Delays, walks and mags

Bit of a mixed post this. The Po Valley Campaign has been delayed owing to busy-ness. I'll get round to it no doubt, but first I have an on-line game tomorrow with the Three Daves hosted by Jonathan Freitag. 

Part of the delay was caused by going to the Grimsby games at Gillingham the previous Saturday (W 4-1), Cambridge on Tuesday (W 2-1) and watching on the Saturday on the tellybox just gone (a very satisfying 4-0 win over Swindon to secure a play-off spot with a game to spare). Whether we are ultimately successful in the playoffs remains to be seen, but we're making progress year by year so I'm philosophical about it. Tuesday's game was the most satisfying, probably because it was a much tougher game, with more jeopardy right to the end. It finished with a late, late winner which produced such a release of emotion that I think I'm now engaged to five different people I've never met before.

After the match on Saturday I entertained the Margravina with the rare treat of a walk during normal football time (our game was an early kick off). The M decided we should go to the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park to see the Azaleas(?). Word must have gone out on the Facebooks because the World and his wife were there. People were queuing up to take photos, selfies and group pics in front of a particularly popular spot. Here's a few of mine.

Then Sunday we did a circuit on Wimbledon Common. Here's a few pics starting with a snap of the Beverley Brook with swarms of flies indicating how warm it has been lately.

The great thing about walking in new places is you make discoveries like this.

The KRR which grew out of the 60th (American) Regiment trained on Wimbledon Common

This plaque is on the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club's course. I assume some of the residual earthworks form part of the 'landscaping' for the course.

Eartheworks? close to the plaque

Lastly, thanks to a post by Bob Cordery of Wargaming Miscellany, I ordered a couple of back issues of a Spanish military history magazine. They arrived this morning. That should keep me going for months while I painstakingly translate the articles. Or I could just use the photo app on a translation tool, but where's the fun and learning in that?

Palate cleansing and progress

Before I get onto the update on my task list, here are a few piccies from a recent perambulation in the park.

I was trying to snap the trees but after taking this I noticed how the Margravina looks to be leaning back at a very difficult angle as though a giant modeller had bent a 'civilian' figure back on its base.

Those dots in the middle ground are people performing the ritual of seeing how close they can get to large wild mammals (the dark smudges they're surrounding). Noted anthropologist Graf von Nundanket believes it is the 'fossilised', bloodless remnant of the hunter-gatherer age, whereby instead of flint arrowheads, the hunters surround and shoot the prey with cameras.

It was not quite 4 seasons in a day, it never got cold enough for winter.

And now for the toys.

Bar a few 'units' worth of skirmishers, I have all the Greeks and Persians based. About half have only just had the sand applied. Those spare skirmishers might stay un-rebased as I don't think I need so many.  There's also 32 close order, round-shielded, pointy stick wielding chaps in the Persian box to re-base. I think they were probably something like Ionian Greeks tribute/mercenaries. I'm minded to do a little re-painting to make them into Spartans. If you have enough line fusiliers, you're allowed to have some Garde Imperiale.

The finished Perisan massed archers left. And right, oplites, undress of em. Back left, Persian heavy infantry, lights, cavalry and chariots. Rear right Greek psiloi, peltasts and cavalry, plus some more hoplites.

Finally, a bit of nod to Max Foy's 'Hooptedoodles'. Messrs Heroics and Ros despatched (most of*) my order. I got several e-mails from Royal Mail reporting on their progress to the Schloß. Delivery expected between 10:15 and 14:15 on Saturday. The time slot came and went and shortly after I saw an e-mail saying it had been delivered. The tracking portal showed a photo of the local Pat pushing the small package through.....not my letter box. No house number was visible so off I trotted to find a matching door down my street (about 100 houses) looking for doors that matched the one in the photo. Of course I chose the wrong direction. After exhausting the houses to the left as you look at the house, and the nearby street with a similar name to mine (easy mistake, but no number as high as mine), I went right. 

After a careful bit of matching the door colour, what was visible of the door window, letter box shape and colour, mucky marks on the door etc....of course it was the first house on the right! No house number visible on the house so nothing to indicate why Postman Pat would pick that house. Now I can understand a busy postie, under modern management pressures to do more for less, being (a) overworked; or (b) a half-arsed, workshy 'erbert (take your pick) might push a bundle of items into one letterbox and inadvertently include my small package. But Pat in this case, carefully took a photo of said package going into said door, on its own. How the flip do you do something as intentional as posting a package whilst photographing the act to prove delivery, without the intentionality of actually checking the address on the package matched the address of the house?

* Ironically, the part of the order not despatched (poplar trees) was the item that I wanted to order in the first place. The rest were ordered as sort of a mixture of 'take advantage of free postage over a certain value' and a notion of starting an Early Modern Ottoman army.

Lots of Eastern European/Eurasian types that might be similar enough to 'the Dreaded Turk'. And some pieces for the Western European train. The marching gunners in the gun teams look like musketeers with sloped arms. They might just get roped into padding out another unit.

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
3	Paint houses
4	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians 70%
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships

Oh well. Onwards and upwards as they say.

