A Winter Solstice party

Not the longest night of the year but Sam's Birthday party who was born on the 21st, arriving mid day I joined several others who had arrived either Friday night or even earlier Saturday morning, although the majority of people did not arrive until later.

I'm not a party fan but should have remembered Sam's is organised and with her mixed guests from Ascendancy, Karate and Family she had organised fun games for us all which made the evening fly by, so we passed the parcel, hunted for fairy names, worked out the puzzle of the blanket I came second but could have come joint 1st if I hadn't wanted to be silly with Sam. We played various other games, murder in the dark, some word and forfeit games and then invented our own game of each of us telling a story one word at time in turn, which was ridiculous did not work but highly amusing to drunk among those there.

Food was a plentiful, since Sam and her mum had catered for double the number of guest since Tony and crowd from Birmingham, plus some karatiers didn't turn up, RichardS phoned for help, Mike turned up a hour later to eat his way through 2 or 3 peoples food allowance.

During the evening I won a Gorilla soft toy which party people named Zelda after Terrahawks for some reason, and while I was in the loo she was kidnapped and a ransom note left on my chair, after pleading for Zelda's life offering a small fortune in cakes and fairy names the kidnappers denied all knowledge and suggested I come back with a better offer. I left to the kitchen and when I returned Zelda was found gagged, sellotaped, blindfolded and hanging by noose. Zelda has now recovered from the trauma and is currently making friends with Jasmine who is not sure if she should attack Zelda or run away from her.

We had RichS, Heather, Colin, Amy, Mathew, Mike, from Ascendancy, Sam's Mum and husband Ron, her Brother and wife, and a couple from Karate, plus a KathrynR Sam's best friend from reenactment, who came dressed in skirt no wider than a belt, well usually we get some sort of PVC number, she also didn't play strip table tennis as she did at the last party I went to.

I went expecting to leave by 11pm, not drinking alcohol, but enjoyed myself so much I didn't get home until 3am Sunday.

Christmas is getting closer

I put up my 6ft Christmas tree tonight and a giant cat attacked it, see the picture below, I dread what will happen when I put up a bigger one :-S



I completed my shopping a few weeks ago, I've done all my wrapping, put up the decorations, now what do I do with my weekends, I'm sure I should be squeezing around the shops and doing more, Christmas feels early this year.

Still before Christmas does arrive I've got a multiple Birthday party, a lunchtime works Christmas meal, and night out with some friends in a quiet pub if we can find one, how will I fit it all in between reading this book I'm enjoying, its getting hectic this year :)

A photo from our wargame

photograph from our war game last Saturday, taken from the Chimera blog where you will see several more.

The Players Guild

This weekend I returned to an old pastime, hobby of shorts that of display gaming.

Many years ago me and 3 other friends built a display game for a local wargame competition and on the table next to us was what was Citadel Miniatures entry, later to become Games Workshop, well our display was infinitely better than their’s so we asked them if for free figures we could make a better job and do Citadels display games so was born the Players Guild.


(Turreted sea vessel attacking, volcanic island with Orc spotter ballon)

Receiving the draft copy of Warhammer we set out to teach the world how to play, paint and build displays, and won everything we entered for 3 years until they banned us from competitions because they thought it unfair we were getting too much sponsorship from Citadel. Games Workshop by then were even paying us a thousand pounds a display, but the crowds and attention they were getting was well worth it and powered the game into mainstream better than any television advert.


(a display for the Toy Fair)

We were the 1st to paint orcs green, traditionally orcs at that time were a short of ochre brown, only goblins were green, we invented lots dwarf machines, hand gliders, flying machines, ballista, goblins on wolves and a assortment of other things I can’t remember now.

We carried on doing display games for the realese of 40K, blood bowl, and Judge Dredd all over the country including Hamley’s shop window, 5 day toy fairs and many other venues, articles in White Dwarf, although after a while we became disinterested and by then Games workshop wanted employed full time people to display builders, we all had other good jobs so stopped.


(one of 1st displays based on Citadels castle logo)

Thursday this week Jock one of the Players Guild came over to re-learn the latest rules of Warhammer 40,000 in anticipation of doing a low key display game for Chimera shop.

The rules were digested, armies picked and cups of tea drunk, Jasmine my cat decided 12 sided dice are best, 6 sided don’t role well, and 20 sided role too well and end up lost under the sideboard.

She also decided 40 K figures fall off the table if you pat them and Jocks fingers bleed because he was too slow removing them from the hole in the cardboard box.

