Mega Saturday

Saturday was a busy one. It started with a Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick that produced its usual haul of rubbish but this time had an unexpected sad inclusion.

Yes sadly the smiling octopus is on its way to landfill. These big soft toys are a staple of the Cardiff Bay Beach or city centre Winter Wonderland fairs and I've often seen parents carrying them away from such events; usually the parents look a lot grumpier than the octopuses do. 

My collecting partner for the day was Claire.

And we had another decent turn out, with lots of new people.

I don't know who found the octopus. I found a toy on the other end of the size scale - one of the pups from Paw Patrol.

He had been well played with before being thrown or lost in a hedge and now he's also on his way to landfill. Such is the fate of lost toys. 

After cleaning up the streets, I picked up Steve and we headed to Merthyr Tydfil to watch Merthyr Town play Poole Town. Steve has been a fan of Poole since he was a lad and I've been to see them a few times with him. The last game we went to, Poole won 7-2. However we were expecting a possible heavy defeat this time, with Merthyr sitting top of the table. 

When I checked in on Futbology I got a badge for my 600th football match. 

There is a caveat to this milestone. I don't have any of the matches that I went to before 1992 listed. (1992-93 was the season I started logging the matches I went to.) So it's the 600th game logged on the app. 

Contrary to our prior expectations, Poole won 2-1. Merthyr were very good in the first half but only scored one and Poole got a flukey equaliser direct from a corner. The Merthyr team were sent out early for the second half but something had sapped all their confidence and Poole scored an excellent team goal that proved to be the winner. Cue 'absolute limbs' among the Poole Ultras behind the goal.

But the sporting excitement wasn't over for the day as I had a Blood Bowl battle booked with Bryan.

On my week's holiday I had done some painting, and since coming home I had managed to paint my team of wood elves. I decided to give them purple hair and was quite happy with the result. I already a mostly painted treeman figure and he joined the elves for this match.

I've called the treeman Mosstyn, and it wasn't long before he was in the thick of the brawling.

The elves are very agile, meaning players can break through the other team lines. This led to a high scoring game with the elves winning 4-1.

However, they aren't so good defensively. They ended the game with four serious injuries and a casualty box full of maimed elves. In return they barely won any blocks and didn't inflict a single meaningful injury. 

Bryan seemed happy with maiming so many players despite the loss. And I enjoyed playing with a new team that had been sitting unused for so long.

And that was my mega Saturday. Looking forward to a quieter Sunday now!

A week in Bucks - my holiday painting project

I decided to take some paints and a couple of Blood Bowl teams on our holiday to Buckinghamshire. 

I used the game box to pack everything I thought I might need.

I've wanted to paint the Black Orc team for a while now. The team will be called The Big Pink Nightmares and I want their uniforms to be bright pink.

I started off with some basing:

I base-coated Varag, my black orc star player, and my two skaven star players on the first night. Unfortunately this was an old pot of paint and had gone goopy. 

I bought some new white paint in High Wycombe, just some Humbrol acrylic. But it worked nicely as a base coat. I also bought bright, light pink paint made by Vallejo. Games Workshop don't seem to do a pink in the shade I was looking for.

I then discovered the "goblin green" I had brought with me was a bit bright. Fortunately I had a more orcish tone with me so I used that on the orcs. The goblins stayed in the brighter shade though.

Eventually I got most of the team mostly painted. I'm not a great painter but badly painted is better than not painted at all...

I also took my wood elf team with me. They weren't attached to bases yet, so that was the first job. Games Workshop don't make it easy with some figures - they have minimal contact with the base!

Speaking of bases, I only managed to get a base coat of paint on them on them so they might have to play as ghost elves for a while!

But still, it felt like a decent amount of progress over the course of the week.

If you were observant, you might have seen I took the Norse team with me as well. They are still boxed and on their sprues, as I didn't have time to build them. Maybe next holiday...

A week in Bucks - a selection of selfies

Where possible we took selfies on our holiday in Buckinghamshire. Here are a few of them...

Beaconsfield is the home of the paralympics and so we took a selfie with Mandeville, the mascot for the 2012 Paralympic Games. 

There were lots of selfie opportunities at Legoland

With the Angel!

And at Bekonscot, too.

It's not as easy trying to take one with a real windmill!

We took a train selfie at Beales Wildlife Park.

And another train selfie at Bekonscot.

I took a couple of solo selfies at football matches.

And, of course, we had to take one outside our base for the week!

A week in Bucks - Bekonscot Model Village

This was a real nostalgia trip for me. I vividly remember visiting Bekonscot Model Village sometime in the late 80s when we were visiting family friends who lived near Beaconsfield. It was my first real exposure to puns, as many of the business names in the model village are a play on words. (The one I really remember is Scratchitt & Reckitt, Home Removals.)

As we were on holiday nearby, visiting Bekonscot again was firmly on the to do list for our week in Buckinghamshire. I have learned not to expect too much from revisiting things I remember being great when I was a kid - but this really lived up to the nostalgic memories!

There is a real mix of buildings in the village, with castles and harbours and stately homes alongside little cottages and industry. The buildings are all made by Bekonscot staff, carrying on the traditions of the visionary eccentrics who founded it. One or two buildings have fallen foul of the weather - a bit like in the Miniland part of Legoland that we visited the same week. A difference is that, despite some worn areas needing a touch up, Bekonscot still felt very loved whereas Legoland is a much more corporate venture and the worn exhibits felt more like neglect there. 

The windmill is iconic

Some buildings have scenes inside too

When I was a kid I loved the large model trains that rattle around the village. There were lots of these going around, along with several other moving bits and bobs. 

The village even had a cliff railway!

There is also a large ride on train now. I said to Cathy I didn't remember it from my childhood visits, as we would definitely have ridden on it. I checked with the driver and the railway was added in 2001. I told the driver that I thought it hadn't been here when I visited as a child and he said "Oh, no, that would be long before we got the train." I thought that was a bit cheeky, to be honest. But I suppose he was right.

And finally, I mentioned the puns - here are some of the ones that really made me chuckle.

Overall I felt like this disproved the saying that "you can't go back". Maybe when it's something quirky like a model village, you can!