Storm damage

Woke up this morning to find that my garage roof had been ripped off during the night and was hanging into my neighbours garden, I know it was quite windy at times but I was quite unprepared for what I saw when I opened the bedroom curtains.

Rang the local roofer who arrived suspiciously quickly and got a quote which was at least double what I was expecting, anyway my wife rang around a few other roofers and indeed we were able to arrange to get the work done for less than half the original quote!  Just goes to show you shouldn't assume that your local tradesman is necessarily going to give you a competitive price.

Another satisfied customer

It's always nice to get feedback, especially when it's complimentary, so thank you Brian for the kind words and mention on your blog: brianfordtrains.blogspot.co.uk regarding the 'Levenbridge' layout that I shot for Model Rail and which is in the latest issue (179).

Fun and games in the snow

Well the Met Office got it wrong again, 2 to 5 cm of snow they said to expect on Sunday, in fact it snowed all day and by the morning when I went out to clear the car, there was clearly more like 10 or 12 cm.

Anyway, my daughter's school announced it was closed with just a few minutes to spare before she would have had to set out to catch the bus (it's 9 miles away!), my son's school however clearly stated on it's website that it would be open, so we duly set off in the 4 x 4 as I wasn't convinced my wife's A-class would make it up the hill to the main road through 15 cm of virgin snow.

When we arrived at the school, I normally drop my son off at the 'kiss & go' car park near the school entrance, but as the conditions were so bad and as it seemed very quiet I decided to take him up the sheet ice and snow covered drive, right up to the school itself. Just as well I did because as I dropped him off by the main entrance, the caretaker came over to tell us that the earlier decision had been reversed and the school was now closed. So we turned around and headed home, informing any stray students as we went that the school had closed. Having finally got home, I then had to take my wife to work!

Diary of a sick dad

It had to happen, a week before Christmas, hit by a particularly nasty virus which still hasn't fully cleared up nearly three weeks later! So not really the Christmas and New Year that it might have been, from my point of view in particular. Hopefully I wasn't too miserable and grumpy (actually I think I probably was). The kids seemed to have enjoyed themselves at least. If I can just shake off this cough then I'll be laughing, that's both figuratively and literally!

Empress Dragoon Trumpeter

Ok, this is the repainted figure, after being rescued from an overdose of black ink wash, the base still needs doing but otherwise I'm reasonably happy with it, considering it's the first painting I've done in at least 25 years and the paints were just some old acrylics and then there's my eyesight, anyway enough excuses, I'll try and do better next time.

In the meantime I've been sorting through the collection of figures and have decided to put some on eBay, mostly one's which were either my father's rather than mine or that aren't my main area of interest, which is to say primarily the Napoleonic Wars. The idea being to raise enough money to get some more modern acrylic paints such as Vallejo and possibly even to get some new figures, it would be nice to start one from scratch again.

Washout

Having repaired the dragoon trumpeter, I attempted to repaint it in the correct colours, it having originally been painted in the colours of a long since forgotten regiment, possibly of the kingdom of Naples or some other Italian state. Having achieved a result with which I was reasonably happy I just couldn't resist the temptation of trying some black ink wash on the white painted horsehair crest, which worked well but spilled on to the jacket, so I thought I'll try it all over the figure. Disaster! by the time I'd covered the whole model, the initial application of ink had largely dried, creating blotches all over the jacket, plus the ink was much too strong for the white lapels in particular. Anyway, after a further repaint of large parts of the figure I have nearly reached a satisfactory conclusion (again!) and learnt a salutory lesson in the use of ink wash on large figures.

Tradition

In my youth, many moons ago one of my hobbies was painting model soldiers and on a recent visit to my mothers house I decided the time had come to repatriate my collection of figures. However when I eventually found them rattling around loose in an old cardboard box I was somewhat disappointed to say the least at the state they were in, as a number of them were damaged or missing pieces. In the case of the Charles Stadden French Napoleonic Dragoon Trumpeter in the photograph, the trumpet was missing.

Surprisingly this 30 year old model is still in production, so I contacted the good people at 'Tradition of London' who still produce the Charles Stadden range of figures and asked if I could buy just the trumpet. I was delighted when Magnus Lindstrom replied and offered to send me one for no charge, which duly arrived a couple of days later, for which very many thanks Magnus.

There was one problem however, in the intervening years the design had been changed slightly and now the trumpet came complete with the trumpeters hand attached to it. The only thing for it was to amputate the the figures hand with the aid of fine saw, a dremel and a craft knife, once done I epoxied the hand with trumpet in place and achieved I think a very acceptable result. I have now set about repainting it in the correct colour scheme for an Empress' Dragoon Trumpeter, when it's finished I'll post a picture of the finished article here.