Wednesday 25 July 2018

The return of the desk!

After what seems like an age we finally have our belongings from the UK. Son in Law Jay drove from Kent to Valencia without an overnight stop, he clocked just over 1000 miles and it took him around 26 hours. My wife has been furiously unpacking boxes since Thursday and it's been nice to see some of our treasured possessions back out again. Some may recognise my painting desk, I must have painted many hundreds of figures sat at it. It was my late Mother in Laws, it's a bit battered from long use but works well for me. It not being a full sized desk I can't actually get my legs fully under the thing, so have always sat kind of side on but that's never really been a problem and is very comfortable now that I am used to it. I tend to have my I Pad set up on the right so that I can listen to and glance at various historical videos as I paint. I just need to find a small suitable painting lamp, although the room is flooded with natural light most of the day, it's beginning to feel a lot like more like home now. The fan in the picture is today being replaced by air conditioning, with the temps in the mid 30's most days - much like the UK at the moment I understand - it's more an essential than a luxury and will create a lovely cool room to sit and paint.

I have now based up the additional 40mm figures, and they are now in the desk drawer as I start to work through getting them finished with texture and static grass. There are around 70 of them, more French than British but I have a good number of unpainted Highlanders to get stuck into next job to make the numbers up. I'm still playing around with ideas on how I want to use them, I'm thinking company sized units, maybe 16 figures per company looks good now, inspired by Big Andy's lovely 'Shinyloo' game on his blog with his 30mm figures. I put the 16 French Voltiguers together to form a company, I think they look good, although of course they could be used as 4 x 4 figure light companies for 24 figure units of 6 companies, the basing is very flexible which is something I like after years spent rebasing multi based figures.




Life in Spain continues to delight us. Attending the local village town hall in Ador to complete some paperwork was an exercise in Spanish efficiency, the staff could not have been more helpful and friendly. It was a hot day so we had a cold beer in the bar opposite afterwards with the customary complimentary plate of nuts and olives. 


More Spanish efficiency, 3 men fitting 3 air conditioning units in one day. This has involved drilling through walls to feed pipework from externally mounted units via bathroom false ceilings, a noisy and disruptive job but well worth it.


12 comments:

  1. The figures look lovely, I particularly like you paint storage box on the desk, I have done it different ways over the year, but I do like that box. If things carry on like this for much longer, I think you will see more domestic air con units going up in the UK, particularly down south. The town look lovely.

    You may have seen this already, but if not, here is a link for you to enjoy and get your WWII fervour going, I would like to say it is my table, but saddly ….
    LINK - http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=110856.0

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    1. Cheers Norm :) My painting box originally contained 2 very nice bottles of red wine and was a Christmas present, but like most wargamers I'm always on the lookout for useful storage boxes etc and this one is just the prefect size for Vallejo paints.

      The link is certainly impressive, I could enjoy a game of Bolt Action on that terrain!

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  2. Good to see the painting table is back. 3 men, 3 days? In the UK it would have been 1 man, 1 day but none of the units would have worked!

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    1. Hi Ian - that was 3 men & 1 day, they arrived at 11am and finished at 7pm with an hours lunch break from 3 to 4pm for a proper restaurant meal, no fast food lunches here or eating on the go, the Spanish take their lunch breaks seriously!

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  3. Glad to see it's all coming together for you.

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  4. I love it when a plan comes together.

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    1. So do I Ross :) It was a kind of celebratory moment when the desk was placed and the drawers put back in again.

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  5. When we moved to NZ it took 3 months for all the "precious things" to reach us. It was a bit sobering to realise that hadn't missed them at all!

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  6. Hi Matt, our stuff had spent 4 months in storage, to be honest I wish a little less had come over as I kind of like the more minimalist look whilst my wife loves her ornaments!

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  7. Nice to get your desk back and be back on the figures. Great idea to get air con in too!
    Best Iain

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    1. Hi Ian,
      Great Italian Wars battle on your blog. I'm now actually painting some soldiers again and it feels great! The air con is lovely :)

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