Tea review

Updated tea review - 5/10 and better means I will buy it again

5/10 Cranberry & Pomegranate - I would put this in the same bracket Echinacea & Raspberry infusions a little too sweet, but OK
7/10 Cranberry and Sanguinello orange infusion: works for me a orange is the predominant flavour, perhaps a bit like warm orange squash, then again perhaps not.
5/10 Sweet Fennel - Liquorice flavour very mild and pleasant, meant to digestion
4/10 Lemon & lime with orange blossom infusion - Very citrusey, nicer I think than lemon tea
1/10 Pure Rooibos - All I can is yuck, only had one cup and I don't like it at all.
1/10 Gunpowder - A very strong pure green tea not to my tastes
6/10 Blackcurrant, Ginseng & Vanilla infusions : I scored this before but have made it higher since its grown on me.

I also found a Twinings blueberry and apple tea on the Internet, not seen any in the shops yet though.

See here for my earlier tea review

The Wushi Finger hold

I've been to see two films at the cinema this weekend and nearly went to see a third.

I went with Andy, Heather and children to see 'Kung Fu Panda' which was a lot of fun even if Andy did have to leave 20 minutes from the end suffering from naughty child syndrome. The film aimed at young kids made be laugh a lot which is good and since our next event is set in the Thunders it will no doubt involve someone doing the Wu-shi Finger Hold which the Po the hero.... (spoiler so can't say)

Also I went to see 'Hancock' which is sold by its trailers as being light hearted comedy, its not..well it tries to mix slap stick and vulgar comedy with a very serious side and they have failed to mix them sucessfuly for me, and I also can't see the funny side of serious nasty drunk which the character started out at. Sounding a bit negative about a film which was entertaining in way, but not on my recommended list, its promise and content left me unfulfilled much like the Jumpers a DVD I watched recently.

The film I missed going to was 'Wanted' based on a comic, Andy & Heather went to see it yesterday so I will wait to see what they thought before I attend, although we have the new 'Batman' and 'Hell boy' films coming up soon so it may get missed for one the them.

A few days away

I've just been on 4 day health and safety course which is basically a overview of the laws and responsibilities of people in the workplace to scare you to death. It was heavy going and full of acronyms and stuff you have no hope of remembering, followed by a test which meant revising up in your hotel room. The test sent back to teacher head office for marking and then she hands out a project which you must complete within 2 weeks, so that's part of my weekend gone.

The course run at Telford was 12 of my fellow employees, of whom all but me and one other where managers, all put up by our company in swanky hotel, well swanky by my standards.

I think I may have put on a stone with food since I had a big bowl of chopped melon and strawberries followed by toast, and full English breakfast, we then had a 3 course evening meals every night which meant I had to try all the posh deserts Pear brulee with raspberries and red currents, White chocolate fondant and Amaretto ice cream, mixture of 3 home made ice creams and cheese board the size of car wheel. Just to round my belly off, we had a ten pound a night wine and beer allowance, enough snacks and sandwiches at lunch for 30 people and tubs of sweets on each of the tables in the lecture room.

What I want to know is why they changed the bar of soap I used every morning for totally new one when I had barely used it, why one tap turned anticlockwise and the other clockwise and why you needed a degree in pipework to operate the shower controls.

Battle Day

On Friday I took of a heap of war games models to the Ascendancy shop to set up for the battle, this took a good hour, afterwards I went to back to Andy & Heathers where we watched big brother, chatted and I ate a fine desert made by Heather.

Saturday was battle day, unfortunately I have no photo's but I'm hoping Julie or MM will have some I can use.

The Ascendancy battle was split into two, something I don't think I will do again because I struggled to keep an eye on what was happening, luckily Jock was the General on one the battles and played more than fairly helping out his opposition, leaving me to concentrate on the other which unfortunately was not so well mannered, since uninvited help showed up to help Mike that was little aggressive in its need for the undead to win and it did go down well with either General on that battlefield. DaveP who travelled up from with Julie who acted as scribe again (many thanks to you I hope the refs appreciate your effort this time) was extremely unlucky the 1st turn, I would have given up with the dice rolls he made and what happened as a result. I could not believe it had gone so wrong and after that Dave chances of victory dropped to near zero, so the uninvited opposition insistence on checking stuff was little over the top.

Sam played the other battle along with Gareth and Jak, that one went fine, and looked fun what I saw of it, and Sam won.

