So, it looks like I am going to be in isolation for the next fourteen days. BoJo has decreed that anyone with a family member who has shown any signs of a temperature etc needs to self isolate for 14 days. I removed a carpet from the lounge yesterday which had been down 10 years, so as you can imagine it was a bit dusty under there. I had a bit of a cough with all the dust. Problem is, it is still there 30 hours after it got removed. Bugger springs to mind!

So I am now going to have to be a Head Teacher from home, luckily the schools are closed this week (and Probably next too). I was in there today with other staff. Thankfully I managed to get the home schooling pack out today. 👍

Sadly nothing got done hobby wise. My wife’s place of employment is probably going to shut down temporarily, so she has been trying to get press releases done ready for tomorrow and I have been trying to get my brain into gear. I had convinced myself that I was going to come out the other end of this unscathed, stupid I know, but it was probably my way of coping. Doctor has prescribed some medication for the panic attacks so that should help in the long run.

It is definitely a case of ‘May we live in interesting times’!

I tried the joint on this tonight and the superglue/Greenstuff seem to have done the trick. I will do some more on the joins tomorrow evening. The one on the back needs a bit more filling and then smoothing of with a fine sandpaper.

Today new things arrived and new things were purchased.

As part of the family is still self isolating . My eldest and I managed to escape into town to get horse feed and a new gas bottle. As the schools are off for a week we also had a hunt for some kind of board game that they would all want.

We did manage to find some games as well as some more Contrast paint 😉

The other thing, was a postal delivery. A box of bits for Muskets and Tomahawks.

I ended up getting the cards and tokens. I didn’t bother when I went for the pre-order so once the rules came I realised that there weren’t any cards that I could have copied so I decided to order them.

Hopefully I will get a game or two in soon. Due to the Covid virus there is no archery tomorrow. I will give the club a miss too.

This made me laugh far too much!

Instead of painting anything, I spent the time slicing various lizardy things. I can’t be bothered to wait another couple of hours to show you. Instead I shall go to bed, and show you tomorrow.

My daughter started on her Dino this evening…

Whilst she was getting on with her painting I managed to get something done on my orks.

Hopefully this weekend she will get her dinosaur done and I can carry on with these.

So I a achieved nothing this evening… had to pick my daughter up from Youth Theatre and then had to try and untangle the work from today so that I could plan for tomorrow.

So with one thing and another the best I managed was the spray this chap for my daughter who wanted to paint a big dinosaur to match in with mine. Once again it has some really nice detailing on it. This is not an expensive Scheich one, but a cheap Chinese one with a date stamp of 1991. It does have some mould lines, which I forgot to remove. She may have words with me!

A thought has just struck me… were there albino dinosaurs? Or is albinism a relatively new thing? We will never know, but it is an interesting thought nonetheless.

The other bit of excitement from today was that my son was sent home from school with a very high temperature and a cough. So a lot of phoning to doctors etc. He is looking a lot better tonight. We think it is just a cold/cough. The other amazing thing is that the next two fire festivals have been cancelled. The South Mainland One is second only to Lerwick so for that to be cancelled and not just postponed is quite a big thing. So well done to them for following advice from the NHS. Two people who were on a birthday bus that visited most of the hostelry’s on Shetland have tested positive for the virus… whoops!

So today I went into the bottom of the big shed looking for something. When I moved a box of some 6mm stuff it sloshed… not the normal sound one would associate with 6mm miniatures in cardboard boxes.

All in all it looks like I am going to have to rescue some miniatures shortly… I really don’t know how I am going to store these now. I have had the rosin boxes for around 30 years 😂.

It’s getting on a bit now so I think I will get this lot sorted and paint something tomorrow evening.

An update…. they are all out of the besogged boxes and sitting there attempting to dry.

I found some more after the above was taken. The dwarves have joined them on the drying plank. These are pretty much all fantasy apart from the pile on the right. I now know where my WW1 Turks ended up! I never did finish them. I reckon I should sometime as I must have had these 30 years or so. From having a quick look I think they are all Irregular Miniatures.

