Update of stuff

Over the last few weeks I haven’t done much, but I have done a few things, such as last weekend I went to TORM with Jock and Bridgette.



Usual stuff for sale, I bought an Astrolabe and Perpetual Calendar thing for a 21st birthday present from a company called Hemispherim that does very pretty astronomical instruments.
I did see a nice felt hat, which would have been very tempting at £ 60 but at £ 160 was nice but not worth it, for me at least.

Spot my £160 hat in this photo, its the one with arrow pointing at it.


After the event had a very bland uninspiring meal at the Cocked Hat, which has put me off the place slightly since the previous meal I had there was the same.

Saw my brother last Sunday who’s lad Josh has just passed his driving test, he was telling me that he not bumped the car yet, less than a few hours later he discovered he had rolled his car trying to follow his friend to Crich.

Josh's car roof


He wasn’t injured but it will be an expensive lesson learned.

This weekend I played in a few Ascendancy table top skirmish battles, and lost for the 1st time after 2 draws and 4 wins, the High elves whupped the Skaven.

I also went to ChrisT 21st birthday meal, as honorary family member I was the only friend among the rest of Aunts, Uncles, nephews, nieces etc. Well apart from his girlfriend Emma with bird tattoos.

ChrisT


Nice bit of food at the Spanker, and saw quite a few friends who turned up later, Ste and Deb as well as Freda who is in the middle of her reconstructive surgery for breast cancer and looked very startling with her shaved head.

Ste and Deb


Christophers Sword in the Stone cake made by a friend


Chris's dad AndyT


Chris Mum LindaT and Sister KT


Other than that I have found a new tea or two, I like the pretty boxes in the photo below

Beetroot Fair

Inspired by the idea of brownies with with prunes made by Julie last weekend I decided to make my own.

I've never baked before, so these were no cheap brownies since I had to buy everything bar a bowl to melt chocolate in, including the baking parchment and deep baking try I think I spent around 8 quid, taking away the things I can use again the cost is possibly nearer 3 quid, although cost doesn't really mater its the fun of making your own and the novel ingredients you can put in.

For my brownies I used Delia's on line recipe for Brownies with prunes and then swapped most of nuts for beetroot.

The chopped beetroot and prunes.


The recipe was simple, no technical cooking terms, a bit of maths to adjust the quantities to suit my baking tray and then nothing harder than mixing stuff in bowl.

The melting chocolate and butter.


The final mixture was a possible a bit too moist since Delia said to spread the mixture, my mixture was quite fluid and filled the baking tray without any spreading, I had a egg left so chucked it for good luck, possibly not the wisest decision.

The runny mixture.



After the required period in the oven the brownies were taken out and the hard top had raised leaving the moist brownies to crumble apart as I cut them, perhaps to long in the oven or some other mystery of cooking that I'm not aware of.

Just out the oven with the unwelcome crust.

The final result tasted wonderful and I have eaten about a third, which is probably a good 200 grams of sugar and butter based on the ingredient used, yikes that's a lot of calories to burn off.

Yum :)


On Saturday before making the brownies I went to the Living History fair with Julie and Dave, ran into very few people I knew Doug and Izsy from Larp and Alan and Jayne from reenactment, I'm never quite sure why this fair is not as popular as TORM since in my opinion it is the slightly better fair.

The car park though was a quagmire on yellow clay mud, which plastered everything, Dave described the mud on the tracks as potters slip, which about some it up, since it splashed up you jeans.

While there I bought some animal skins and Larp safe spear, I nearly didn't buy a hat, but while walking by the fudge store with Julie, she pointed out a tall hat on stall, which I found attractive and within no time I had my cash out buying the hat in the photo below.



Julie bought some smoke peanut butter, but also tried some citrus relish on the same stall Martins Jerked Meat which made her eye water since I think it should have been labelled citrus chilly relish. The smoke beetroot on the same stall was also nice, but the small jars a tad expensive.

Diary of my Christmas

I expected a busy Christmas period, but it didn't turn out that way.

Spent Christmas Day at my Mothers since she was not on Holiday this year, my sister and one brother, partner and two nephews also where there and we opened presents together, before tucking into turkey and trimming.

My other brother Stephen was off on short of holiday seeing his new girlfriends parents somewhere in the far South East of the country for few days.

I got my nephews money as is their want, but made them earn it by putting it inside puzzle boxes which they had to open to get to. My main present to my mother was a digital photo frame pre-loaded with loads of family pictures, my sister got a large chocolate pizza from firebox. Me and my mum also ended up buying each other identical books, both spotting a pre-Christmas bargain no doubt.

Brother and Nephew

Nephew, Mum and me.