(Wizard Castle as used for one the Ascendancy buttons)

So today was full day starting early I played a wargame with Jock, and some other local players, one arrived with his own army, and talked to a assortment of shoppers about Warhammer, painting and terrain building, who knows if we encourage anyone, you never can tell, but at least a few stopped a while to ask good quality question, rather than the old what colour do you paint your orcs, well green, or what do make your rocks out of, well rocks.

(Blood Bowl display at Games Day, London)

A good day was had, I lost my first battle to the visitors, and won my second against Jock, it is a game however that is dependent a lot on luck.
Heather took some pictures perhaps she will display them.

Grand Day Out

This weekend saw me attend the Grand Shop opening of Chimera, where my friends the shop owners had laid on a prizes and caricature drawings by Mark, the shop was very busy and had a nice buzz about it.

I woke up on Saturday morning with badly pulled muscle in my right shoulder, I've no idea how I did it but it was bad enough to need pain killers. This did not go away and while driving made looking over my shoulder excruciating, one junction which needed me twist right round and to keep looking right while a endless queue of cars came made my eyes water, the pain is was less this morning but I still needed to drive all the way to Buxton so took a few more pain killers, and at the time of writing this its only just starting to subside.

Julie and Dave arrived and we went to the shop for mid morning, talked with the odd fellow larper from Ascendancy before setting off to the Hurt Arms (I now thanks to Julie think of a man bleeding badly from arms, although if you read the link the pub is named after a Francis Hurt who built it) at Ambergate for a spot of lunch.

After that we did a short tour of Cromford, calling in at Cromford Mill which is very much a work in progress as far as a museum goes and lacks heating, in fact the walls seemed to absorb any heat in the room, their were a couple of shops selling your usual crafty gift stuff, but nothing inspiring.

Then we followed that by driving across the road to Scarthin books which is basically a old fashioned 2nd hand book store full floor to ceiling with books in every nook and cranny, most nooks only big enough for one person to enter, and the crannies requiring you to breath in to get between the books.

While at the book shop we stopped in their cafe for a tea and cake, the cakes were yummy and good sized portions, the tea unfortunately was not so good. They brought a tea pot with just tea bags in and no hot water, and after staring at it for ten minutes, and realising yes they really had forgot the hot water and no it wasn't a quaint local custom, we sent Dave to tentatively ask for tea that was slightly less dry.

By the time we travelled home with me pointing out the local tourist sites of interest that you could not see in the dark it was early evening so we exchanged a few presents, played with the cat and a cardboard box, drank another cup of tea and then Julie and Dave left never to be seen again until next year.

Today which is Sunday my brother had booked another lunch time meal at Buxton in Derbyshire this time to celebrate my mums birthday. Buxton is about an hours drive from me, so I picked my mother & sister up and then followed my brother, before calling for my other brother at Cromford, then we went in convoy of 3 full cars.

The restaurant which was empty, but the food was good, unfortunately the tea wasn't. I ordered a pot of tea, rather than coke or wine like everyone else and did not notice the tea bag had burst, spitting tea leafs is not pleasant.

Then spent the rest of the afternoon ironing and watching telly. (hmm while out I learned by brother still takes his ironing to my mums, missed that one)

Update & photo's

I decided to update by blog template and header, still not sure I'm happy with it, but I just wanted a change.

I've also found a few of the worst photographs of me I could find and added them to the sidebar for your enjoyment. (although not the worst of the worst)

Comments welcome

Shopping can be fun

This year somehow I've got my Christmas shopping organised, almost all presents are purchased and it's only November.

This to me is both an incredible feat and an immense relief, because I won't have to take holidays off to join stressful town centre queues to the tills, dodge weaving shoppers, fight my way into underground car parks, or get up early to try and beat the jams.

My normal practise is leaving it until the last weeks of December when the pressure to find gifts for people becomes actual stress and you start to wander around shops you don't normally enter hoping for inspiration, not finding it so end buying something just because you feel the need to.

I talk to my fellow male shoppers, and I'm not alone in this, it's normal I guess most men are not good shoppers.

Yes online shopping helps, last year I purchased nearly half my gifts that way, this year it was only a few gifts the rest purchased from various medieval fairs, games shops, and craft shows.

So who do I thank for being in this unfamiliar and happy place, well both Julie, & my friends at the Chimera shop for getting me started very early by my standards and also for both pointing me at the odd gift, it's a relief, anything else I buy will only add to presents already purchased.

Happy Christmas (I know its only November but I'm already in the mood)

Best get them Christmas cards next, and I suppose if I want last minute I can leave the wrapping until Dec 24th