Slow and Steady Does It

 I have a number of refurb jobs on the go at the moment - quite a lot of them, in fact - and I find it satisfying when I complete one, but increasingly I find that the unfinished ones nag at me. It's not that I was better organised when I was younger, it's just that I seem to worry about it more now. Perhaps I have less confidence in there being plenty of time? - Let's not go there.

I'm spending a few weeks - during the start of the Spring temperate painting season - clearing off some of the Napoleonic backlog, to clear the mind and free up some boxes for re-use. One of these has been on the go for about 4 years - a pile of old, rather bashed figures I got very cheaply from the worthy Steve Cooney, which I lined up for one of my "cannonfodder" projects. This is not intended as any kind of a poke at Steve, I hasten to add - I knew exactly what I was getting into when I took them on! This batch consisted of old Der Kriegsspieler castings, and - Steve being Steve - he had taken his soldering iron to bayonets, gaiters, bases...

 

Five additional battalions; the rank and file are mostly tweaked Der Kriegsspielers, from many years ago. There are SHQ, Hinton Hunt and Schilling among the command figures. I was short of grenadiers, so recruited some Alberken Old Guard to make up the numbers - I had some misgivings about these, since the castings are relatively crude, but they came out all right, I think!

These chaps are never going to win any prizes for beauty, and have actually been quite a lot of work to paint up, but in the end they are pretty much what I was aiming for - hoping for the old Featherstone objective of "looking good in the mass".

During the intervening 4 years, I have had an occasional peep at their current state, noted that the Refurb Fairies had once again failed to come to help out, and I had rather quailed at the prospect of resuming work on them, but this has all been cowardice. Since I set my mind to finishing them, I've rather enjoyed the painting sessions, though I've listened to an awful lot of BBC Radio 3 and drunk a lot of black tea in the process.

So I have added 2 battalions of the 65e Ligne and 3 battalions of the 22e to Brennier's (Sixth) Divn of the Armée de Portugal, circa 1812. I already have one battalion of the 17e Léger and a solitary battalion of the Regiment de Prusse, so I only need the missing light battalion, a couple of groups of combined voltigeurs and some staff, and I need to allocate one of the spare foot artillery batteries to them, and the Division is done.

In the unlikely circumstance of anyone being interested, I must explain [to myself, really], that it has taken me about 3 months to break my new house rule of no 3rd battalions. The 22e really do need a 3rd battalion, or their brigade will be a runt. I have, however, stuck to my existing rule that 3rd battalions don't get flags [that'll teach them].

Finishing little projects is good - even sub-projects. Must nurture my enthusiasm... 

Thanks to Steve for supplying the figures back in 2017 - worked out fine, and his boys will fight on.

 

WSS: The Missing Flag Appears

 Quick footnote to yesterday's game - I've now fitted a 75cm (in scale!) flag to the Imperial C-in-C stand, and photos are necessary. I've also added the requisite magnetic sheet, and the chaps are now safely stored away with their army in the Really Useful Boxes.

I'm pleased because getting this group painted and based has been another hanging-around task, but am also interested because it gave me a chance try out some combinations of figure makers.

Here they are - the gentleman in the brown (civilian) coat is the boss - he could be Prince Eugene himself if it weren't for the moustache. Mind you, old PE wore some pretty outrageous wigs, so a false muzzer can't be completely out of the question? - maybe it was Mo-vember?

The commander is a Les Higgins casting on a Higgins horse, which is an obvious and standard arrangement hereabouts; the adjutant in the blue coat is an Irregular casting on an SHQ (ECW period) horse, and the standard bearer is Irregular on a Hinton Hunt ECW horse, and I'm delighted to see that these all work nicely, and are happily compatible with each other.

 

The flag - if you have exceptional eyesight - is the correct edition of the arms of the Holy Roman Empire for the time of Leopold I. It would be a terrible thing, I'm sure you'll agree, if I had got that wrong.

Wet Day - Keeping Busy...