For Boxing day I went AndyT and Linda's, Christopher did his usual and disappeared all day playing computer games, Katie was working at McDonalds having just finished 6th form, not wanting to go to University and having no idea on what she wants to do.

I received a excellent jumper and shirt from them, they seem to have a good sense of clothing I like and never fail to get me something good.

After opening each others gifts we then went to see Derby County play football, well they were terrible not that I'm a expert, but it seemed to be unanimous verdict after the game.

By the time we got back, Katie was home and opened her gift, a gorilla pod which may encourage her taking up photography something she has wanted to do. Linda and AndyT then made us a light tea which could have fed fifty people, so I found myself eating to much for 2nd day in a row.

Derby playing Blackpool and loosing 0:2

Just after the game wrapped up warm, although the day was not that cold.

Sunday I travelled to see Julie and Dave in Coventry to play a couple of board games, and just catch up, I saw Julie's present from Dave and we exchanged gifts, Julie said she was not knitting anything this year, but still managed to start something for me which she knows makes me very happy. They also got me a magnifying glass I had been eyeing up at TORM it had gone when I went back to buy and was kinda hoping it was them that bought it, plus a mini chess set as well as some pretty boxes.

Julie between winning games (she was lucky) managed to cook a giant cottage pie, while Missy and Charlie avoided me like I was a cat killer.

Monday/Tuesday was supposed to be walking days, but illness and a overloaded Christmas made my friends cancel until they have a quieter weekend in January. So I went sale shopping purchased nothing, not because there was nothing to buy, but because I would not join the massive queues to the tills. Called in to see Jock and Bridgette who bought me a large pendulum thing that draw patterns in the sand and also popped into Chimera and saw Heather.

Spent the rest of the two days playing Fallout3 on my PC, seems ages since I've played a computer game, it was probably the previous Christmas when I bought Warhammer Online which was a big disappointment.

Wednesday played wargames with Jock and AndyH at DaveA's house in Nottingham where his basement is a dedicated war games room. We played a great game which took ages in fact until 8.30pm when we realised we needed food before the pub stopped serving. The pub was doing a quiz night, which somehow the four of us won despite our poor knowledge of TV soaps and current pop music. The only downside was part of the prize was free drinks tokens, which AndyH was determined to consume before we went home.

New Years Eve did not go to plan, although I did find chance to nab some sale bargains and spend a Gift voucher. It didn't go to plan due AndyL and Heather having to cancel last minute with a sickness bug taking a big hold of one their girls. I did get text from Sam inviting me over to her party once she discovered my predicament but it was just a bit late in the evening and bit far so in the end I decided to have a extremely quiet New Year on my own.

I still have one night out left a Steve's for a Birthday meal, but really that's it so a couple of days of rest before going back to work.

That's my Christmas, was good one, thanks mainly to my great friends and family.

A Weeking of Scampering Lightly

Last weekend was the last lrp event of the year at Unston and turned out good fun.

Not having two of my best friends along due to technical problems with health meant I had only myself to cook for, which apart from one meal I manage time for, lunch on Saturday was a whole packet of biscuits, I should have done better.

Living near by and having a cat to feed I travelled home each night, through some heavy rain both nights and Sunday morning which left the roads a dangerous place, with unseen puddles that tried to stop your steering working. Despite the rain during the day it was dry enough to get the players out for a fight or two, or three, well plenty.

The event was designed to be fun and non confrontational, which some of the players managed to conspire against, I hope it was all taking as in character, from those I spoke to, it seemed to be.

I got to introduce two new characters a wealthy cotton mill owning vampire and a Fey Lord who was meant to played by DaveP. The event ended with an already established character the Dark Rider running off as usual, he's no fool, he doesn't fight to the death when the odds are stacked against him.

I got to be rather silly playing a Monty Python style farmers wife in a dress and wig, standing on a chair screaming scared of 3 blind mice. The players turned out to be not very good at herding blind mice so the farmers wife could chop off their tails.

A few old faces returned, great to see Doug again, I think he enjoyed it, Alex Xian Chi and MattB also said they enjoyed themselves, may turn up to a few new events next year hopefully.

Now a few photos from the event.

2 players try their LRP sneak unseen skills on the resident cat, 15 minutes of sneaking got them a look of boredom from the cat before it walked through a bush leaving them stranded.


Cat can also count, well up to 2 paws.


Dan preparing to indulge his secret pleasure.


Dan has a colour string fetish.


Andy and Heather having strong words with the shop staff about making the tea just right.


Me in my new coat purchase on impulse from TORM, needs a better photo, but camera didn't like the cold.

Fried Fey.

