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.

Fairs and battles

Over the past 3 weeks or so I have been to International Living history fair in Warwickshire, The Foreign Field LRP Kit Fair in Yorkshire with Julie and Dave.

At both fairs I bought very little, shirt, second hand sword, I was talked out of spending hundreds on other costume items which I think was the correct choice since as they where not what I wanted.
I did buy a cheap second hand top hat for bargain price and loved the steam punk kits the same store had for sale, but most of the content was stuff I already had.

I did buy the odd Christmas present though and enjoyed myself running into people I knew and just seeing all the interesting items for sale. I also got to encourage other people money spending.

This item was not bought by Julie she was testing the clasp



This weekend was the table top battle or should I say battles to conclude a season of many Ascendancy battles, to be bigger and better than last year we decided to run it over 3 continents which meant 3 battles
Never again will I coordinate 3 battle in one day it took 3 1/2 hours just to get started, with briefing people, placing the terrain and taking the figures out their boxes, luckily I had made the battles fairly small in scale so they could be played quickly.

Overall it was fun

Here are a few pictures

The commanders and their lieutenants.


Carnelium Battlefield


Frontier Battlefield


Stronghold battlefield


For one the battle was not that exciting.


Snow getting run down by Cavalry

Arts in Homes

Visited the Wirksworth festival on Saturday with Julie, this is Arts and Crafts festival with the emphasis on Art.

Ariving late morning we were greeted by an elderly gentleman who was serving two other people as we arrived at his table and exclaimed you will have to wait a moment I have a rush on, and he meant it, was flustered by having to serve 2 people.

We then proceeded to wonder around Wirksworth following the trail guide, which took us to the town hall, parish rooms, shops, café’s, churches and most oddly peoples living rooms, kitchen and gardens, where their artistic goods were on display. All the houses where signed with numbers and marked with purple and white balloons, so you did not wonder uninvited in to strangers living rooms, some even opened up their toilets to the public.

The art was interesting consisting of sculpture, painting, photographs, fabric, sewing ironwork etc, but mostly not the sort of stuff I would buy mainly due to its cost, but some cases too surreal, uninspiring or just too big for a normal sized house, saying that the majority was good.

[View below looking out over Wirksworth from one of the trail sites]


By the time we had walked the hilly streets visiting two thirds the exhibitors we were both numb to seeing any more, so left around 5pm after homemade cake from the church.

I’m told by a fellow at worker the evening was extremely busy has the bands and performance artist took the streets in number to entertain the crowds, and people did not close their front rooms to art inspectors until late into the night.

On Sunday I was invited out by Ste and Deb photo below to have lunch and tea with them and visit a massive Garden, craft, outdoor wear centre with them. The centre was a disappointment as it seemed to have changed hand since they had last visited and the craft area was filled with other high street traders such as the Works, Yeoman’s, plus pet products and some other clothing brands you see everywhere. My friends did not have a good word to say about the place especially the coffee shop which was now serving in cardboard cups rather than nice china cups.



Just outside the centre we went to the farm shop which was up to scratch and I bought some Banana and Pistachio Ice cream for us to eat when we got back to their house, it went down a treat after the lovely Tai green curry Deb made for tea, after I turned my nose up at a Indian curry.

A good weekend overall out and about.

Clasps, Fair and a Movie

Last week I went to see the Watchmen movie which having never read the comic or seen any previews was quite a shock due to unexpected level of violence, I have no idea how much it follows the comic but enjoyed it enough that the film flew by which I suppose is all you can ask.

Visited TORM on Saturday with Jock and Bridgette, Jock withing minutes of walking in the door and without looking anywhere else finished his shopping buying a pirate frock coat, waistcoat and shirt. I was shocked at the speed, and even more shocked that every item he picked up fitted him perfectly, no growing room though so he better lay off the pie's.

I bought feathers, cloak clasps and a medieval mug, total spend probably around a tenner.

Two of the cloak clasp founds were only in silver pewter, I did find one in bronze and another bronze one at home, anyway following Dave suggestion I gave the silver ones a brown wash and then varnished them before sewing them on opposite to each other as Julie suggested making it less likely they would come unfastened. Result as photo below just to show the advice was useful.

