NEW YEAR AND NEW FACE

A Happy New Year to you. Happily this morning dawned without a pounding head as we were very sensible and turned in early last night (to be awakened at midnight by barrage of fireworks). After a walk in the woods we went over to a friends house in Monkton Combe, a village just down the road from us and had tea and buns. Matthew there is a keen target archer and I was most interested to see his bow, an edifice of wheels, pulleys and sights, unfortunately I had forgotten the camera, or I would post a pic of it.

I have decided to use a new avatar/image thingy this year, an eighteenth century gentleman called Sanderson Miller who was responsible for designing a number of follies and eyecatchers for wealthy friends (including Sham Castle on Bathampton Down near us). Those of you who know the Battlefield of Edgehill will also know the Castle Inn built where Charles Stuart (that man of blood) raised his standard before the battle, this was built by Miller as a folly on his own estate in the mid eighteenth century.

Hopefully this year I will make a start on my Imagi-nation campaign, War for Arcadia in which the Duke of Trompenburg and the Prince-Bishop of Arnheim battle it out for the best landscape garden. I have made a start on the 54mm Trompenburgers by preparing them for painting

The figures are the new HAT Prussians with Armies in Plastic Command bods. One thing I did notice with all these figures is that even after washing in detergent they would not take the usual coat of PVA I tried to give them, the glue pooling in blobs all over the figure. This was particularly bad on the AIP figures, so I will have to undercoat them in enamel and give them an extra coat of floor varnish after painting. I plan to do them in a real toy soldier style, with pink cheeks and rosebud lips and extra glossy varnish.

With luck I will also have a go at doing the same campaign in 1/72 using Zvezda GNW figures which I prefer as they are more suitable for 1730's when the Arcadian movement in England really began to take off.

Also on the painting table is a regiment of Roundhead cavalry in progress