The Return, non triumphant

And so I write once more, not because I have anything pithy or amusing to chronicle or indeed because I have done anything remotely game worthy (not strictly true .....about 99% true), the fact is I followed a link to a rather bonza blog and being in the blogger space I decided to drop by and see if "Slowly Over A Low Flame" still existed.

I cant for the life of me understand why dormant blogs, forums, email accounts, wiki's and the like don't get ritually cleansed (say bi annually) from the interwebs, I picture this great enormous mass of digital garbage swirling around... similar to the ones documented floating around in the worlds major oceans. Like weeds in the garden they should be pulled regularly to make way for new and exciting weeds to grow. Anyway, yes, it is still here unaffected by my neglect or my imaginary interweb garbage men.

My poor neglected blog

The long story short in 2012 &13 my health problems came to a head, diet, medication and some wee surgery seem to put things back into a satisfactory orbit. As 2014 fell upon us I thought all is good a bit of painting, a bit of gaming, try my hand at sculpting and maybe take a crack at making some figures, more or less looking rosy. Unfortunately a sick relative put paid to that and without going into the boring details I have become a full time carer, my Grandmother now lives with me and I'm in the middle of building a granny pad for her. My house is in pieces and my hobby gear is either in a storage complex or buried within a small mountain of boxes somewhere around the house, there is an awful lot of boxes, how did we accumulate so much junk? Reminds me of those garbage piles floating around the worlds oceans.

The making of the Gran cave, renovations = stress ++

Now as fate would have it, whilst reorganising the mountain ie shifting it from point A to point B, I happened across a particularly heavy box, putting two and two together I thought it might be worth taking a peek inside, suspecting it may contain part of my pile of shame, it was a Eureka moment.  Being a glass half full sort of chap I wondered if the adjacent boxes might contain more of the same and lo a box nearby offered up some paints, brushes and putty. I then set to work burrowing out a few square metres of floor space in the shed ie stacked box upon box to unimaginable heights! It's like those garbage piles floating around the worlds oceans....... but different.

Of course just to prove that laying low on the gaming front does not mean one is not susceptible to outrageous and not very bright impulse buys I blew a heap of much needed cash on a couple of armies, a  painted Saxon (well probably Anglo Saxon) and an unpainted Norman. In my defence I should point out that the only money I spent in 2014 was on the book "Marlborough soldier and diplomat", m'lud. Of course the counter argument is "why buy more when the pile of shame is already at breaking point", no war gamer worth his or her salt can attempt to answer this rationally, I'm certainly not going to try, it would be like trying to explain the great gobs of trash floating around in the worlds oceans

My sexy Saxons, nice purple

I see some repainting, not much shields and a spruce up

Must be a mix of brands, the quality is varied

 So a few square metres of hobby space plus a few paints, brushes and sundries plus some newly acquired miniatures adds up to....... me sneaking out to the shed at night to muck around. Check back I shall endeavour to keep you updated on the progress.