Hills, a frozen pond, crates and more bits and bobs!

Yesterday I did my general burble about relationships. Over on the exquisite Roundwood's World I saw a grand link to Wordle, a site which analyses everything you've put up in the last however-long and makes a "word cloud" of it all. You might see one for here soon, you lucky, lucky people! I'm currently waiting for Dad's PC to be free so I can print off a set of plans for a nifty little faux-hill from the excellent Confessions of a 40k addict blog. I am avoiding idleness, mind you! Don't you go about deducing from me faffing about online that I'm doing nowt, you villain! :-p I could be doing more, of course, if I weren't wasting precious minutes doing nothing, working the whole day through!

No, really, I have not been remiss (good word that - use it more, reader!) in my non-duties. I have hot-glued a faux-hill together. I am not quite sure where to go with it, but my current inclination is to slap some paper towels on it, then a ladder, and pretend it's a weird-looking cargo container. When I was driving down to Wales the other week I saw a great little train. The engine was quite humdrum, but the wagons had sides that slanted up from the sides and the back just so: / \ - and this little hill is in part inspired by them. Second, I decided to make some ponds, and first of all a frozen one. I bought a great little book some years ago, an Osprey Masterclass in making scenery, and I recalled it had a section on making frozen rivers or ponds. The book, which I highly recommend, is of more use to makers of dioramas than people who want to make rough, tough stuff that will withstand kids chucking it into a box every week. I don't believe it cost that much when I bought it, but I used to be more profligate than I am these days.

As well as the pond, I finished the pile of crates, which I placed beside my Wild West stuff earlier. I think it fits in nicely. Next I have that vertically-raised fuel tower and a blockhouse-kinda-thing together with half a dozen Sallies (2 Salamander Command vehicles, 4 regular Salamanders). As well as that, I have dragged that huge hill I made aeons ago out of the Pool Room, and am set to glue bits to it to break up its horribly regular form. The trench and ruins are also looking well. So, yeah, lots of stuff on my plate. Let's see what I first consume.

Crates and Earthworks

I mentioned Terrain For Hippos the other day, and today and yesterday I have been making a few crates. Here's TFH's original article. I haven't quite followed the original design, as I just don't trust myself to make straight lines, so I've got yet another thing to add to the list of things Lego is great for! I'm very happy with how they've turned out. I recall an idea, though not its originator, I'm sorry to say, for making crates or barrels appear more numerous than they are. The idea was to get a block of polystyrene, arrange crates and barrels at the edges and on the top, then make a spot of tarpaulin over the bits that are the block of polystyrene. I've also started work on a 2' long piece that will be a defensive earthwork when I'm done with it. Lots of drying now! On a less wargamery note, there was a wild rabbit down by the bird table yesterday morning. I managed to get a picture of him through the window, but didn't dare open it as the noise would have scared the poor wee lad. Or lady - I've no idea.

The procrastinatory impulse

It's funny that I apparently consider time-wasting associated with an impulse. It would perhaps be more sensible to say that such dilatory behaviour is associated with a lack of drive. Nonetheless, it feels rather like that at the minute. I fancied I'd do some work on the trench about now, but I can't gee myself up to it. I could earlier have gone out and seen what Macclesfield's Games Workshop is like of a Thursday night. I have been meaning to go for some weeks now, but I keep putting it off - there's always a reason, and it's usually a poor one. The irony here is that I don't fancy working on the trench right now because I want to be out somewhere, seeing friends, having a chat with them. Had I gone out, I might have made friends. Having stayed in, I now wish I had gone! I can't go out now, mind, as nobody I know is likely to take kindly to me turning up just before midnight for a chin-wag.

Tomorrow I shall be out, just like last week, in Newcastle. That's the Stoke one, not the one anybody has heard of. Last week, when I was out on Saturday in Congleton, the two young ladies I spoke with were a bit nonplussed at my referring to my friends as hailing from Newcastle. My friends were wrapped up against the cold, so even the most amateur Sherlock my see a discrepancy! Anyway, last week I had a disastrous time out, as I related. Let us hope that tomorrow will be an improvement. If it ain't, I might be moved to bowdlerise my language. I fancy I shall have something to say, anyway, as last night (well, this morning, a glance at my computer's clock assures me) I finished Wuthering Heights and thought it exceptionally good. Technical skill was married to a very sophisticated handling of the reader's emotions, and the tale itself was very absorbing. It has gone a long way to destroying my former distaste for "classic literature". I am even minded to re-read Great Expectations . . . some day . . . but I have a good twenty classics to get through before that sinister tome looms portentously from my bedside table. Don't expect me to reconsider Dickens soon!

I am currently engaged on The Great Gatsby for the following reasons: it is on this list of classics, and it is ridiculously short. This tiny paperback before me reaches its demise at page 163, but the blessed thing doesn't even start till page 19. I do worry that this list I have resolved to read is ridiculously downbeat. There seem very few comedies on it. That seems also to be the same with a few lists of films I am poking at. Earlier tonight BBC2 showed an episode of the quiz show Pointless, in which one question "gave a hundred people a hundred seconds" to name as many of Mel Brooks' films as they could. Richard, the clever chap who sits at a desk with a computer, told us that one of these, The Producers, had received an Oscar (or somesuch) for the script. That reminded me that I hadn't really liked that film. It didn't amuse me nearly so much as Blazing Saddles or Spaceballs or Young Frankenstein. Maybe I am just a philistine, incapable of self-improvement - although having just read Wuthering Heights (which deals in part with illiteracy and the perception of illiterates by the literate),* and being engaged in watching classic films and reading classic literature, I doubt that.

I shall be awake a few hours yet, as my sleeping pattern has gone awry again. Do not fear that I shall waste that whole time, even though the trench will be untouched until tomorrow. It dwells in the attic above my parents' room, and my heavy tread on the Victorian floorboards is not conducive to Mum's rest. Dad wouldn't notice a thing, I fancy! I have some bits and pieces to distract me down here, and I might even get a good ol' wargaming (well, terrain which might possibly be used for 'gaming) post up tomorrow. Until then, fare thee well.

* My apologies for all that repetition. My vocabulary here is not up to what it was at the start of this blog! I shan't discuss the tale at this juncture because I have that thoroughly illogical feeling that possesses me on reading a book I have not read: that I should hem and haw around it, no matter that it be a few thousand years old (less than two centuries in this case, of course). I'll need a bit to get over it.

Secret Project: Trench Warfare

Yes, I was working on a trench the other day. I am actually on the verge of redecorating, er, repainting and remodelling three 4' by 2' trench boards, which can be linked together to create a 12' by 2' strip of terrifying defences. The segment I am currently working on is the centrepiece, marked with two Forgeworld turret emplacements and a sizeable bunker for whoever commands this network. I slapped a load of paint on this the other day, but the gaps are abundantly in evidence. I need, as you will see, to repaint the other two boards, so it's no huge problem. The duckboards and wooden supports of the sides of the trench are either matchsticks or balsa wood. The framework of the board is polystyrene ceiling tile, covered with tissue paper impregnated with PVA heavily diluted with water.

Household filler, PVA glue, water and sand were mixed in various proportions and applied to various bits of the board. I've run out of PVA, so this third board is a bit different from the other two. I'm not sure I'll be happy with this in the long run, but for now, it'll do. Although these boards were designed primarily with 40K in mind, they will also offer some utility in Great War engagements. I'll be stretching barbed wire across the face of this central board, and have another 39" or so of the stuff available to cover the remaining 8' of board. Not quite enough, eh! Anyway, enjoy these pics. I may post again later today.