Very nice, sunny morning first thing, but it gradually clouded over and from early afternoon we've had what one might describe as biblical rain. At one point I had to get the recycling out to the bin, and I stood in the downpour to watch what looked like a shallow river running down the lane outside our gate. Yes, I got a bit damp, but it was worth it - not much happens around here.

Among the boxes of soldiers from the Eric Knowles collection which I have here, waiting for refurbishment, there are some generals and staff figures. A lot of these are very early Hinton Hunts, and the quality of the castings is a revelation to those of us who first met up with HH in the 1970s. I've done very little with these fellows thus far, so I decided to have a go at one. The original painting was of a very nice quality, but, being singly-based commanders, they have been subjected to a lot of handling, so the paint is worn in places, and the colours have (obviously) faded during the last 50-odd years.

So here is my new General Lord Somerset (though he could be almost anyone), a vintage Hinton Hunt BN107 OPC figure, freshly retouched and based, fronting his (ex-Eric) Household Brigade, ready for Waterloo if required.

I also glued up some of these. This is the production run of the Max Foy Mark 2 Siege Doofer (Vauban version) - Michael of Supreme Littleness did a nice job on these. I shall slap some paint on them sometime this week. All taking shape on the siege front - I'm waiting for the postie to bring me my latest shipment of trenches (they're in transit from Fat Frank's emporium).

This evening I'm listening to the Burnley vs Spurs match on Radio 5 Live, while working to set up a battlefield for Thursday. Still some work to do, but a decent start. You may hear more of this. Note the bag of Orange Chocolate Minis, courtesy of Terry's Chocolate - other sweets are available, of course, but these are the official confectionery of choice of Foy's Battlefield Construction plc.  

Now you're talking - these bags are now resealable, so you can have one or two minis and put them away for later. Can't understand that at all - surely they would go stale? Certainly I can't remember ever having a bag which lasted into a second day. Still, it's an interesting development.

British Dragoons Finished

I see that it is only three and a half weeks or something since I finished restoring the troopers for my two late-war dragoon regiments, but my painting mojo fell into a trough of some sort after that, and it's only now that I've finished the command figures to complete the units. Anyway, it's done, and I'm pleased with them.

These originally were part of Eric Knowles' vast collection. They were a single regiment, but I use smaller unit sizes than Eric did, so I have split them into two. Here, then, are the 1st (Royal) and 3rd (King's Own) Dragoons, which, as far as I can tell (courtesy of Mr Franklin's book), were pretty much identical. The only slight issue was that I came upon a trumpeter of the Royals in reversed colours in one of the plates in Commandant Lachouque's Waterloo, but that seems unlikely enough by this late date for me to disregard it.

The troopers are Hinton Hunt one-piece castings (OPC), catalogue no BN 40. There were no matching command figures, so my solution was to mount SHQ/Kennington officers and trumpeters on Hinton Hunt horses (BNH3). Everything went pretty well - a lot of carving was needed to get the castings to fit, but it was an easy enough job, and they look fine. In fact the separate HH horses are very slightly taller than the OPC jobs. I thought of filing down the bases a bit, but these are very old HH castings, and the alloy is very soft anyway, so I left them. They are fine.

I have now placed them safely in The Cupboard, and can move on to the next challenge with a light heart!

Sir William Ponsonby

Over the last few weeks, my soldier painting has just dried up altogether. I was doing really rather well, but we've had some family problems, which have been a major distraction, and I seem to have just lost motivation. I'm trying to pick it up again this weekend. I hope to finish off the two British dragoon regiments I was working on - they only lack their command figures, and they are coming along now.

Since these dragoons are in the Waterloo period uniform, I decided it would be pleasing to paint up their brigade commander at Waterloo, Sir Wm Ponsonby, to go with them. I was very lucky in that Goya donated a repaired Hinton Hunt figure (thank you again, sir), and he is now ready for action.

Sir Wm Ponsonby, MP for Londonderry 1812-15.  He is riding one of his second-string horses, a fact which he must have regretted when the lancers got after him at Waterloo. Damn bad luck.