We all then went for meal along and met up with Carol, Mike and Kev old Shards players that have tried Ascendancy which is the new name Shards and seem to have liked it. The bad news was Andy and Heather had to leave because of problems with their children and baby sitters, they were not happy since it was one of the few nights they had chance to get out together, without kids and socialise with friends.

We all had a decent meal and stayed a hour or chatting about larp afterwards before heading off home, Dave and Julie via my house for cup of tea. They had earlier in the day left me a birthday present of Cranbery & Sanguinello Orange tea, Sweet Fennel tea and couple games.

I've just finished my write up of the battle since it had to be done as will not be able to do anything next week due to training course.

Castle walls

I visited the pub twice on Friday, one to see off a work colleague after work the other later in the evening for a friends birthday, not that was drinking anything alcoholic all I had was 3 or 4 pints of J2O juice. I had a good night went to great pub I'd not been too for a very long time the Abbey pub at Darley Abbey, built in old medieval building its a pub with character that's not changed since I last visited, I suspect it's listed and not allowed to.

Other than that I had a quiet weekend, I planned the latest Ascendancy battle which involved reading plenty of emails to see what players wanted to do, discussing outcomes with head ref Andy of player requests for aid and then converting it all into Warhammer.
With this being a follow on battle left me virtually nothing to paint so I finished off a bit of wall and a castle keep.

Photo's below and nothing else.

Undercoated

Finished

Other than that I did next to nothing and had no time to do it in.

I was in somewhere near Southampton

On Monday I went to Southampton for a training course for work, travelling down at lunch with some other of our firms employees, the journey was completed in less than 4 hours without stops, and since I had back seat I struggled to get out the car at the other, both knees having seized up.

The Hotel was very nice, who ever made the bed must have used some industrial tensioning machine machine since the sheets were that tight to bed not only could I not initially get into bed, I then struggled to pull the sheet out from under mattress, I thought it was me, but comparing notes the following morning its seems we had all had the same problems. After going for meal and changing a flat tire, well not me I watched the car owner do it, offering those irritating hints of that don't help.
Back at the hotel I was just getting to sleep when other unknown guests became a little rowdy and insisted banging doors and running down corridors doing who knows what, still did get to sleep eventually.

Nice course, did feel sleepy through, even if the air conditioning was on freeze and the only beverage was coffee.

The course did not finish until quarter past five so it was quite late by the time I got back and we did not stop for meal, only at the garage for fuel and mars bar, still least I wasn't driving and traffic was good at that time of night.

I got a little wet

I blame God(s), fate, the weather men or my stupidity but I decided to bike ride to work Saturday just to get a feel for the journey time, it was a lovely day, a few clouds, but dry, half way there the sky went black and then it rained cats and dogs creating in minutes deep puddles on the road, I was in a tee shirt and jeans, so got drenched turned around and headed home, back up the big hill, which I walked my bike up only to find it totally dry by the time I reached the top, the main road to my house had not seen a drop of rain, so looking and feeling like a drowned rat I peddled the last mile home to get another shower, a warm one.

I spent most of the rest of the weekend between building terrain and looking for a new car.

The terrain piece I started is gateway into walled city and will be a backdrop for next Ascendancy battle, the photograph below is from Saturday, I've done slightly more since then.

Car wise, my existing car is due its first MOT on Thursday and the 3 years manufacturers warranty runs out at the end of the month, so I decided with all the transmission and clutch issues I had that have been fixed under warranty that I wanted to change the car before the end of the month, and before my larp life gets busy again. After some Internet research I decided to go back and upgrade to a Freelander 2, a diesel which does at least 10mpg better on urban runs than my current 26mpg which will more than make up for the higher diesel cost. Armed with all the facts and figures I went to the garage and got better deal than expected, not only the best discount off the price list I could get (which I would walked away if not recieved), but also Land Rover manufacturing were doing a fifteen hundred pound giveaway to old Freelander owners that bought new cars in June, that combined with GMV (guaranteed minimum value) on my existing vehicle which is twelve hundred pounds more that What Car online suggested my second hand sell price would be, meant I had saved several pounds, it also meant meant a new car was considerably cheaper than buying a the equivalent 1 or even 2 year old second hand car. The unexpected bonus and land rover new car finance was 6.7% APR better anything I could see around sealed the deal so I have now placed my order and will hopefully get my car in the last week of June.

I did also buy some magic cards from Heathers shop, I do hope I've not become addicted again after not buying any for years.