It's all gone a bit quiet...

...on the painting front since I returned from the Gulf a couple of weeks ago. Apart from starting some Foundry Baluchi mercenaries inspired by my visit to Oman I haven't done anything. I have had a lot of evening events/dinners to go to (although it was a bit of a bonus when the six Balkan government officials turned out to be hard drinking blonde babes in miniskirts and boots "now we go to the Smollenskys in the Canaria Wharf") and my first weekend back was taken up with helping my little boy to revise for his school exams (the science is already beyond me!).

This weekend I did get some painting done but it wasn't for me. Guy is teaching a lesson on D-Day and so we have been spending a lot of time producing a presentation for him to give. I was passing Addlestone Model shop and popped in to see if I could find anything D-Day for him and picked up the massive Airfix D-Day set. The best thing about it is the vacuform diorama base which reminds me of some of the Bellona scenery I had when I was at school. He has decided to take the diorama in but we don't have enough time to make everthing in it so we have just built the landing craft and the Sherman crab flail tank. The latter was a horrible experience and I couldn't work out how it went together. The photo on the box showed the flail completely the other way up from the instructions. I just bunged it on the only way I could on the basis that a bunch of 11 year old Russian Billionaires', footballers' and Korean shipping Magnates' children aren't going to know any better. The landing craft was an equally horrible experience which hardly fitted together at all. I haven't made any plastic kits for ages and the only ones I have were either Hasegawa or Tamiya aircraft which just goes to show how far ahead they are of poor old Airfix.

I have enjoyed painting the diorama much more and just need to finish the Coastal Defence fort to go with it. It's a bit of a race against time, however, as I unexpectedly have to go to Washington DC tomorrow and don't get back until Sunday morning so that will only leave me a day to finish everything given I will probably be jet-lagged.