Thursday, 27 June 2013

Thursday? Yeah, I guess it is!


Just had the weekly lunch date with Mrs RC, who also brought along Number One Son.  Once again, we had blazing sunshine while we sat in the garden at the Uni.  Number One Son and I munched cakes (sorry, forgot to take photos) while Mrs RC had something much more healthy.
 
Mrs RC was very pleased with herself, having found a bottle of Coke with my name on it:
 
 
Yes, I am drinking the contents. 
 
Yes I am going to keep the bottle.
 
Meanwhile, I have finished my first group of spearmen for Macbeth's army.  Some of you are unsure about the size of the soldiers that I paint, so this one has a ruler in it:

 
These are the scruffy rabble in an army (I have about 100 of them at the moment), but I will be buying the richer guys soon - these aspired to look like Vikings!  Yeah, they really aimed high, didn't they?  I will also be getting a contingent of Irish immigrant mercenaries.....

Tuesday, 25 June 2013

A movie star in the making?

Possum is one of our rabbits.

There is a large cup and saucer in his run, which he sometimes sleeps in...

 
 
How dumb does that look?
 
In true rabbit fashion, he is rather more active at night than he is during the day.  One thing he does for entertainment is throwing his food bowl around.  He broke a couple of ceramic ones, before we relegated him to a nice plastic one that A won't break and B makes a not less noise when he bounces it off the concrete floor!
 
Last night we could hear him playing with his bowl again...
 
This morning it was like this...




Maybe that is what he was trying to do all along?  Maybe he wants to remake Space Jam?  Should we give him a ball and hoop to play with?



Monday, 24 June 2013

The Weekend

Well the weekend was pretty much as I had hoped.

Mrs RC got to spend a lot of time with her feet up, watching about 3 million episodes of Dexter, being supplied with food and drink, while I did the essential stuff like cooking, washing and doing the afternoon and evening dog walks.  Mrs RC still got up before me to do the early walks - she is much more of a "morning" person than I am...  Oh, and she is feeling much better too - thanks for the get well soon messages!

In between doing stuff, however, I was able to get out the paints and work on some toy soldiers.  Some are ones that are for a friend's Robin Hood game - a Bishop and monks waiting to be robbed, some peasants waiting for the handouts (bailouts?), and King Richard ready to arrive late and pardon everyone for reducing the country to anarchy.  This evening I am going to visit him to collect some more that need a painting - King John, The Sheriff of Nottingham, etc.   These will be good fun to paint too.  I hope I can make them appear suitably evil/nasty.  I will post a few photos once these are all finished with groundwork done.

Friday, 21 June 2013

TFIF!!!!!

Been a really busy week, but I have had a few chanced to take photos in the blur...
 
 
The mix of rain, heat and sun has lead to a real bonanza in gardens.  The wild rose above is in one of the hedgerows that I walk the dogs past.
 
 

 
This is Garfield, one of the local cats that my mum feeds.  He is a nice cat - even I quite like him!
 

 
The pond at work during one of our bouts of rain.  I seem to be getting lucky with the weather, though. Take yesterday.  I rode to work on warm sunshine.  Then it rained for a good part of the day, but by the time I was heading for home...
 

 
Fabulous!
 
Hoping for a quiet weekend - I don't think that there is much planned.  Mrs RC hasn't been well for a few days (cold, cough, etc), so hopefully I will be able to persuade her to put her feet up and finish getting better. She has started watching DVDs of Dexter (about 6 seasons worth I think?), so it might not be that hard...
 
Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Oh Dear....

On Fathers Day, I was lucky enough to acquire an extra present.

Number One Son had a normal Kindle, but has recently bought a Kindle Fire too.  He loves the Fire so much that the old Kindle became redundant - so guess who the new owner is?

That's right!

So far I have downloaded 3 books, all freebies.

One is TAFL, a book about a Viking/Saxon boardgame, similar to chess.  It has lots of variations in board size, number of pieces, etc, but the basis of all versions is the same.  One player starts in the middle of the board, with a King and some soldiers.  The other player starts with a larger force of soldiers set up around the edges of the board.  The King must reach the edge of the board and escape.  I am sorely tempted to make a nice wooden board and find some nice figures to play it with.

The other books are classic history books, one about Scotland (background for my Scottish army) and one about the Goths.  All good stuff.  And it won't be long before I start looking at proper books - some holiday reading.

Yes, I have a couple of things on my hit list already...

Monday, 17 June 2013

The Weekend

It was, of course, Fathers Day on Sunday, so I was able to get some time in painting my new toy soldier army - early Scots!  Here are some spearnen on the painting board:
 
 
Think of the Scots in Braveheart with a few Vikings mixed in, commanded by Macbeth and you more or less have it.  I am wondering if saying "Macbeth" before or during a game will bring me bad luck?  Will I have to refer to my CinC as "The Scottish Commander" or something similar?
 
I think I was still a bit car-lagged from the trip on Thursday, as I felt pretty drained for most of the weekend, but this did give me an excuse to watch a couple of movies - Men in Black 3 and the latest Die Hard movie.  Both good fun, dishing up exactly what I expected, especially Die Hard.  I just love the way he survives certain death over and over again, just walking away from car wrecks with just a couple of scratches and another rip in his vest.  Gotta love it, IMO.
 
Looking forward to a normal, quiet week, this week - hope you had a great weekend!
 
More soon...

Friday, 14 June 2013

Checking in...

Just had 3 days off...

Tuesday was mainly spent at home - early dog walk, trip to the dentist (minor filling, did not even need a jab which was nice!), a bit of shopping, back home, cleaned out the rabbits, undercoated some new toy soldiers, walked the dogs again, played guitar, sorted out dinner...

Wednesday was our anniversary (28 years together) but the weather was pants so we popped in to town with our daughter, did some shopping, went home, watched In Bruges for the first time (really good, starting to forgive Colin Farrell for Alexander), then I made some Mexican for dinner.  Mmm, very nice too!

Yesterday was the 650 mile round trip to collect Number One Son from Uni.  It was a nice trip (except for the squalls of rain that kept sweeping over us at intervals), giving me plenty of time to catch up on the latest with my little brother who drove.  Once the car was loaded, we went to the on campus Chinese restaurant for lunch.  I had noodle soup with crispy pork....

The trip takes us along the busiest roads in the country....


Gah!  This is one of the reasons I never wanted to learn to drive - doing 60 with an 18 wheeler trying to drive up your ass is not my idea of fun...

Once home, we unloaded, unpacked and got him settled back in.  It is good to have our baby back again for the summer...