I had a HH Ponsonby some years ago - it wasn't a great casting, and it got cleared out when I had a sudden rush of blood to the elbow and decided to replace all my 20mm generals with 25mm ones - an idea that must have lasted all of six months. My previous Ponsonby had a light tan riding coat - I didn't have access to Marcus's painting instructions in those days. This new one is a much better casting, and I've painted him as Uncle Marcus would have wished.

This is not just a one-hit Waterloo special - I shall use the figure to represent John Gaspard Le Marchant in an earlier period (he didn't last long either, come to think of it). I can ditch my current Le Marchant figure, which is an S-Range conversion of mine that I have never liked. In fact, given that his uniform is more or less invisible, this new chap can serve as any odd British commander. Useful.

Anyway - here we have Hinton Hunt BN257, painted and everything - he should have a brigade to command by Sunday night.

Napoleonic Refurb Work - British Dragoons

It's been rather hot in the attic this week for extended painting sessions, but I've finally finished the refurb work on some ex-Eric Knowles British Dragoons. These are Hinton Hunts of great vintage, having been present at the 1965 Waterloo Anniversary game at the Duke of York's Headquarters. Accordingly, out of respect, my efforts have been directed at restoring the faded and worn sections of Eric's original paintwork rather than blitzing it and starting afresh [I understand that maintenance work on the Mona Lisa, for example, is approached in the same way!].

All based, with gaps left for the command figures

One consequence of this is that it has been quite a lot of work to get the figures to a state which I would describe as "good but not perfect" [which is probably how the job reports on the Mona Lisa read, too].

A few nights ago, at about 1am, I found myself working away, smartening up the piping on Eric's original turnbacks (in 20mm), and I was laughing to myself, wondering how I had managed to get here. Some of the original paint has also roughened a bit over the years, which makes it something of a challenge to get horse harnesses and so on to brush on smoothly over the top, but I got there.

Anyway, having reminded myself that Napoleonic uniforms are more labour-intensive than the WSS, I am now left with the job of adding some converted command figures to complete the two units, which are to be the 1st and 3rd Dragoons. I don't propose to start hacking up 50-year-old Hintons for spare parts, so the trumpeters and officers will be SHQ/Kennington figures, mounted on Hinton Hunt horses. Shouldn't take too long.

Tubs and Jars and Boxes

Today is my last chance to cut the lawns before the gardener comes tomorrow - it's raining. You may wonder why there is some pressure to get this job done if the gardener is coming. Partly this is a matter of self-respect, if I don't do the lawns between his visits, there is just a whiff of smug contempt when he comes; more seriously, I begrudge paying him for time spent doing a job I could (should) have done myself - there is no way I am about to climb up the big hedge with a ladder and a petrol trimmer - that's what I want to be paying him for!

So this morning I am doing a little tidying around the house. I thought I might take some pictures of the various hobby jobs I have around the place this week. The pervading theme seems to be one of storage, but it was ever thus, I guess.

Dragoons in the bath - these should be a very easy refurb job - 1st & 3rd British Dragoons soaking in a very mild detergent wash, to clean off half a century of muck and the remains of the cardboard bases. I'll get them retouched and varnished, and mount them on their new MDF bases, leaving gaps...

...for their officers and trumpeters, who will need a little more work!

Meanwhile, I have been doing some more editing and testing of my (slowly) evolving WSS rules, which are really shaping up nicely. The last big job will be to produce an intelligible leaflet and a decent QRS. You may observe a rather flexible approach to a hex gridded battlefield.

Whiteboards are very useful chaps - this is version 23.5 of the Firing Rules, which is pretty stable now - we are getting somewhere when there are no swear-words in the draft!

War in a Box - this is the current state of the WSS armies, and - yes - the bases are magnetised, and the Really Useful Boxes are lined with Ferro Sheet (the stuff which replaced Steel Paper).

Look, there are soldiers in there!

A jar of Imperialists - there is a delay with the Regt Hasslingen - about 16 or 17 of their number are pickling in the stripper jar; this is Clean Spirit (not so clean), and the fellow at the front looks just about ready for the toothbrush.

