing capture point on a table. We'll see how it turns out over the next few weeks.

Cool! Just figured out how to post multiple images

Here are my Del Prado cavalry figures.  Now I can delete these from my phone.

Ospreys at home photo the second.

Well, most of the titles I have been wanting have finally found their way onto my bookshelf. Only about 15-20 to go. I decided to include the Seven Years War in my purchases because it is a logical lead up to the Napoleonic Wars and there are some awesome uniforms! Posting down to the bottom of the planet is surprisingly fast (3 weeks), although it does take about 2 weeks to actually process the order. It has been a fun experience to wait at the gate for my early Christmas presents. Next up - Austrian troops for real Christmas if HAT Industrie get their range to the shops in time?

Ospreys at home photo the first

Thoughts About a Stalled Hobby

The thing about hobby blogs is that if the other 99% of your real life sends you away in different directions - nothing ever gets added to the pages. Unfortunately, this is the case with my hobby of late. I haven’t painted since February and even that was a terrain piece not figures. I have no figures to paint on the horizon as well. I like looking back over this little blog because as I don't keep a diary, these little posts serve to remind me of the other things in my life which were happening at the same time. I don't really want to blog about business and family as I want to keep these aspects of my life to myself and I don't feel comfortable discussing others lives around me. They can do that for themselves if the fancy takes them.  

Anyway,  I am guessing that a year will pass before I feel the urge to continue the hobby.  Just to keep myself vaguely in the hobby I have decided to buy the Osprey Napoleonic titles which have been niggling at me to get over the years.  One of the cool things is that if you buy an Osprey Publishing Gold membership for about 90 pounds you get a 30% discount off your purchases. I am planning to spend around 600 pounds before the end of the month to snag the last of the titles so at least that keeps me in hobby territory. Once my bookcase is replete, I hope that (and the coming of spring and finally selling a business) will signal a kick starting period. I would really love to finish my Austrian army before I turn 50…..

So I'll promise myself to keep blogging about this cool little nugget of a hobby as often as a can. Next up photos of my Osprey collection?

La Haye Sainte

Since I'm on a roll, here is my completed Sarissa Precision Waterloo farmhouse guarded by some British infantry. This was a really fun and fast project. One week start to finish.

Time Life World War Two

When I was a kid my dad and I took a trip together to Wanaka to see uncle Bert and aunty Kathleen. Uncle Bert and his brother had farmed at the back of the Mile Flat at the back of Hampden for many years. Neither had married and when Willy died,  Bert sold up and moved to Oamaru. There he met Kathleen, a retired primary school teacher and they married. Later on in life they moved to Wanaka when it was on the cusp of becoming a tourist mecca. I guess they were pretty wealthy but they lived a quiet retired life.
This story reaches this blog because on my last trip over with my dad, I spotted a shelf with about 20 Time Life books on WW2. while I was there, I read as many as I could and when it came time to go Uncle Bert gave them all to me. I was quite stunned as they were bloody expensive books. Aunt Kathleen explained that Bert had finished with them and never really got the most out of them anyway because he had never learned how to read! Anyway,  now after all these years I have dragged the entire collection from storage under the house and have put them next to my office desk. Although I have ceased being too interested in WW2 it somehow seems fitting to have them next to me. They are a personnal taonga   and a link to my whanau turangawaewae. Thanks uncle Bert!