Penedredfel Light Railway

 The Penedredfel Light Railway ( PLR for short) lies under a blanket of snow in a remote, undreamed of corner of Kernow-

The station is almost engulfed by the white blanket and all work has ceased. The station master and his family stay huddled round the fire dreaming of Christmas and making delicate paper stars.

The villagers too, remain indoors thinking of the roof repairs needed come the Spring when a new family will come to occupy the semi derelict property. In the meantime villagers learn their parts for the forthcoming Christmas play , written by Fr Bruno Tread , the parish priest .This year, to be broadcast on the wireless…

Readers of this blog might enjoy this-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HqCO_0uSBFk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WwC8BemyBtI

All similarities are entirely intentional.

Snow

 Snow unexpectedly arrived in the Duchy yesterday-

The trees looked wonderful in the snow from the train.

Edinburgh was snowless and en route to Cairngorm Coffee - https://cairngorm.coffee/pages/locations

we passed this plaque to my old school. It reads-

A quick coffee was had and an even quicker look round Wonderland, the model shop, prior to lunch across in Grindley Street.

After lunch we went to the theatre. In Edinburgh, tradition ( of late) was one venue did a pantomime and one did a Christmas Show. The Christmas Show was played for wonder, story telling and clever set design whilst the Pantomime was , well a pantomime , as seen these days. 

In past years we have seen superb Christmas Shows such as The Snow Queen and The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I have gone some years with family, some with school. 

The problem lies with expectation, we had gone expecting the Christmas Show. However in the intervening years since we last went the Christmas Show has morphed into a hybrid of the two forms- Panto and Christmas Show. It is neither fish nor fowl. 

However it was a splendid day out with daughters and their respective boyfriends. A great way to begin December ❄️❄️❄️❄️

New rules

 Trying out these new rules today-

Early days but they seem to work well and we will be continuing with them…

My artillery and infantry having taken damage from round shot and the subsequent bounce…

Meanwhile across on the right flank two Union brigades stand ready…

Disappointed

 Went to see this pm today , in an effort to distract myself -

I love “ The Duellists” in fact it is one of my favourite films and also love “Gladiator “ but not this!

A lost opportunity imho. Beginning interesting but oh those battle scenes, over the top, trench warfare, multiple flags and more . Sooo disappointed.

Uptown funk

 Went uptown yesterday for a bit of shopping and bought this on a whim

Thought the figures might be fun to have a go at and there were good looking articles. An interesting one on A War Transformed. I seem to be buying glossies more than I did.

I am in a bit of a funk currently but trying to get out of it . To cut a long story short , last week one of my daughters had set off for work in the morning and passed some large bins. As she passed a man with a knife suddenly rose up from one of the bins in a threatening manner. My daughter ran as fast as she could, wasn’t followed and was ok. It shook her up badly and me too if  I am honest . Trying to move on from it but it is hard.

I’m not settling to any hobby projects at the moment. So yesterday assembled a few resin figures and will give them a wee paint-

Undercoated they look fantastic, will see what I can make of them…

Eighteenth century amphibious warfare, of a sort…

 A fascinating blog post this morning on the first German submarine-

http://warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com/2023/11/steinhude-pike.html

Led me to find this fascinating example of eighteenth century invention-

This crying out to be modelled and used on the Wargames table, even as a vignette. Others may see it as the change to raise a fascinating light infantry unit. 54mm, 28mm or even 10/6 mm it would look great…

Minceheim in 54mm

 Trying out Minceheim in 54mm today.

For the rules follow the link- https://brushandbattle.blogspot.com/2022/11/an-invitation-to-minceheim.html?sc=1669739473035#c5110901850199631417

Trying out ideas such as allowing the elves bonus when shooting and faster movement.

This was thee first time I had used the 2 sided product below. It worked well.