This is the next big job on the Refurb front - 3 battalions of French Napoleonic light infantry. I'm not going to start this for a week or two - I have to prepare for a Zoom battle, scheduled for Friday, anyway. You will observe that there are some bare-metal boys in there, and there's a full house of bayonets. Rank and file are 1970s Les Higgins, the command figures are already painted, and mounted on the bases, waiting. Command are a mix of SHQ and Higgins - the eagle bearers are plastic - nothing else available in this scale at present - but their flagpoles are brass, which is a relief all round.

Conversions - Some British Dragoon Command Figures

I need to improvise some command figures to complement some Hinton Hunt OPC British Dragoons I am in the process of refurbishing - Waterloo period uniform. I've considered various alternatives, but this afternoon's effort looks promising. This is an SHQ-Kennington trumpeter mounted on an HH horse.

He must have had a rather uncomfortable time being adjusted to fit his new horse, but it took a lot less work than I anticipated. Here he is pictured with one of the HH troopers - good for scale and general appearance, I think. I have a slight concern that the "shaving brush" at the front of the helmet is a bit puny by HH standards, but I think some fusewire and a little acrylic putty will put that right - a simple enough job - and I'll try to patch up that trumpet a bit while I'm at it.

Officers and another trumpeter to follow, then a group paint job - could be another low-effort refurb job (with luck!).

Painting - Good News and Bad News

Odd day yesterday. My most spectacular achievement was falling downstairs with a tray of freshly painted soldiers - fortunately, the only lasting damage seems to have been to the sensibilities of the Contesse, who was not impressed by my vocabulary.

I have now based up the Waterloo Life Guards - still one man absent, but now varnished and based. Very pleased with them.

Unit #334, Hinton Hunt Life Guards, with many thanks to Goya for his restoration and conversion work. These chaps were previously the spares from the ex-Eric Knowles Royal Horse Guards, and include the noted Trooper Lazarus, a write-off who was miraculously fixed back onto his base. I understand that we have located a recruit to fill the gap in the back row.

Less satisfactory was a shipment of mounted WSS officers which arrived back from the painter. Something very odd has happened here - it seems that the varnish has reacted with (and stuck to) the bubblewrap in which they were packed. This painter normally wraps each figure in tissue, which would have avoided the problem, but wisdom after the event is not helpful, and it's also irritating.

A varnishing act that went wrong. Warranty claim necessary. Ancient Les Higgins figures - not as old as the Life Guards, though

We've agreed that I'll send them back, and he'll sort things out, though it looks like a strip-and-start-again situation to me.

Other than that I spent a fascinating couple of hours yesterday with a neighbour, learning more about the history of the immediate area where I live. I'm particularly interested in a number of vanished local castles and tower houses, and also in the old farm-workers' hamlets of Whaupknowe (which means "Curlew Hill" in Scots, and appears to have been right where my house is now) and Muttonhole (which is only commemorated now by a field of the same name on an adjacent farm). These hamlets seem to have vanished around 1750. Looks like I'd better get the waterproof jacket and the old walking boots ready.

Guest Appearance - Steve Cooney

Prompted by my brief return to matters ECW, Steve very kindly sent me some more photos of figures from his own collection - I'm always keen on a little reflected glory so here they are.

Steve says, "Whilst you’re in ECW mode, some photos attached which you might like. They are of Sir William Waller’s Parliamentarian Regiment of Foot, Regiment of Horse and Artillery, all Hinton Hunt figures with a few Les Higgins conversions (this is regiment number 24!!). The mortar is a Lancer Miniatures."

Thanks very much, Steve - I do like them - very much, in fact.

Dog's Chance

I'm really pleased with this. The refurb job on my ex-Eric Knowles British Royal Horse Guards (for Waterloo) suddenly became rather more complicated when the extra figures (Eric's units were bigger than mine are) offered the chance of making some of them into the Life Guards as well. The numbers were a bit tight - through the marvels of digital communication (and Old School analogue kindness) an extra recruit is now on his way from New Zealand to swell the ranks (will he get a seat to himself, they wondered?), and a broken figure needed to be fixed to complete the establishment.

