Another late one tonight and I made the conscious choice not to do anything. It was a long day, so I thought I would read some rules or a book or even a magazine… I got them out flicked through them then put them away again.
Hopefully I will feel enthused when I return from work tomorrow 🤞
A big thank you to everyone for their support in my mojolessness!
So I came home at 18.45 tonight so by time we had a meal etc I didn’t have time to do anything, okay not entirely true, I managed some time on War Thunder, I just couldn’t be bothered to get anything out.
When I got home I found a parcel on the table, and more terrain stuff from Geek Gaming was inside the box.
I was sent a really interesting story by my wife today, rather than type it all out again I have copied and pasted it for your perusal.
In about 1700 Mary’s parents were shearing their corn at their croft of Stutaft near Baltasound, Unst, and Mary was lying in her shawl close by, at the side of the rig. After they had shorn a certain number of sheaves they proceeded to set them up in stooks. In so doing they moved a short distance from their infant who was fast asleep. To their horror a sea-eagle or erne, swooped down, clutched the bairn in the shawl in its talons, and flew off to the south. With some neighbours, they followed the flight of the eagle, which on reaching Colvadale, altered course for the Blue-Banks of Fetlar. The men went on to the south-east corner of Unst where at Ramnagio they procured a boat and went to Fetlar, landing at Colbinstoft. On informing the inhabitants there of their mission, they were informed that the eagle had her eyrie at Busta-Pund, at the East Neaps. A number of Fetlar men now joined them and went with ropes to the top of the cliffs above the eyrie situated under an overhang on the cliff face. Among the Fetlar men was a 12 year old boy, the son of Nicol Peterson of Crosbister, his name owing to the patronymic surnames in use, being Robert Nicolson. He volunteered to make the descent on the rope to the nest and was lowered over the cliff. To his amazement on reaching the nest, he found the child fast asleep along with two eaglets in the nest. He carefully disentangled the shawl from the nest, and was hauled up the cliff with his precious bundle to the safety of the cliff top and the crowd of men waiting there. Amongst the profuse congratulations extended to young Robert for his courageous deed was one from an elderly Unst man who said that he would maybe get her for a wife yet. Several years later some men from Fetlar had occasion to go to Unst and Robert taking the opportunity to go with them made a visit to the home of the young woman whom he had carried up the cliff face of Busta-Pund as an infant. The meeting proved to fulfil the old man’s prophecy for it ended as a good fairy tale should with the marriage of Robert Nicolson and Mary Anderson. They settled for a short time at Fetlar, but later moved their home to Kirkabister, on the north side of Mid Yell Voe where they raised their family.
Abridged from:- Shetland Life, August 1981 page 14, by Robert L. Johnson.
Sea Eagles were common on Shetland, as were peregrine falcons (the best being found on the island of Fair Isle). Neither have survived into the 20th century. We do however still get visiting birds that cause twitchers the length and breadth of the UK to flock to our little island. In fact we had a rare warbler or something in our Kale Yard (the name of the planting area outside a Croft house). We only knew about it when half a dozen blokes with giant lenses on their camera’s turned up tromping down the track.
Out of interest we have had a flamingos on Shetland in 2013 a flock was seen on Strand Loch in Tingwall (the place I showed flooded last week)…
Not what you expect to find on Shetland
These were wild birds (we have had escaped/lost ones before). The people that know these things worked out that they probably came from India or Pakistan due to the wind speed and direction.
Bloody Hell, tonight I actually picked up a paintbrush and even got as far as slapping some paint on some 6mm Samurai as well as some in 15mm, however… the amount I put on would be difficult to measure without some extremely sensitive equipment.
The other thing I did was consider a couple of ideas for another diorama…
One is entitled ‘He’s Behind You’ and the other hasn’t got a name yet…
I used some of the printed miniatures that I had to get some ideas down so to speak. The first one will have a fair few bushes and I might even try another tree or two… deciduous this time, as for the other, more tundra looking environments.
So we had bits and pieces to do today and I never had the urge to paint anything, I actually got as far as rescuing some miniatures out of the shed and even got the paints out, but err that was about as far as it got…
I did however stick some 6mm Samurai onto sticks!
This is about a quarter of what I need to do… so my plan is to get them done (as in Finished) in the Christmas holidays. Wish me luck!
So tonight was an unintentional night off. The kids were wanting to make bread, so I gave them the table and went and had a long soak in the bath 😂
After the rain and snow we now have 70mph winds as standard, gusting higher…The problem with up here is sometimes you cannot tell how windy it is as there are no trees or bushes to show you.
So we spent a lot of today working on moving the electrics so that they are in the new conservatory, there was a bit of swearing but not a huge amount, which was a pleasant change.
On the upside we did find some rather funky 70’s wallpaper…
Today I managed to get some more of the wolves done. They, like the rhino, need some Matt varnish. I haven’t quite decided on how everything will look in the end. So this is a starter for ten.
So this is where we have got to in the build. Part of me thinks that the wolves are a bit dark for this, but it is how they are in reality. I may have a play around with them and see how I get on.
Next question is blood on the calf or not….? I think not, but maybe I should.
So after yesterday’s torrential rain and gales, today we had blizzards. Driving snow and more wind. Thankfully it didn’t stay around long. Shetland is known for having four seasons in a day, so two in two days isn’t too bad really.
It is my son’s 10th birthday today, so fish and chips and cake for tea followed by a film of his choice… Home Alone… so whilst watching this I managed to get some work done on the rhino and the wolves…
As you can tell from the photos they are still a bit wet with the darker colours. I dry brushed the sand with a white coat and then added the Contrast paints over the top.
Tomorrow I hope to get these finished and then get them onto the base.
Today we have had apocalyptic rain, with a nice breeze and as such it hasn’t been the best of days. So this evening my good lady sorted out the stables as everywhere is flooded and the stream in the field has totally burst it’s banks. With having the cold in the field we thought it better that they came in.
So in said wind and rain we got them in, we’ll sort of got them in. The two older ones went in and the colt panicked and legged it into the darkness. Thankfully we got him in the end but by then I was having a sense of humour failure, torches failed we fell over, fell in puddles etc. But thankfully they are all in the yard now.
I really, really couldn’t be bothered tonight so I decided to give things a miss.
So this is the kind of flooding I am talking about…
I just love the sign!
This is the main road North/South road at Tingwall…
Tonight I bit the bullet and poked holes into the base work and then shoved the trees in. Thanks for all the positive comments as they really did help. What didn’t help was when I used my cutters to chop the stick size down. A whole pile of flock came from somewhere, I had visions of a totally bare tree on one side. Methinks it came from inside.
I also dry brushed the bright green tufts as well as most of the other ones as well to blend it all in. I also managed to do a bit of work on the rhino, basically getting a dark wash on them before dry bushing tomorrow.
I also tested the miniatures to see what they would look like in situ and I think they will work…
Stunt rhino were used in this shot…still a bit of brighter green to tone down too.
So on the whole I am happy with this. If I were to do it again then I would build the base up by two layers to allow trees to be placed anywhere.
Hopefully I will get this finished by the end of the weekend. I am considering another one with hunters and a mammoth, but I will see how I feel after finishing this one and after checking on how much space I have to store it.