I evidently had two phases of painting when I did 6mm…

The above was evidently when I took my time. The other option was when I just threw some paint on and called them done! As I have a few unpainted Fantasy armies , I am now wondering how Contrast would work???

So after stressing about how a plastic lizard would get on a toy dinosaur I came up with a cunning idea…

This gives me a good excuse to buy a box or two of Skinks to carry all of these around. 😂

I just want to start off by saying a big thank you to everyone for the kind words after our pretty rubbish day yesterday. I eventually managed to get him into my trailer today and got him taken away for burial. I really do have some amazing neighbours, those that helped yesterday and those today who loaned me a spare tyre for the trailer as well as a block and tackle. We shall not talk about the one that is the arsehole 🥴

Today proved a bit expensive as my trailer tyres were pretty shot and one had a slow puncture so after sorting out the pony I went to get new tyres. Unfortunately these had to come with wheels attached, but in reality I was going to order some new wheels anyway. Two wheels and a trailer board came to just under £200…ouch. I was going to try and get them on tomorrow, but it looks like the rain, sleet and general crappy ness are set in until Tuesday.

On the upside, I did manage to get a bit of painting done. I added the white and then went over it in yellow as well as painting a pile of snakes that came with the boxed set.

It now looks like there is a contrast between the red and the orange, which is what I wanted. Hopefully I can get these a bit further forward tomorrow.

Thanks once again.

I didn’t get anything painted today as unfortunately we have had a really, really crap day.

The kids and my good lady had been to the cinema and had come back. They went to put a rug on one of the ponies and found him stood in the stream as the tried to get him out he started to struggle and collapsed. My daughters had to hold his head out of the water while my wife ran to phone for help. Unfortunately I was in work interviewing for a vacant post. I only found out a couple of hours later.

Luckily a neighbour came to help and they got him out. We don’t actually have any blankets in the house any more as the kids ran to get everything thing could find to try and get him warm

Sadly he didn’t make it, as you can imagine everyone is a little distraught. The kids were absolute stars and did everything they could to help.

Tomorrow I will remove his remains and get him buried, not a thing I am looking forward to. We have had him over twenty years and all of the kids have started riding on him.

So here he is in happier times with my middle daughter aged about four.

As many of you know, I do like my 3D Printer. It is a useful weapon in my arsenal…or more likely a gadget I like playing with. However it is only to be used by me, the kids don’t get to play with it.

My middle daughter loves her arty/crafty bits and bobs so I thought I would get something that we could all use.

We have been having a play with it this evening. I thought the 3D Printer was tricky, this is a nightmare!

Like with the printer this will take a bit of getting used to, but I am sure in the end we will be making some awesome things.

The kids are off school tomorrow, but sadly I am not. I do have a long weekend coming up so will try to get a fair bit of painting done over the next few days.

So tonight I am sitting looking at the different versions of the bases. I have to come up with some form of decision about what my bases are going to look like. The dog very kindly removed herself from her bed, which meant that I can have a proper look at them in a better light.

The options are shown above. The Geek Gaming ones are nice and will be useful for making terrain etc but I really don’t think they will work for the lizard bases. That basically leaves the Serious Play ones.

I had a closer look at the mixed ones and I think it is going to go down to either one of them.

I am edging towards the darker one of the two on the left of the picture.

The real question now is do I mix up a big batch by throwing all of the green into the darker colour or do I do smaller batches??? Luckily I have three bags of the green so I can certainly add a lot. As I said I do like it so could probably use it for other things.

I am going to build the rest of the cold ones tonight and get them sprayed tomorrow morning. That will probably be the limit of my hobby work as I am learning to play bowls tomorrow afternoon (I have some indoor bowls equipment in the school and thought I might as well set up a club) and straight after that I have to head up to the North of the island for a leaving party for a friend, (colleague and manager too over the years). She is deserting me to take up a headship south and I really will miss her.

I have three of the cold ones built, so I reckon I will manage another five this evening. Wish me luck as I am absolutely buggered this evening.