On Saturday I had friends Leslie and Samantha stay over, Leslie was unfortunately caught up in the railway chaos and arrived much later than expected.

Both Sam and Leslie have fussy diets, Sam’s being wheat and a few other things free and Leslie being a vegetarian who does not like eating, so while I did offer in the end I left them to cater for themselves which meant in Sam case lots of fried food which made my house smell for several days.

During the evening Sam caught a sight of my copy Sapphire and Steel an old surreal, spooky sci-fi TV series from the late 70’s early 80’s .We put in the DVD player and watched 6 half hour long episodes of the first series. While the sets, special effects and even some the acting is dire, the atmosphere and mood they create with music, lighting, and long pauses is excellent and while not always making sense, the plot/storyline I still find interesting a quite gripping. It’s reminded me I should order the 2nd series if it’s available.

Jasmine has discovered she likes climbing into bags see photo below.

Sunday was the latest Ascendancy battle; AndyL pitted his wits against RichS who had lots of help (or hindrance) from about 10 other players, see photos below.

The game gave AndyL all the initial tactical advantages in deployment which he used to good effect, while RichS had a 15% points advantage after his initial losses which were written into the scenario and not counted, RichS also could only really react to what Andy did since he was on the back foot from the start. The battle ended in a draw with 7 victory points each side, although Andy was 2 points ahead until very last move.

A good if very tiring couple of days.

Ham roll compalaint

This is not my normal post since I don't use this blog to moan however this time I have.

I bought a Ham salad roll (Ham salad cob if your from around here) from a mobile delivery van and found for the second time in less than a week it had very little filling, at least by my standards see the photo below it, the piece of ham covered half the surface, a tiny bit of lettuce tucked near the visible edge, some thinly sliced tomatoes, onion, cucumber and a thin scrape of butter. (Note there is no ham under the tired looking cucumber)

I was annoyed so sent the supplier a fax saying I wanted my money back £ 1.60 and that they needed to improve or I would not be buying any more from them.

The supplier however did not take criticism well, he rang me up saying he relied on word of mouth and nobody else complained, and said they would no longer deliver to our company since I would apparently bad mouth him and no one would buy. So instead of dealing with the complaint in a sensible way he’s lost his half a dozen customers totally, needless to say he kept to his word and the van has not turned up this morning and unfortunately I’ve not got my money back and I’m very disappointed.

Polling the building I’m in by email, it would seem other people had already stopped buying anything but crisps, cakes and sweets and did not rate his food anyway and nobody seem bothered the van will no longer turn up, so not feeling guilty for being the person responsible for loosing our delivery service.

On the plus side it will stop impulse purchases of food and the down side I will need to drive to the nearest shop if I need anything for lunch.

I somehow feel the supplier won.

Two Birthdays and a Battle

This post covers last weekend as well as this, I started to write last weekends blog entry but never got to finish it.

Anyway last weekend we had the battle of Blackrock a table top war-game set in the Ascendancy world, Sam and Jack came to play the good gu...well the players side and old gamer John came to play the same side, I quickly convince him he needed to play the Lizardmen or Saurons and left him to read up his play sheet, while I set up the terrain consisting of some native straw thatched huts and some new Jungle plants scratch built by Mike, Andy's resident helper which gave a good feel of jungle to represent Frontier.

Battle photos

I brought my Lizardmen and beastmen, all my old models since I was saving the new ones for the next battle at Fort William, Sam brought her wood elves and I provided an extra scratch built treeman built a long time ago by my friend AndyH. After that I explained all the complexities of the defending tribal forces to Sam with a rundown of what the players wanted to do, the battle ended up being quite stressful mainly because both Sam and John did not know the rules well enough and I kept changing things with the wind, still luckily for the players it all turned out well in the end, John even said he would come back for next game despite all the Larp special effects I added.

After the battle it was Chinese at Andy and Heathers with Sam and Jak, where we watch some really hypnotic children telly before N and I went to bed. Young Gabe stayed up while we played another game of magic cards, Andy having created 2 new players in Sam and Jak who have now purchased their own cards, unfortunately from their own town not Andy's shop.

Last sunday is a blur; I think I spent most of it on Ascendancy website and forum stuff, but any that was a week ago.

This Saturday was Doug’s 3 decade birthday, so I called for DaveP and we both went to see him at his house in Swindon, where we well fed and entertained.

It was mainly Larp friends, Diane without Liam, Gareth the tall one on high of skittles and orange Fanta, Lotti, Colin, Matt & Sam, not forgetting Doug’s other half Iszy. All sorts of crazy past events and stories where dragged up alongside lots of crazy over the top conversation going off at right angles which made the time fly by, even if personally I did shrink into the background with so many outgoing people, well compared to me anyway.

