Lots of driving

I'm not long back from sunny but chilly Edinburgh after a visit for work, a pleasant trip passing thousand of football supporters on the way to Manchester easily identified by numerous scarves and flags covering their cars, it must add ten quid to the petrol cost with extra drag created, and some of the flags where the size of car bonnets.

Anyway Scotland and back in day involves leaving the house at 4am in the morning and eleven hours sitting behind the wheel of the car, I suppose I should stay over and come back the following day, but driving doesn't hurt and like to get home, so provided I don't start yawning I drive it.

Although this is on top of Ascendancy LRP event at the weekend which was tiring, its not the physical activities, but the lack of sleep, driving and getting home at midnight. At least I had the following day off.

The event was good one, I enjoyed it, had nice little part in the event involving calling on my characters abilities to get rid of big bad MrT (JeffRef) as he motivated my character by looming over ProffG (Julies character). I had no idea of what my abilities were but they seemed to do the trick.
While at the event I tried on my costume for a new character and got some advice from Julie and DaveP on how to bling it, both agreed on the hat choice, which was also my favorite so that was settled I just have purchase and make the bling.

We had a bit of fun with my make up that wouldn't dry, which I'm now thinking of replacing since its found its way on to my costume, water based is apparently what I need.

On the way home Julie and DaveP also filled in some missing details on the maps for the Ascendancy game and spotted a error with the position of the Rat Run which I corrected, this unfortunately took about an hour and half at the 1st services when we only stopped for coffee, so it was 9pm before we got to next services to eat.

I have attached a cat picture from Friday before the event, Jasmine was hiding among all the bags I'd packed. Below that is a picture of Izzanbard, my main characters new costume.(not my new character costume)

Food, bikes and haircuts

Saturday started with me getting up late around 8am after a late evening playing cards till midnight, followed by a trip to the barbers which was heaving and saw me sandwiched in the waiting area between a far too chatty grandmother (suspected grandmother, possible great great grandmother) in her miniskirt and 3 kids having their hair cut and a 25 stone man listening and singing (out of tune) to his ipod while exuding a very unpleasant garlicky odour. One of the Grandmothers kid dropped a lollipop on the floor, the grandmother picked it up gave lick clean before handing back to the child, which I must say made me wince a little looking at the state of the very hairy barbers floor, still I remember my own Grandmother doing something similar things and even rescuing a chicken out the dust bin my mother had discarded.


In the afternoon I decided I needed to go look at bikes, it could be one of my the worst investment, but I've decided I needed to give riding to work a go, I've no excuse as my friend Julie says I work close to home and its downhill all the way (uphill all the way back though) and I need to do something other than sit in car, sit at a computer at work or sit at home painting figures or reading books. So inspired by Julie and Dave I will see if I can make it work, but I may in a months time find I have a bicycle shaped trip hazard or bicycle shaped clothes hanger. My friends laughed at me (jokingly) later that evening at the idea of me biking to work and suggested I hang a bike on wall as a trendy decoration...hmmm, I didn't fight back since its likely they may proved right.


I quickly called in to see AndyL after a Ste phone me after a particular comic/magazine he couldn't get. AndyL looked shattered from his 3 late nights in a row and it was free comic day so shop the shop was quite busy.


On Saturday evening I went to my friends AndyT & Linda for tea, (Chris's parents for my LRP friends) with other friends Ste and Deb. The food I hate was far too spicy (I don't mind small amounts of spicy, so long as its not too hot) and combined with the 1st 3 glasses of wine i'd drank in while, meant I ended up waking up in the night with heartburn and could find no form anti acid in the house, so had a bad nights sleep. Apart from the food and drink which didn't agree with me it was a very good evening.


Yesterday morning I went to Halfords to buy a bike, the cheapest one in the shop of the style I wanted, I also purchased a helmet, bike lock and maintenance after asking for advice.
Then a practice run on some quiet roads, well I did half an hour, but on the last very steep hill my legs had turned to jelly and couldn't get started and travel in a straight line at the same time, so pushed the bike until the hill got a little gentler and then finished my ride back home, feeling extremely unfit and nowhere near ready to cycle to work, more practise and a lot more stamina. I went out again today, this time finding a route with no steep hills, a very difficult task in Derbyshire, I travelled around the local council estate doing a couple of figures of eight, still only about half an hour, but that felt plenty. I found I also need to build a little confidence especially at junctions where traffic is behind you or you need to cross traffic, currently I'm either getting off and pushing the bike across the road or waiting for the car to pass me before I attempt the junction.


I also watched The Golden Compass DVD having missed out at the cinema, the film was great really enjoyed it and recommend it.


So what else did I do this weekend, I finished the last 3 of 7 maps of the Ascendancy Continents for the website, a complilation of bits of the maps below and did a bit sewing.

Friday nights are magic

Friday nights can be eventful even if your not a party, pub, nightclub person.

This Friday evening having been asked by Andy I went to his and my 1st Magic The Gathering card competition in the Chimera shop, where you hand over money for sealed packs of cards and then make your own deck there and then to play with.
I have played Magic with friends only, well 2 friends before and like most people acquired 1000's of cards in a fad that lasted about 2 years before I stopped and lost touch, so I did not know what to expect.
Andy started the evening with 7 players, unfortunately a odd number, fortunately for me 6 out of the 7 players me included in that 6 had also not played for a while and like me had never played in tournaments, so apart the one player that travelled around the Midlands playing in tournaments we were all on level playing field.
With a bit of luck like in all games I managed to win enough games to get to the playoff final with unsurprisingly the regular tournament player as my opponent, he trounced me destroying me in record time to win, still I came second so I should be proud of that, and I won even more cards as my prize and enjoyed the evening as well.