Ah.

Fixed.

Right.

So here is Trooper Lazarus, now of the Life Guards. The horse was broken off its base, years ago, at ankle/fetlock height - tricky in 20mm. I had both the casualty and his base, in the boxes. No problem for Count Goya's Magical Manufactory of Miniature Marvels - the legs and hooves have been drilled, wire braces inserted and appropriately fiendish glue applied. He's as good as new, matron. Marcus Hinton himself could not tell he'd been repaired.

I'm delighted with him. I couldn't have done this. Thank you very much, Your Excellency.

The rest of the unit will follow along as soon as the chap from The Colonies arrives. Trooper L is thrilled to have the chance of getting back into action after all these years of being dead.

Black Bob

Lightweight, entertaining little paint session tonight. Digging around in the Eric Knowles boxes, I have found some interesting items in there.

Tonight I restored a couple of little command vignettes.

First off, here's Maj.Gen Robert Craufurd, of Light Division and getting-killed-in-the-breach-at-Ciudad-Rodrigo fame. This is not going to win any prizes, but it's an attractive little piece. The conversions are ambitious; I can see from the figure bases that the starting point for each is Hinton Hunt SC 4, which is a one-piece-casting ACW cavalry trooper. The mounted Rifles officer has had a body swap - I think I recognise the top half of the HH Rifles officer (normally on foot) - the one with the whistle. His shabraque has been cut from lead foil - it's an impressive job. The General's top half is more of a mystery - I thought he might be a Wellington - I even thought he might be an SHQ Wellington, but I think this model was made too long ago for SHQ. The cape is hand-built from lead foil, again, and I imagine the saddle furniture was, too. I've kept Eric's colour scheme. There was evidence of some corrosion on the foil cape - a white bloom on some of the edges. Lead rot? I've cleaned them up, repainted as necessary and sealed with fresh varnish, and put them on an official house-standard base (Division Commander - 50mm x 50mm, white border). I guess Black Bob's days may be numbered, but with a bit of luck he might outlast me.

And here is a HH General for the ECW, complete with dog. This will go well with Lord John Byron's ferret and Fairfax's Mynah bird. I couldn't find the dog in Marcus Hinton's catalogue, so can only assume it must be a Clayton addition.

Napoleonic Refurb Project - RHG

My Refurb Project has rather grown arms and legs since I acquired some of the old Eric Knowles collection of figures. Here's the first Napoleonic item to emerge from the boxes.

As you will see, these are the Royal Horse Guards. The castings are Hinton Hunt OPC BN60 - as far as possible I've kept Eric's painting - I've repaired chips and freshened faded colours, and occasionally tweaked things to match the house style, but the spirit lives on. The splendid conversions for the officer and trumpeter are by Count Goya, to whom I offer most appreciative thanks.

My Napoleonic collection has been consciously confined to the Peninsular War for many years - in fact (to my subsequent regret), I have been known to pass over or get rid of items which did not fit with that narrow (though large) focus. Recently I have been working on a Bavarian Napoleonic army, so units for the Danube campaign came into scope, and now the arrival of some of Eric's old soldiers has brought the possibility of adding some specifically Waterloo-period units. Anyway, here's the first.

Eric's regiments were rather larger than mine, so I have spare figures left over. I hadn't meant to, but I now realise it would make sense to produce a unit of Life Guards to keep the RHG company. Goya has added further impetus to this idea by producing command conversions for them in advance, so I'll get on with the regiment. Sadly, I am one casting short - it is possible to convert and recarve and so on to get the extra man, but I thought I would brass it out and ask here: does anyone have a spare Hinton Hunt BN60, the British Household Cavalry trooper (charging)? I shall be delighted to do swaps, pay you actual money, wash your car, take your children for a walk - anything - name your price. I only need one.

