Heartfelt Thanks

You folks are the best.   Mdme Padre and I are both so grateful for the outpouring of messages my last post received.   I have tried reading all your messages to her over the last two hospital visits and I still haven’t gotten to the bottom.   I can tell her sense of humour is strong because she keeps shaking her head and saying that I have a lot of weirdo friends - nice friends, but weirdos, she says,   Amen.

Kay’s condition has significantly improved this weekend and she says she feels stronger.  My hopes that she will be home soon, enthroned with cats.  Her oncologist says “Eat!  Eat!  You’re going to need it!”  I foresee a lot of pancake breakfasts.

There may have been some canoodling tonight.

Blessings to all of you.   Be well and love well.

MP

Her Finest Hours Begin

Greetings friends.

It has been very quiet here and I am breaking radio silence to ask your prayers / good wishes / positive vibes for Madame Padre.

Longtime readers will know that she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last May and underwent chemotherapy through the fall and early winter.   She had some good months but sad to say her cancer has returned in an aggressive way.   Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@madpadre1) will already know some of this.  The cancer blocked her stomach, causing much damage to her bowel. Suffice it to say that Kay has undergone two major surgeries in the last week, and has been in hospital for the last fourteen days.    It will be a while before she is strong enough to undergo chemotherapy.  Fortunately, Madame’s spirit and kooky sense of humour remain undaunted, as you can see below, when she declared herself ready for tango lessons.

 

I am finding it hard to concentrate on much else, and have just bade farewell to Madame’s US family, who descended on the house this week and were absolutely marvellous, treating me to American Thanksgiving dinner. Today they headed back south to Dixie, leaving me with a massive smoked turkey.  Y’all come by for some.

So my girl is in for a hard fight, but we are ready.  The colours are unfurled, the battle line is braced with bayonets fixed and drums beating, and we are asking and giving no quarter.   The foe is fell and fierce, but his hard blows and malice will be returned in kind.  Hearts shall burn bright and not falter, ere the darkness fall.

If you would be so kind as to leave a message of encouragement, I will read it to her during my next visits.  Even the words, prayers and good wishes of strangers encourage her greatly, and she knows I have a great cloud of wargaming witnesses out there.

Blessings to your loved ones.  Be good to them.

MP

The Cat Came Back

Regular readers of this blog will know that Madame Padre and I are cat people, just one cat short of being crazy cat people.  One of our cats is a long-legged ginger sass-face called Luigi, who is a frequent adornment on my wargames table.   At some point, he got the nickname of the Fell Catbeast of Mordor.

Seven weeks ago, Luigi asked to go out on a warm night, and never showed up for breakfast the next day.   After a few days, we put posters around the neighbourhood.  No luck.   On Monday morning, during my morning run, I took down the last of those posters, and started thinking of the epilogue I would write here for a cat that I had gotten quite fond of.   Half hour later, over breakfast, I heard his distinctive meow in the back yard.  Who knows what he was doing for seven weeks, or where he was doing it.  Perhaps, as someone said, he moved in with Ms. Jones next store to make us miss him, and decided to come back when he knew he could get anything he wanted out of us.

Well, it’s started.   I tried to do some painting this evening.

Nope, Imma lie on your arm.  (He did this all the time when I was writing an MA thesis a few years back).

No paint, just admire my cuteness and pet me.

Tired of your arm, imma sleep on your paint table now.

Well, he’s back, and I couldn’t be happier.   I may be less productive, for a while, but I couldn’t be happier.

Curious creatures, cats.   If he could talk, I wonder if he would tell me what he did for those last seven weeks.   

Blessings to your furry friends.

MP+

Meanwhile, In Rohan - 4

My painting desk is still firmly planted in Middle Earth these days.   When I last posted, it was to show the growing host that Saruman the Wizard was assembling in Isengard, thanks to a score at the bring and buy, and also thanks to the first fruits of his recruiting among the Wild Men of Dunland.  Things looked pretty grim for the free folk of Rohan’s fair plains.

It may still be a dark time for the horse lords, but I was able to find them some last-minute reinforcements.  These six archers were hastily painted years ago, and are now properly repainted and based.  They are from GW’s plastic Warriors of Rohan set of figures.  The archers nocking and preparing to draw are a very nice pose.

I kept the fairly simple signature Rohirrim palette of greens and browns for these warriors.  Looking at them makes me wonder, should I give them the ability to form Shield Wall, if using the Dux B rules?  I would probably give it to Saruman’s Uruk Hai alone of all the forces of evil.

I went for a little variety  in colour for the cloaks.  I didn’t have much energy to try to clean the shields and try again, they are what they are.

The banner is from a coloured set once hosted on the GW website, but sadly gone now.   I gave it a gold trim as one of my so-called friends was mocking the poor job I did of glueing the two halves together evenly.  One day I will upgrade it -  I am much taken with this banner and shield transfer set from Gripping Beast/Little Big Man.  The moment it comes back into stock, I am sure I will order a couple, enough shield transfers to equip a box of the GB plastic Saxon thegns to flesh out my Rohirrim force.  I think they should blend in reasonably well.

Finally, my friend Bruce, one of the Barrie Old Guy Gamers (BOGG) picked up these painted GW Riders of Rohan at the same Bring and Buy, and then thought they might be better in my collection.   The style of painting is much more faded and weathered than are my fantasy figures, but I am delighted to take them into service.

Not counting these acquired Riders, the 13 foot figures can be added to my year to date totals.  Less than two months left to swell these numbers, let’s see what my brushes can manage.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

These figures bring my 2016 totals to:

28mm:  Foot Figures: 102; Mounted Figures: 10; Buildings: 3; Terrain Features: 2

20mm:  Buildings: 1

6mm:  Mounted figures:  36;  Buildings:  2