Out at odd times

Some pics from a recent trip to La Safor, an area in the south of Valencia Province. Mostly of the town of Gandía. These are from the 'old town' area where nearly every building was photogenic. Blogger has uploaded the photos in reverse order, not that they are in any order that matters anyway. Most of them were taken during the quiet siesta hours so there are few people around.

Excerpt from Vicent Andres Edellés, 20th century Valencian poet.
You will assume the voice of a people,
And it will be the voice of your people,
And you will be forever, a people.

Plaque in Valencian to local poet and knight, Ausiàs March. Rough translation:  

Love, love, I have cut (myself) a garment 

from your cloth, dressing my spirit.

More March. Taken from the wall opposite the lines by Edellés.

This reminds me I need to order some Cypress trees for my Italian battles.

Local boy made good. Francesc de Borja, 4th Duke of Gandía. The family are better known to history as 'the Borgias', two of whom became popes. Franny went one better and was canonised. Not sure how much it means given the family's track record.

How the mighty have fallen. From popes and saints to opticians?! Surely the most Gaudiesque shopfront I have seen outside Barcelona.

More detail from the optician's shopfront.

The Lesser-Spotted Margravina enjoying the vista above.

Out on the coast where we were staying, there was a thunder storm late one night. I could see flashes of lightning from the balcony so I walked round to the sea wall and sat taking videos and photos of the sky hoping to catch the lightning. This one came out looking apocalyptic or the scene from the Ten Commandments when the Red Sea was split asunder.

It was actually darker than it appears when I tool this. Bar the blue box on the right it looks like an oasis scene in Lawrence of Arabia or Ice Cold in Alex.

Another Biblical movie shot.

Late night walk along the prom. The lights in the left middle distance are reflections of the lamps on the right I think.

On the last day we met one of the neighbours in the same apartment block. A Frenchman by the name of Juan. The Margravina had previously read that a lot of locals emigrated to France in the 20th century and (they or their descendants) frequently return on holiday. Juan told us that he had inherited the flat from his father who had bought it after returning to Spain many years after going in to exile. The father fought on the Republican side and left in 1939. I'd love to have found out more.

Adéu!

E.Molesey to Walton-on-Thames

Sunday was bright and sunny*, if a tad cold, and as I'd had a football day on Saturday, I readily agreed to a walk with the Margravina. Let's go by the river for a change, I said, park in Bushy Park then walk from Hampton Court to Kingston then back down to the car through Bushy Park (a nice D-shaped route). Parking proved as difficult as we expected (the World and his wife, plus kids and Labradoodle were out). So an off the cuff Plan B was to cross the river by Hampton Court Bridge and try to park along Riverbank or as close to it as we could. We ended up having to go so far down that we changed walking route and headed upstream rather than down.

* isn't that tautological?

There and Back Again: from the red dot towards top right, to the blue dot, bottom left and back. Around 6 miles by the Thames river path. Hampton Court Palace top right.

This turned out to be one of those serendipitous eventualities, for we had a wonderful walk. The number of walkers soon reduced as we got further from the starting point (until we got to the other end). It's not far and it's flat! There were many stops for photo opportunities on the way out. We earned our roast dinner at the pub by the blue dot, and hot-footed it back to the car the way we had come. Only with far fewer stops.

[Incidentally, Blogger is playing up again. At least when trying to post pictures. Messing up the order if you post more than a few at a time, then making them disappear when you try to type captions.]

Some impressive house boats along this stretch (by Ash and Taggs Islands)

Surely one of the oldest cricket clubs.

View of Hampton riverside. This is in Greater London! Incidentally, the top side of the river on the map is within Greater London, the bottom side of the map is in Surrey. The London side presented the more picturesque buildings by and large. The Surrey side is hardly any less developed, but "oh no, we couldn't possibly be included in London, we're Sarrey don't you know". Such were the vagaries of local government reorganisation in the early 60s.

The Astoria Houseboat, built for music hall impresario Fred Karno in 1913. Fred entertained Charlie Chaplin here. Moored on the Middlesex (left) bank, near Hampton. Karno had a hotel built on Taggs Island, 'the Karsino', which later became the 'Thames Riviera'. The 111 bus from Kingston to Heathrow has recorded announcements for the upcoming stops, one of which is 'Thames Riviera'.

Garrick Villa (former residence of ac-tor David Garrick). Also another bus stop! 

Garrick's temple (now the wrong side of the road from the villa

St Mary's Church, Hampton

This and the next few pics are plaques on concrete plinths that form part of a monument to the history of Hurst Park, Molesey, Surrey. Many concern sporting events in the 18th and 19th centuries which attracted crowds up to 200,000!

If you stand on the circle with the appropriate month name your shadow tells the time. Almost right.

Almost snapped a kingfisher. Dithered too long over getting the right pic: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good! I had never seen one so close before. Weird and stunning looking creature.

This brick wall, backed and topped with an earth bank got me thinking of 'Vauban' fortifications. It was just an old reservoir

What's this?

Real defensive works (tank traps)?

The Margravina, a pretty small human, showing the scale of the thing.

Looks like a life raft from an oil rig. But small.

Sunbury Lock. To the right is a weir. The water rushing down gave a magnificent display of power. On the lock side the river was calm as a mill pond, as seen in the next pic.

Someone's lawn in Sunbury (Middlesex bank)