Well, I have got no painting done for the last week due to a combination of things conspiring against me as usual.
Firstly, we have been getting all the stuff back into our new kitchen (or trying to; as we have lost several cupboards due to the new boiler/fridge/dishwasher) but my wife is cleaning everything first so I still have piles of plates, saucepans etc on my study floor. I physically can’t get at my lead pile! At least now we have a new kitchen table that’s big enough for wargaming! “Why do we need a table with those big extensions on?” says my wife. Heh, heh!
Secondly, it was her 50th birthday and so there were various family celebrations at the weekend. Waking up on her 50th to find that Michael Jackson had died aged 50 didn’t put her in the best of moods however. Then, having planned to have the day off, I had to go into work for a couple of meetings. However, given that one was breakfast at the Mansion House and the other was lunch with two delightful Canadian ladies at Claridges it wasn’t too bad. At least for me!
On the Sunday I had to go and support my wife and daughter who were running the women only Race for Life on Epsom Downs: 6,000 women in pink tee shirts running in sweltering heat. A terrifying amount of oestrogen in the air. The few male back-up teams clung together at the finish in clumps whilst the horde thundered off on their circuit of the scorched looking downs. It looked like Isandlwana for Barbies.
This week I have had Omani and Romanian visitors, a corporate risk workshop, a meeting of the government group I chair, a policy session with the Chairman, a presentation to the health practice and an epic briefing with our new financial PR firm. With the 30 plus degree heat on top I am pretty shattered and was hoping for a nice quiet weekend of painting but, no! It’s my little boy’s school speech day tomorrow which means making small talk for hours with the bizarre collection of Premiere League footballers, WAGs, Russian billionaires and porn stars who make up the parents at Guy’s school. Then you have to sit in a sweltering marquee for hours whilst lots of swotty little creeps pick up their prizes. No chance of Guy getting anything, although I have just found today that his team of four have won the national schools Concept 2 rowing competition against 400 other schools and he has been given a national gold medal! He is very pleased with himself! I attended one of the top rowing schools in the country and was forced to row whether I liked it or not (I didn’t) but at least he can row indoors and not on the freezing Thames in January like I had to.
At least we started to fill the pool this week (we didn’t bother last year), and we’ve now got 20 inches of water in it so far. As the Tube and the trains on the way home have been horrifically hot this has been very welcome. Mrs Legatus has got very fit doing her training for the race and has been showing off her figure by skinny dipping in the pool in the evenings. Something about being 50 and fabulous no doubt (she is older than me but doesn’t look it to be fair!) but it has distracted me enough that I haven’t painted anything in the evenings!
On to wargaming and Keith at Guildford Wargames club has suggested that we combine to do a Sudan wargame in August and I am very much looking forward to this. We will be using The Sword and the Flame rules and I am planning to get a couple of dozen more figures done by then. I need to know if I’m the British or not. If I am I will paint a British field gun if not I will get some more Beja camel cavalry done and maybe one of the Perries Mahdist cannon with captured Egyptian crew.
Firstly, we have been getting all the stuff back into our new kitchen (or trying to; as we have lost several cupboards due to the new boiler/fridge/dishwasher) but my wife is cleaning everything first so I still have piles of plates, saucepans etc on my study floor. I physically can’t get at my lead pile! At least now we have a new kitchen table that’s big enough for wargaming! “Why do we need a table with those big extensions on?” says my wife. Heh, heh!
Secondly, it was her 50th birthday and so there were various family celebrations at the weekend. Waking up on her 50th to find that Michael Jackson had died aged 50 didn’t put her in the best of moods however. Then, having planned to have the day off, I had to go into work for a couple of meetings. However, given that one was breakfast at the Mansion House and the other was lunch with two delightful Canadian ladies at Claridges it wasn’t too bad. At least for me!
On the Sunday I had to go and support my wife and daughter who were running the women only Race for Life on Epsom Downs: 6,000 women in pink tee shirts running in sweltering heat. A terrifying amount of oestrogen in the air. The few male back-up teams clung together at the finish in clumps whilst the horde thundered off on their circuit of the scorched looking downs. It looked like Isandlwana for Barbies.
This week I have had Omani and Romanian visitors, a corporate risk workshop, a meeting of the government group I chair, a policy session with the Chairman, a presentation to the health practice and an epic briefing with our new financial PR firm. With the 30 plus degree heat on top I am pretty shattered and was hoping for a nice quiet weekend of painting but, no! It’s my little boy’s school speech day tomorrow which means making small talk for hours with the bizarre collection of Premiere League footballers, WAGs, Russian billionaires and porn stars who make up the parents at Guy’s school. Then you have to sit in a sweltering marquee for hours whilst lots of swotty little creeps pick up their prizes. No chance of Guy getting anything, although I have just found today that his team of four have won the national schools Concept 2 rowing competition against 400 other schools and he has been given a national gold medal! He is very pleased with himself! I attended one of the top rowing schools in the country and was forced to row whether I liked it or not (I didn’t) but at least he can row indoors and not on the freezing Thames in January like I had to.
