Soon be Christmas…

That’s a cheery thought isn’t it. 

If you’re British it’d be best to get the sprouts on about now I reckon.

June’s HYW painting progress has been glacial, though an actual glacier would be very welcome around here at the moment, cos It’s….soooooo…ruddy…hot.

Okay these chaps are Perry 28mm French levy spearmen the front rank of which I’ve equipped with pavises in order to give them a vague stab at survival. 

When it came to a design for the front of the pavis I was a bit stumped until I found inspiration in my local towns 14th century defences. 

This is the Zizim tower in Bourganeuf. Built to house a captive prince, (like you do). It’s the right period too as it happens (the lovely cone shaped roof is a late 15th century addition). 

I get the feeling that progress will be modest on the HYW project given the weather, the number of units I hope to field and the current empty status of my wallet. What’s really needed while this ticks along in the background is a smaller scale skirmish type game that I can use with Mr Lambshead’s dice less rules. You know the sort of thing. 8 - 12 figures per side, bit of character development, ongoing semi campaign etc etc. 

No.

Stop it.

No!

Must stay focussed on the HYW stuff.

Okay we’re sticking to the HYW. Debate over. Good. 

With that settled I guess it wouldn’t hurt to just browse the internet a little bit, would it? 

I mean what’s the worst that could happen? I am, after all, renowned for my iron will…my ability to resist temptation…my erm…

Oh bugger. 

No one’s going to notice if a bit of cash leaks out of the household bills account, are they? Where’s the harm. I’m only stealing from myself when you think about it - and they do say your a long time dead. I mean, I could’ be knocked down by a bus tomorrow never having done 1930’s AVBCW. 

Oh the horror.

Toodleooh mes amis. 

…and this just in…

Excuses, excuses.

The garden has had all my focus this month, so there’s not been a lot of hobby progress. With that said it’s been glorious weather and good for the noggin to be outside with the chickens…of which more in a mo. 

As you can see below, I’ve completed the first English box of Perrys infantry and have moved on to the French. Slow progress and not my best work but they’re reasonable gaming standard and I’m still enjoying the painting process. 

An English ‘herce’ formation as described in Never Mind The Billhooks’.

A company of French crossbowmen - which I might deploy as two 6 man skirmish units.

Wokeness in the coop.

A few posts ago I put up a photo of two new Silkie chucks - sold to me as hens. Turns out that Edna (the white one) is actually a cockerel and wishes to be called Eddie from here on in. Mmmm. Our neighbour Marie Theresa has been mystified about my choice of chickens to date (not exactly major egg layers or practical birds in any sense) and having heard from the wife about Edna’s transformation asked…in French…

(WARNING -skip down a paragraph or two if you’re easily offended by graphic content)… 

‘if she could see my cock’. 

Yes really. *

Marie Theresa and I. The moustache is an absolute fanny magnet. I’m having to beat ‘em off with a stick at the moment. Well I am if they’re over 80 and French. Excuse the 1970’s lime green leather chair. I have a bit of a pash for seventies furniture. 

This alarming exchange came a week after the missus encountered the apparently pregnant 85 year old struggling up the chemin. The foetus in question turned out to actually be a canard sauvage (wild duck) that she’d captured on the pond at the bottom of her field. She’d stuffed it under her jumper (worn whatever the weather) so that it couldn’t see and wouldn’t know how to get home if it escaped. Very sensible. For those wondering how an 85yr old captures a wild duck, she claims that she charmed it with her singing and the same technique worked on a Canadian Goose last year. 

More crisp news

Stung by my criticism of the French crisp industry, French flavour scientists have sought to top their recent falafel flavour with these… I have to wonder where this endeavour will end (possibly me dying of a crisp overdose at 25 stone).

I’d better close for now. The Current Mrs Broom tells me there are some French Knights waiting for me downstairs. They could be the Perry ones I ordered of course, but you never know out here… they could just as easily be the real thing! lol. 

Toodleooh.

* I come from a working class ‘broken home’ in the West Midlands - so I find a degree of humour in such crudeness where folk of more refined sensibilities or better breeding do not. Apologies if you are one of the better sort.