Topic 2 - Waste Management

This crops up from time to time - not a rant, really. I read recently about a certain city in England where a primary schoolteacher contacted the local council last year, and said that her class of 7-year-olds were very fired up on the topic of saving the planet, and they were very keen to come along and see how the local authority deals with recycling and so on - would there be any chance of a class outing to the rubbish processing plant?.

She met a surprising amount of hesitancy, she thought - resistance to the idea, in fact. It turns out that the council are not actually doing any recycling at the moment. The residents clean and sort out their recyclable domestic waste, place it all carefully in separate dustbins, as instructed, but when the wagons take it away the whole bloody lot all goes into the same landfill site as the general waste. When she expressed a little disappointment, she got a lecture from the department head. Once they used to sift through it all and send it for suitable processing, then the problem became too large, they couldn't get the staff to do the work, so they started (apparently) sending containers full of plastic and glass waste to China. Then China stopped importing the stuff, so now landfill is the solution. She was told that they realised it wasn't an ideal situation, but proper recycling is not economically viable. They have a duty to the ratepayers to keep costs down etc etc.

OK - I can see there's a problem here, and I hesitate to rush to make worthy suggestions, but I did have some sympathy for the teacher's suggestion that the council's economic model might change a little if they were hit with a very large fine every time they did this. The ratepayers might even have something to say about it, too.

Just as well that environmental issues aren't important, really, isn't it?

A Prestigious Occasion (Fighting Again)

Marshal Bessieres-Goya takes a personal interest in the efforts of the Old Guard gunners

On Wednesday I was delighted to attend the first recorded battle in Stryker's new Hinton Hut - excellent day all round. Stryker himself, The Archduke and Goya were all in attendance, and we fought a (fictional) Napoleonic battle, setting the forces of the Emperor (the French one, of course) against a coalition of Prussian, Russian and Austrian troops. All the figures present were from Stryker's own collection (and thus, it goes without saying, were all of faultless pedigree, being original, classic Hinton Hunts or very close approximations thereto throughout), and we used his excellent Muskets & Marshals rules.

The official report of the battle, with far better photos, appears on Stryker's own blog - my own short note here on the day's events is to give me an excuse to provide a few more pictures, to underline the beautiful spectacle of all those lovely old soldiers!

General view at commencement, from behind the French right

Apart from both sides taking advantage of a clear view for the artillery, this battle started with the customary bickering between respective skirmishers

Stryker's lovely Carabiniers - they did OK, but spent some time trying to rally from being disordered - there will be some questions asked...

And still the skirmishers are popping away - though the Prussian lads have rifles, the French had the lucky dice, so had the edge in this department

French light cavalry has an early success - note the thoroughness of the Prussian high command, who have the catalogue reference of every soldier written underneath, to facilitate rapid recruitment after days such as this

The French used the classic strategy of throwing everything in from the start (l'Ordre Imbecile) - here you see the big push developing - Napoleon on the white horse, checking that no-one is lagging behind

Although it didn't count for much in the long run, we had an early disappointment in the performance of the Guard light cavalry 

Our very smart light cavalry of the line - if you look carefully you will see they are being pursued by some enemy cuirassiers...

Crunch time - our brilliant sledge-hammer tactics hit the Prussian line...

While the French Carabiniers upset some more enemy cavalry

To the stupefaction of the French command, the big attack succeeded right along the line...

As may be obvious by this point, I was Napoleon, for reasons too circumstantial to dwell upon, and I am pleased to say that we (Marshal Bessieres-Goya and I) scraped a win - aided by the excellent calibre of our troops and our customary, astoundingly streaky, dice rolls. My thanks to my colleagues for their excellent company, and to the Stryker family for their hospitality - the Hut, I would say, is a great success. Even in a Scottish December we were comfortable and well insulated, and the game, of course, was marvellous.

I must also add that Napoleon was very briefly exposed to the risk  of being wounded at the end of the action, but survived unscathed. Always good publicity to be seen to be in some danger, even if the risk is mostly theoretical - the Emperor's marketing people were very pleased with the day. 