Iszy provided me with some lemon sherbert tea which was nice, as well as some lovely cakes, although the chocolate birthday cake arrived with Diane.

Today it was my brother Stephen's chance to celebrate his 40th year of existence, I picked up my sister and mother and we went for meal in Cromford, a little restaurant 13 quid for a 3 course meal including wine or soft drinks and coffee, not a bad price, but the food was not very impressive, so I won't personally be recommending it. The restaurant was full mainly with the over 70's, possibly they couldn't taste how overcooked all the veg was or preferred it that way, my mum enjoyed the food and she is of that age.

Stephen, girlfriend and Mum

Birthday boy Stephen and Mum

My other brother Robert with Micheal

During the meal I mentioned Scarthin Books which a few pace's up the road and discovered my mother an avid reader had never heard of it or been, so we took her there and she purchased a pile of new and old travel books. I bought an OS map of North Yorkshire moors for use when on holiday.

With the sun bringing out all and sundry the roads around Matlock and Cromford were heaving with cars and motorbikes so I took a scenic route back testing my knowledge of all the back roads successfully avoiding the jams.

Dwarves v Formori

Saturday I went play a AscendancyLRP wargame at Chimera, this was short small game, with 3 units a side, we played it out for about 4 hours, getting in around 10 turns.

Sam and Jak turned up to watch but were roped in, the scenario had been sorted out by AndyL, so Jak played the Formori General while I played the Dwarf Commander, Jonty turned up to help us with the rules, saving us looking everything up.
Sam meanwhile was writing up the battle and adding her influence to the Dwarf side since she has characters that are allied with the dwarves.

The game went smoothly for me for the 1st 5 turns, then a top of pile nasty anti hero command figure turned up out the blue on the Formori side and started to bring Formori troops back that I had routed, and things then started to look a little dodgy until I a had couple of lucky dice roles (or Jak a couple of bad ones) that sent this anti-hero running for his mum.

In the long run AndyL gave me a medium victory, although he also gave Jak and his Formori a minor victory since they nabbed off with a sample of the mines unique ore.

During the battle we played mostly with Mike's figures specially painted for the shop, with couple of dozen of mine to provide decoration and objectives.


Later we went back to Andy's, met up with Heather and then ordered in a Chinese meal, which I was ready for, before playing a mass game of Magic Cards for 4 hours, which Heather won, possibly because she was having so much bad luck with her cards that everyone ignored her until the end, then she nibbled off our toes with one point hits.

Trip up North

On Saturday I was supposed to go down South to Coventry and then on to Bristol for the Larp fair, but this was cancelled due to the weather, well not really the weather but health and safety concerns over people slipping and falling over.

Anyway the trip was also to help DaveP celebrate his birthday and then go for a meal in the evening, so with no trip to Bristol Me, Julie, Dave and Nat decided between us to go up North to the Royal Armouries at Leeds and then go for meal local to me in Derbyshire rather than travel back down to Coventry, which since it was only the 4 of us would not be problem.

The Royal Armouries as can be seen from the photo (the building right at the end with the tall window) below blends into the all the flats and shops around it, the building just did not look impressive and the doorways even managed to look boarded up from a distance.



Free to get in although parking was hefty seven quid for 4 hours, the museum is packed to the brim with weapons and armour from nearly all periods and regions.

Julie and Dave looking at big matchlock guns.


Taking photos in the museum is quiet difficult, mainly as Julie pointed out it is all the reflections from all the glass cabinets and poor lighting, just look at the photo below which is typical of those I took, you can see half the other exhibits in the room reflected in the glass.



The museum is full of giant diorama as this one is of a hunting scene from the back of a elephant.



After a few hours wondering, you eventually go gun/amour/sword blind from all the weapons on display and can take in no more information, its also quite tiring when your not used to being on your feet. The museum is full of spots to take a rest, Julie as seen below decided to get a rest, me and Dave weren't far behind in joining her.


Once we had finished we decided to call in a Royal Armouries Shop, where Nat found a short sleeved chain mail Hauberk for almost half price, me and Dave both thought a bargain and Nat found it irresistible to buy, The small manikin it was sitting on did not fill me confidence it would fit, so Nat needed to try it on.

Nat with a little help struggles into the hauberk



Yep it fits.


Once Nat had made his buy we headed home to Derbyshire, before going out for meal to local restaurant where we ate until full and discussed Vampire Camarilla larp, and bit table top role play, I must admit it all sounded fun, but I did feel like I had really missed out on some good gaming, possibly because I was with 3 people who had all gamed together for quite a few years.

Happy Birthday Dave.