Got off the boat at 07.00 and set off to have breakfast at Dundee. Sadly the cafe opened late. Was short staffed and had nothing gluten free fir my daughter. So we got lunch at a Tesco and headed on down to Edinburgh zoo which was heaving. We were the second last car to get into the car park.
Here is the only animal I took a photo of. Some kind of marmoset.
We left Edinburgh and headed down into Northumberland. I got into my Sister in Laws at 18.30. I am knackered now.
I am sat on the boat eating very expensive, okay, food… so technically as I am on the water I am now officially off island for the start of my holidays.
WiFi on the boat is cack so I am posting this now rather than trying to post later.
Tomorrow is Edinburgh zoo then down to the North East of England to stay at my Sister in Law for a couple of Nights thence down to Leeds for a couple of nights.
We are going to the Royal Armouries so if anyone wants any photos of anything let me know and I will give it a go.
I wish I had brought some paints and things to paint. I have brought some things to sort out some ideas for a Nam Skirmish campaign.
So that’s it our adventure is nearly over. We are sat on the boat in the ‘pods’ which are basically reclining chairs at £20 a pop or whatever silly price they are.
It has been a good adventure, but we are both knackered now. I am honestly not sure how far we walked this weekend, but based on the complaining feet and calves it was a jolly old distance.
Sadly no nice sunset this evening, so a distant view of a couple of oil rigs will have to do!
We arrive into Orkney close to Midnight and then arrive in Lerwick early tomorrow morning, but they wont let us off until around 08.00.
I am really looking forwards to getting back into my own house and slippers!.
Well Claymore arrived and off we set. It was an easy run across to Edinburgh, but to be honest getting to the Granton campus on the bus was going to be a bind, so we blagged a taxi.
We got there about 45 minutes after opening so we were straight in… I was pleased with the entry cost at a fiver for me and three quid for James… more money to spend on toys …
I managed to get some photos of some of the games…
Now I knew that a couple of my friends from the Shetland club would be there putting on a game as they had moved onto the mainland, But what was more amazing was my old club was there from when I lived in England. I was stood there thinking Tyneside Wargames club, that was my club, I turned around and three of my old mates were stood there, now they might have just said oh yeah we remember you, but they said, can you remember the time we went to the show in my red Citroën…i had forgotten that I once owned a Citroën. So it was a lovely surprise. I also got chatting to a guy running a Frostgrave game. I mentioned I was down from Shetland and Lo and Behold his whole family was from Shetland, and the guy he was playing against also had family from Shetland.
I did buy some goodies, I could have gone mental but decided to keep the sensible hat on.
Well sort of kept the sensible hat on. The top box is full of fifty Mantic Zombies and a truck that was a bit of an impulse buy.
Miniatures wise I got some 10 mm Samurai apes from Pendraken, these are the Warband pack, but they will be based as HOTT, like my other packs I have got in the past.
I picked up twenty 2p multi stands for various of my games, I was going to order them online, but as Warbases was there I thought I might as well get them postage free. I also bought some MDF coins for Strength and Honour. Sadly I never got to play a game at the show as James was beginning to flag a bit.
I also picked up the Pavia book in the bring and buy. James was given an inflatable 17 pdr shell. Which he was quite chuffed with.
As it was also his trip he wanted to go to the zoo, so we spent the afternoon in there…
So we made it to the hotel in Glasgow. We are on the top floor, sadly not the penthouse, but it is still a long way down…
By 10.45 we had nearly done 11000 steps, our train was an hour later and we have pretty much walked all over Glasgow so I reckon we must have at least doubled that, if not tripled it.
It was the last day of our long weekend and we ended up on another beach, this one is about 5 miles away from the one yesterday. It is the Tombolo I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
The tide was on the way in when we got there but it didn’t stop the kids running in and out of the waves, like they do! I came close to getting wet too…
I managed to get my second foot soldier finished this evening and photographed the wizard too…
As you can see from the above that I had a go at painting paving onto the bases. It really didn’t work for me so they will get the old sand and tufts treatment .
Finally, Army painter metallics are doing my head in… observe….
They are both stored in the same location and in the same manner, aka chucked in the box! The metallic ones leak everywhere and the others don’t really…it is really beginning to make me somewhat annoyed!
Today was a lovely day so we all went down to Levenwick Beach for a bit of a mooch, the kids of course played run away from the waves and thankfully there was no swimming this time.
We got an interesting collection of sea glass and I managed to find a bone of some sort in the sand near one of the unknown potential archaeological jumble of stones. I also decided to have a go at rock balancing, was sat there with some rocks and away I went!
By time I got round to painting, I didn’t really have that much time, but I did manage to finish the wizards and foot soldier (apart from the bases) as well as make a good start on another Knight and foot soldier.
As this is a long weekend then I have another day off tomorrow. The kids are wanting to go to St Ninian’s beach which is an excellent example of a tombolo.
And Finally, I have been spending some more money, this time on the second edition of The One Ring on Kickstarter.
I managed nothing this evening, my daughter an I were expanding our domain on Ark so I decided to give things a miss, however now that I am writing this I may do something in a bit.
Exciting news from Shetland… you may have heard of the Loch Ness Monster, but have you heard of the Strom Loch Monster… I has photographic proof that it exists… see there he/she is rising through the ice.
It has been a bit chilly of late, and because of this our lochs have frozen over. This sadly has led to people trying to remove themselves from the Gene pool, by strolling out into the middle and one of them actually smacked the centre with a pole or something! Problem was that once people see one set of foot prints, they will follow. Thankfully two guys were down there tonight smashing up the ice where people can get onto the loch easily. If you look at the picture of the boat below you will see how easy it is to just walk onto the ice.
Spot the knacker’s on the loch. Depth there is about 5 metres. These were two adults who decided to explore the frozen wonderland.
Every loch on Shetland seems to have a tale of people going through the ice and dying, sadly some within living memory.
The sun was shining on the snow today so it gives a nice photogenic scene…
We normally have warmer winter temperatures, but for the last few weeks we have been cold, over the last week sometimes sitting at about 1*C and then dropping to below freezing over night. As you can see from yesterday’s 18.00 temperature it got cold again.
On our Wedding Anniversary my good lady and I took a stroll to the Sound Battery.
The bunkers were there to protect the South end of Lerwick harbour, sadly the North end ones are no more.
In June 1940 two 4-inch guns were emplaced and only a month later in July 1940 by two 6-inch guns. The two 4-inch guns were moved to Calback battery at Sullom Voe.
Fire control left and gun 2 right.
Searchlight position, front and rear shot
This searchlight position didn’t make it…
Hopefully no-one was in it when it went splat!
the third searchlight position is further South along the top of the cliff.
Now that is a lot of scrap iron!
The unusual thing about this battery is that the trenches were all covered…
The engine room is still standing and the foundations for the quarters of those manning the guns can still be seen.
Engine room in the distance…
This is the battery taken from the air,
Sadly I cannot find the one taken in 1946!
Hopefully I will find some more bits and pieces and post them at a later date.
Bogenwald 