English Safari (wet) - Small Game Hunting

Rain in Lincolnshire - just like my last day

I was away for most of last week. I had private business in Lincolnshire, and I combined the trip with a visit to Essex, where I obtained some old soldiers, of which more in a moment.

I travelled in my van, which is actually quite a friendly sort of vehicle - high seating position (and thus a great view), surprisingly comfortable, and it allows me to stooge along steadily, without anyone feeling obliged to cut me up or out-drag me at the traffic lights. As the time approached for my journey, I had been watching the weather forecasts nervously, but my trek down was all in bright sunshine - no problems at all.

In Essex I had the great pleasure of actually meeting DC - he of the Wargaming Odyssey blog. David and I have been on email terms for some years, and have even spoken on the steam telephone, but the old face-to-face bit was a new departure. David was just as jovial and enthusiastic in person as I had expected, and I must express my deep appreciation for his time and for his looking after me during my visit. We had a lot of interesting conversations during my day-and-a-bit in Essex - I got to see his famed man-cave, which is indeed a great honour, and I learned a lot about wargaming. Excellent all round.

Oh yes - the soldiers. I can't really say an awful lot about them at the moment, not least because I am still finding out the details of what I obtained. I bought a load of very old Napoleonic figures, many of which, I understand, were involved in the 1965 "refight" of Waterloo, at the Duke of York's Headquarters. The first job I have (and it's a big one) is to sort them into types, makes and units - they have been stored in some very dilapidated old boxes for a great many years, and have got a bit mixed up as the current owner (and DC) worked on identifying and listing what was there.

After two pretty solid days of effort, I am starting to get the idea of what is here. Some of these can probably be freshened up and rebased, and could be available for active service fairly quickly - some may require rather more work, and some may just go in the spares box for a while, but Goya has been talking of having a bash at Waterloo sometime soon - these should certainly help to fill some gaps!

I'll leave it at that for now, with some photos showing the inevitable chaos which is involved in opening up the boxes and trying to sort things out. I must say that I would like to know a lot more about the 1965 Waterloo game - I'm trying to get some extra information about that. If anyone knows of any write-ups, or has any personal knowledge of the event, I'd be very grateful if you could get in touch. I can certainly state that Hinton Hunt castings from circa 1965 appear to be cleaner and nicer than any I have seen. There are also some very early (small) Lammings, and a number of figures I have never seen before - no idea of the manufacturers - I may put up some more photos later on.

This is the mess in the dining room starting to abate a little - some of the figures are already sorted into boxes, and I have trays and all sorts of containers on all horizontal surfaces

This looks like French foot artillery in the warm water bath, soaking the bases off

Various Guard artillery figures, foot dragoons, miscellaneous generals and staff

Another tray - assorted cavalry - including enough cuirassiers for a very serious charge indeed

This looks like a heap of French line infantry to me...

Dragoons of different nationalities, RHG, Guard sapeurs...

Some highlanders in this lot...

A good number of lancers for Waterloo, including some Alberken Eclaireurs I haven't seen before, plus yet more riflemen - and so it continues. I'll be working on this for a couple of days yet - I've ordered in some more Really Useful Boxes - 4 litre size!

On my return journey I stopped again in Lincolnshire, where, by a complete fluke, my landlord (who knows nothing at all of these matters) recalled seeing a film clip of the 1965 Waterloo game on the Blue Peter TV programme (for kids). I can't find anything on Pathe News or anything, but I'm still looking. On my last day, Saturday, my luck ran out with the weather, and I drove for about 6 hours in a monsoon. No problems. The van just quietly got on with the job, and I was home in time for tea.

A very serious plaque to commemorate the fact that Thomas Paine was very briefly associated with Alford. I am hoping that there will be a plaque one day to say that I had my dinner in the Half Moon Hotel one evening.

Mind you, one of the Alford street names suggests that they may be familiar with my blog already

Yes - this is a picture of Margaret Thatcher, which is a first for me. The event was the opening of the M25, one of my least favourite stretches of highway in Britain. I have a theory - next time you are stuck in a nightmare on the M25, listen carefully - I bet you she is laughing somewhere