Sunday afternoon I spent painting unit of 20 Lizardmen as per the photo below, while listening to 1st sounds spring which was a lawn mower a couple of gardens away.

Waaagh!!! in Nottingham

Yesterday I visited Nottingham for the first time in ages with no particular plan other than to pick DaveP up from Games Workshop later that afternoon.

Currently I take my little pocket camera with me most places I go for my Photo of the week and to just generally records things, Nottingham is pretty city well worth a visit, although with all the modern shop fronts you rarely look up at the interesting buildings above eye level, so I took a few photographs.

I also took a picture of the Nottingham wheel.

Parking was expensive, and made me realise why I don't visit that often and when I do I use the park and ride since its far cheaper, I bought a few books from Waterstones before heading off to Games Workshop.

Last time I visit Games Workshop they only just moved into the Lenton HQ and it was nice to see the place decorated.

Dave was playing in a massive Ork v everything else war game spread over a dozen large tables called Waaargh!!!! the game was almost over by the time I arrived so most of Dave's figures were mostly packed away and Dave was mentally shattered so somewhat incoherent.

Grr.

The Ork team with bit more waaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!!!

Dave reaching the finishing point.

Dave's 100 Ork unit being whittled down by Terminators.

Dave trying to think.

Dave reaching battle overload.

Once Dave finished we headed over to AndyL and Heathers for pizza, which we then followed with a Magic card game or two which AndyL won both times having spotted a game winning card when we making up our decks, Heather did far better this time playing with her actual chosen cards rather than her discard deck, while Dave did too well early on and ended up the target of everyone else.

Dave stopped the night and when heading to bed at around 2am he set off the fire alarm that's connected to a light switch for testing, which would not have pleased the neighbors.

This morning I dropped Dave off at the station so he could return to Games Workshop for another day of gaming, at least that's if he could find the energy.

I bought a new hat.

Nice trip to Living History Fayre in Warwickshire yesterday with Julie and Dave, we also ran in Doug and Izsy for a quick chat, and few other friends not has many as usual though. The fayre was very busy and I heard one trader comment "what recession" and another mention to Julie that all the stock they had left was on display.

I bought myself a 18thC knitted seaman's forage cap from 'Tinkers Tailor' as per the photo below, a pretty book with blank pages as a birthday present.



After watching Doug and Izsy buy cakes from the confectioners (Angela Pantry) stall I also succumbed and bought a packet of Whiskey and Ginger Fudge, and some small round white sweets called Whores Farts (warning do not put this into your search engine to check the ingredients as I did you get all sorts xxx related links even if you add extra words like sweet or confectionery) can't tell you whats in them since there's no label and forgot what it said on the stall which is very irritating. Both packs of sweets are for my mother, although I won't be telling her what the sweets are called, I did get to try the fudge since Doug started a trend and Julie also bought some, and gave me bit to try, very nice.

Dave tried on a Tail coat without asking the price as the photo below on what was from previous experience a very expensive stall, so after 15 minutes of dressing looking and examining the garment he finally asked the price to which the nice man replied well the outfits six hundred pounds, the coat on its own three hundred and fifty pounds, to which Dave replied a little out my pocket I was thinking well hundred pound tops, hmm did see that one coming still Dave did go back and buy some very nice epaulets from same guy.



After the fayre we went for bite to eat at the Cocked Hat in Coventry rather than try the cardboard food at the Fayre which is most unappealing.

Today my tasks were and are to get information from AndyL and start the map for the Acendancy Borgengast campaign and also paints some toy soldiers, I'm currently painting Lizardmen one unit is complete, 1 started and 3 undercoated to make my five unit target.

Photo 3 of 52

My photo this week was taken as I visited a local town centre Mansfield (home of Britains double swiming gold medalist) shopping this morning.

I also took the photograph below with a question.

What happened to the market, the market sqaure used to be full of stalls, now only basically half a dozen fruit and veg stalls and a couple of burger vans, perhaps market day is in the week not Saturdays?