Gotcha! - retail therapy for nerds

In the last two weeks, some very unexpected things have happened here.

I managed to win a lot on eBay which includes enough NapoleoN Miniatures British light dragoons - in authentic Peninsula-style Tarleton helmet - to make up a full unit when added to what I already have in my spares box. Very pleased with this - they can join the painting queue, and will eventually become the 14 LD, replacing my present late Phoenix Model Developments unit, which is splendid (Tim Richards mastered the figures, and I painted these back in the days when my eyesight was up to the job), but dressed for Waterloo. Also (sadly) they come from the days when scale creep was starting to make PMD a bit overscale. It doesn't matter a lot for most of the range, but the Light Dragoon figure (BN25) is definitely a whopper.

Whoppers. The soon-to-be-replaced 14th Light Dragoons - PMD figures. Their brigadier, Viktor von Alten, looks rather puny in comparison in the foreground.

Then, of course, I somehow managed to achieve the trick of accidentally buying back my own book - again on eBay - after it had been in orbit for a dozen years or more. I was hoping to dine out on this tale for some time, but, strangely, people I have told the story to in the pub invariably respond with an even more astounding story about how their Auntie Jean once met herself while on holiday in Tibet, so I have to assume that the impossible is, in fact, commonplace.

Now I have another unexpected triumph to relish. Somehow, my worldwide network of dodgy contacts has managed to trace two boxes of the out-of-production and unobtainable Falcata Spanish Lancers, and these have now arrived safely in the post from Vigo. If this event appears underwhelming, bear in mind that I have never seen any evidence that this set ever made it into production, so I never expected to see such a thing. They also will join the painting queue. There are two "uniforms" in the set, thus - if I ignore the falling man in each box - I should be able to form two units of lancers (one will be Julian Sanchez' Lanceros de Castilla, the other is a much more irregular unit in sombreros). With the leftovers, if I arm them with swords and blunderbusses and generally paint them all the shades of brown in the rainbow, I have the option of producing some mounted guerrilleros. The lancers, by the way, come without lances, so I will have to provide brass wire ones.

Naturally, being a miserable person, I am not tempted to rush out and buy a lottery ticket on the strength of this unaccustomed run of luck, and I am only casually keeping an eye open for meteorites or falling pianos, but it does make you wonder. If someone now comes up with 4 packs of NapoleoN Miniatures British heavy dragoons (in bicorns), plus maybe a couple of their Spanish generals, I will be as near to a happy bunny as makes no difference.

Calloo, callay.