Andy is now trying to fix up regular tournaments, I think I may well give them a go for while.

Diet news

All I can says is I don't seem to be on a diet no more, I've stopped weighing myself and instead of reducing portion sizes they seem to have managed to creep back up to where I started.
I need to reinvigorate this diet or start doing more exercise, actually more is perhaps is the wrong word some exercise.

Anyway I found this quote which I've amended slightly

"I've been on a diet for two months and all I've lost is two months."

Nexus battle

This weekend the Ascendancy Battle organised by myself and Andy at the Chimera shop finally took place after 2 weeks of effort in painting and organisation.

The battle was successes, and it all flowed well, even if the size of the battle was little ambitious for a 5 hour game.

On Saturday Julie came up to help me record events, Jock became one the Generals and Mike someone I had not met became the other General, we also had visit from SamK, Colin, RichardS, Amy and Jak from the Ascendancy Larp game to see what was happening. SamK and DaveP also helped by painting and providing some extra figures.

I had spent the previous weeks painting elves, see pictures below

and building a terrain piece called the Nexus, a couple of picture below, one at the tiered cake stage and one finished.

With help from DaveP we also created some special character figures see picture below

After the battle Me Julie, Jak and Mike went back to Andy & Heathers for a Chinese take away and a bit of quiet chat, I also sampled Heathers M&S cakes..yum.

On Sunday I woke up to type up the battle from the players, Julie had taken 4 A4 pages of notes in small handwriting for me to work from, however the 1st thing I encountered was 48 spam bots registered on our Forum, it took me over an hour to delete them, by the time I had done and recorded them 2 more had appeared.

So after I instead visited Andy in the shop to collect my figures and he was still running around making me coffee's despite his operation, he had organised yet more wargames in the shop and had 7 players all waiting for the 8th to show up, who was apparently playing WOW when they phoned to chase him.

I then when home via mothers to feed and check on her cat while she was away, typed up the battle post for the players and then crashed on the sofa.

Preparing for war

I spent this week and weekend hermit like preparing for the Ascendancy Wargame, next weekend. Through living close AndyL, and my own interest I've ended up as deputy organiser and GM, Andy tells me the battle story and background, which NPC (non playing characters) will be there, and then leaves me to work out the details under his supervision.

The Battle planning started the last day of the last LRP event with me picking up a pile (literally) of figures from DaveP, these were a assortment of High elves in various states of damage and unfinished paint jobs, I must say upon opening the box it didn't look too bad, but once I dug a little deeper I realised that a lot of paint had worn off, and a lot of figures had not only unfinished paint jobs but unfinished or broken figure conversions and many units only had 5 out 20 figures anything other than undercoated.
DaveP does a lot of excellent conversion to his figures so I chose the best 6 units and set about repairing and painting them, given the time scale they won't be receiving good paint jobs, since the exercise is quantity over quality for this battle. I'm nearly finished and very grateful for DaveP letting me have these figure to use, since starting totally from scratch would have taken 3 times as long.

One the other tasks I undertake as Andy's deputy is write ups on our forums to motivate and inform players what is happening, this being a very complex battle, I also roped in DaveP's other half, my good friend Julie to do a bit of creative writing on my behalf, she as also volunteered to help me with the actual battle, which is excellent news considering I would have needed 2 me's to keep tabs on this very large battle with lots of complex player involvement via their briefs which have kept my email inbox full all week.

My next task having found out Monday in AndyL briefs was to built a terrain feature to represent the Hive Mind Nexus, that's also built but not painted, currently it looks a like a tiered cake, not quite the effect I was looking for but I think painting will rescue it.

I'm currently typing up the play sheets, event list (a list of things that happen each turn) and character stats, but need a break since it's mind boggling getting it all to fit nicely, which I know it won't anyway since this battle has nice character in it, a man who appears to like Port from what I read called Grendal, oh and very random mega cannon anti story device thingy and fractures....oh and....help!.

Oh dear & that went quick

This weekend was the 1st Ascendancy camping event this year, and the weather forecast was not great but the actual weather turned out nice if a little cold, but we were well prepared for cold so it was not a problem.

The event itself was a kind of culmination of long running personal plot but it all went horrible wrong, and the after effect will take a bit of repairing, which will take time to play through. Overall it was a sparky 1st event, with a unexpected outcome that will be a bit of set back for the players, but you can't win them all, indeed Ascendancy is well balanced game and you never truly win or loose, since everything you do has consequences.

I camped as usual with Julie who brought her new tent for it first outing, and she discovered a 3 foot long rip in the built in ground sheet that had been repaired with tape of same material as the ground sheet, she asked my opinion on take it back or live with it, if it had been smaller or better repair I would have said live with, but 3 foot is ridiculous, I'm not sure how the manufacturers thought they could get away with it, so hopefully she will get a replacement of the same design, which I think is quiet a good tent having camped in mine twice now in foul windy and wet weather.

I myself brought my new costume to try, I was worried about the length of the robe, but it turned out to be fine, and I did not trip over it. I was hoping for a few picture, but failed, I forgot to take my camera out of the car and missed other peoples photos, so pic's will have to wait until the next event.

I got back late around 10.30 after dropping off Julie and having quick natter with Dave about the event and looking at Charlie her cats wounded nose.