At least we started to fill the pool this week (we didn’t bother last year), and we’ve now got 20 inches of water in it so far. As the Tube and the trains on the way home have been horrifically hot this has been very welcome. Mrs Legatus has got very fit doing her training for the race and has been showing off her figure by skinny dipping in the pool in the evenings. Something about being 50 and fabulous no doubt (she is older than me but doesn’t look it to be fair!) but it has distracted me enough that I haven’t painted anything in the evenings!
On to wargaming and Keith at Guildford Wargames club has suggested that we combine to do a Sudan wargame in August and I am very much looking forward to this. We will be using The Sword and the Flame rules and I am planning to get a couple of dozen more figures done by then. I need to know if I’m the British or not. If I am I will paint a British field gun if not I will get some more Beja camel cavalry done and maybe one of the Perries Mahdist cannon with captured Egyptian crew.
I have nearly finished eight Balearic slingers for Zama which I started very recently and have some Spanish ready to go next. I’ve started re-reading David Anthony Durham’s novel Hannibal Pride of Carthage. I started it a couple of years ago but stopped half way through. Not because it isn’t any good, it is, but I always have about ten books on the go at a time. This is caused by me always starting a new book on a foreign trip (I don’t want to take half read ones in my luggage) and then leaving the others behind. I then forget what happened in the book so sometimes (like in this case) I have to go back to the beginning to start again. It is well over 600 pages, though, but it will keep me focussed on Zama. There are some good battle scenes in it and it had a lot to do with me buying a lot of Ancient Spanish a couple of years ago.
Despite knowing I should be concentrating on Zama I can’t stop buying figures, however, and have just got a unit of Artizan Romano-British, to go up against my Musketeer Early Saxons, which I will try and paint in one go. I was also looking at Phil Hendry’s blog and he has just painted a really nice looking unit of Gripping Beast Knights Templar. I thought they looked so striking that I bunged in an order straight away even though I have no idea what period they are for! At least I do have some painted Perry Turkish horse archers as some sort of vague opposition but given the style of the figures I think that the Musketeer figures will be better opposition. Oh good, two new armies!
I’m also reading Ian Gale’s Four Days in June at the moment which started a bit slowly but now I have reached the fighting at Hougoumont it has really got going. I have a great desire to obtain a 28mm scaled Hougoumont. I wonder if anyone makes one? Maybee I could commission one from Grand Manner. I still have some Waterloo Perry British and French on the workbench and will keep doing odd bits to them as I concentrate on the Sudan and Zama (in theory).
I’m off to the JW Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy tonight so at least that won’t get me onto any new periods. But then again, I did buy all those Foundry Nymphs a few years ago! I’m hoping that they will have Hylas and the Nymphs on display. I had a red-headed girl in my Roman Law tutor group in my first week at college who loved this painting (she looked just like one of the aforesaid nymphs, it has to be said) and I bought her a poster of it at Athena. This proved to be an excellent investment as she insisted that I draw some pictures (I had a place at art school but decided to do law instead) of her as a naked nymph. The Waterhouse pictures will bring back some very torrid memories!
Flipping 'eck! All I have managed to do is go to the same office, deal with the same old sh...stuff and feel hot and bothered all week. Have not even got a paddling pool with a puncture (I painted 1 figure however!).
ReplyDeleteMatt
Then you have done better than me!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Guy is at Westminster.... ;^)
ReplyDeleteHovels do a very nice 25mm Hougemont.
ReplyDeleteThanks Prince Henry, that looks just the job!
ReplyDeleteI have just sat through 2 speech days. The head at my eldest daughter's school gave a instantly forgetable talk and then some old codger got up but he wasn't introduced so I have no idea who he was. Usually this is held in their Greek theatre but it has been condemned so we all swealtered in the sports hall. Daughter no 2's was at least held in St Georges Chapel in Windsor castle so there was lots to gawp at. Far better and amusing speech and the guest was some cancer specialist from Oxford uni who lectured everyone on the evils of smoking. Needless to say half the parent lit up as soon as we escaped.
ReplyDeleteGuy
In the end the speaker at Guy's speech day was an ex-footballer called Graham Le Saux (I think) who I had never heard of but is one of the parents. But his speech was very funny and went down much better than Sybil Fawlty last year.
ReplyDeleteThe porn stars' son won an acdemic prize and Guy's friend who is the Russian billionaire's son turned out to be a Warhammer player so has gone up in my estmation!
One of Guy's other friends was made captain of athletics but, sadly, I didn't see his gorgeous mother (like Penelope Cruz's more attractive sister).