Out of the Shadows.

I thought it was time to come out of the shadows and post something. This has been the longest period of blog inactivity since I started this journey [whatever that means]. Like most I think the pernicious affects of lock-down have proven increasingly difficult to cope with as the months have dragged on. I am no different and what initially was just about bearable became something much more unpleasant as we saw Summer disappear and the dark nights encroach upon us.

  One very noticeable affect, well with me anyway was that I simply began putting things off and generally finding excuses to basically do absolutely nothing. My wargaming has suffered along with my sanity which was always a tad fragile.

 To compound the misery I ended up with a back problem involving bulging discs! [ yes it balanced out my bulging stomach]

Our wonderful NHS decided that I should simply continue with strong pain killers and failed to diagnose the disc issues and sciatica, but the pain wasnt pleasant.  Luckily I could afford to visit a private physiotherapist who had worked for Sunderland AFC in their glory years in the Premiership.

[ yes he is a bit old] He spotted the issues immediately and continued treatment has vastly improved my mobility, so I am on the mend.

So what has this to do with wargaming? 

Well it has allowed me to take up a brush again and crack off some ancient units for my Persian, Roman, Gallic and Greek armies which became my project during lock-down. As usual what were intended to be modest projects have expanded into full blown armies. I had intended to use the excellent Sword and Spear rules and base my armies around them. Naturally this changed and I continued adding units in order to use the armies in a Hail Caesar game. Best laid plans and all that.

 It has kept me relatively sane though and I thank my lucky stars that I am a wargamer first and foremost, God help the people who arent as lucky. 

During lock-down my lovely wife decided that I needed some friends and finally convinced me to obtain two kittens. I will be honest but after I lost my last two cats I couldnt contemplate going through the misery of loss again and kept putting it off. Anyway that view changed when I was sent to collect two kittens, Lola and Ayra who now run the house and my life. So Im back to holding conversations with two felines who find it a hoot to run wild around my house and pick up the odd figure and then lose it. 

 

 This is Ayra laid across the top of my wargames room door wondering what exactly is going on. We discussed this for a while before she climbed into a box of unpainted SYW infantry and fell asleep. I think she believes wargaming is daft compared to chasing her tail. Cant argue with that. I hold daily in depth conversations with them and find their viewpoint refreshing concerning all manner of things.

 Returning to this wargaming marlarky, I found the latest Miniature Wargames magazine poor, but found the Last Word article by the editor John Treadway interesting. For those who dont bother with the magazine it concerned Covid and the impact on wargames shows, should we ever return to meeting wargamers at such events.

 Clearly John has become a half pint empty man and fears that due to traders apparently having a bumper year that they will deign not to attend certain shows and naturally this will have a knock-on effect as punters stay away due to traders not attending as they count their wealth.

 Its a perfectly reasonable supposition and I can definitely see the logic in certain traders not bothering with some shows. I could also understand if some of the clubs that run said shows decide not to bother until things settle down post Covid.

I take the opposite view however [naturally] 

If there is one thing that is obvious since this social nightmare started and that's wargamers are very social creatures and NEED physical social contact and not just to wargame. Shows were becoming more of a social event for me anyway as I was in the lucky position of having plenty of stuff to be getting on with so didn't need to buy too much at a show. I dont think Im the exception and in fact believe that when things do settle down wargame shows will need to consider ticketing events to simply control numbers and yes this includes even the most basic club show. I may even consider travelling North to Scotland if that's where the shows are. 'Build it and they will come', to steal a line from a film.