Ed M's Wargames Meanderings : July 2023

Friday, July 21, 2023

BACK TO SQUARE ONE--MINUS A FEW

The cleared out (almost) Games Room...

Well, for those who may still be checking in around here, I thought I'd do an update on what has been going on here in Meanderer Central--by way of what has not been going on as far as blogging (and gaming). In my last post, I concluded with a note about "real life" intruding on hobby life. That has continued (and intensified). It all began with the skylights in the Game Room (above), which are original to the house. In other words, about 30 years old and now allowing water seepage. Thus, they will need to be replaced (and the water seepage damage repaired, repainted, etc).

This was/is a particularly discouraging development in the light of the major effort that I had just gone through to reorganize the space and set it right (above), the process for which I reported on in this blog (and earlier reported on the major cull that preceded it). All of this, of course, meant that I would need to clear out the contents, eventually. Given that we have reached an agreement with a contractor to do the work but have not yet been scheduled for the job, this was something that could be put off for a bit (or so I thought). Meanwhile, running in the background, Mrs Meanderer and I have been in the market for places we might move to, and at this time, we saw a house that ticked all the boxes--and put in an offer. Consulting with our realtor, we also decided that we should put our current house on the market. Suddenly I was under the gun to clear out the game room as part of prepping to show the house (and hopefully an accelerated date for repairs) on top of everything else that was happening (prepping the rest of the house, dealing with the myriad of things involved with the new house)...arrrrrrgh!

So in short order, I wound up repacking my hobby stuff and schlepping boxes, boxes, and more boxes up into the attic. Above is a shot of a portion of the haul. We are fortunate to have a house with a swing space like this to store stuff.,,but still. There was no joy here. As I was going through this process, I was struck by the obscene amount of space my hobby stuff takes up, and all of this after I thought I had cleared out and streamlined my collection. Looking at the opening picture, you will note the still full shelves against the back wall that have yet to be shifted. After going through this, I'm not sure that all of the stuff that went into the attic will be coming back...

...in particular, when I cleared out what (I thought) was a modest two-shelf remainder of my culled book collection and found that it still amounted to 9 boxes of books, plus two plastic bins, I was about ready to walk them to the nearest dumpster rather than to the attic. But I decided to store them for now and take another hard look when I pull them out. Meanwhile, we were doing similar work in the rest of the house, not just in my game space. But the effort involved with shifting my hobby stuff dwarfed any other chore. Like many, though, I guess I've reached that point in life where we reassess our hobby pile. For now, it's all safe and sound. I know that I'll need to find a more settled time to do a sort rather than do a hasty purge under duress. In short, a very busy time (to say the least)....

...but then, the inspection for the place we were going to buy came around and we found some things that made us decide not to close. So we weren't moving after all. Fortunately, we had not yet listed our current residence, and so put a halt to that process as well. In short, we're back where we started. While all this was going on, we had family visiting from out of state, a major heatwave, and a bout of near flooding rains (although we were fortunate in these parts to just be very, very wet and not suffer any actual damage). Despite the halt on the move, we have taken this opportunity to continue to clear out the house, declutter, and make it easier for us to move when that time comes. In addition, this has meant a parade of DYI projects for me--all those little things that you live with but need to set right in order to show a house. Regardless, I will need to keep my game room empty in anticipation of the repairs that will happen there (eventually)--and most likely I will probably just keep my stuff boxed up rather than putting it back again. So I probably won't be running any games for some time.

So, like Jonah, I have been swallowed by events. Once the "real world" spits me out, I hope to be able to return to the far better world of blogging and toy soldiering.

Just so that this isn't too dreary and a complete waste of time, toy soldier wise, here is a cache of images from my Joust for the Fun of It Big Knight Collection. I have put together six teams, each with unifying theme...

Each team consists of four knights, two "ordinaries," one "notable," and one "lord." For most of the ordinaries, I used the same figs (above), painted and modified for each team.

As a play aid, I made these markers for each team. They are 1.5 inch x 1 inch wood wargame stands, stained, with each having the shield design of the knight. They track which knight has been used (flipped over) and which has yet to joust. Each team has a color and/or theme (as usual, you may clix pix for big pix)...