It would appear that Ace is with what I think can best be described as a foster home while he recovers.
Anyway this is the latest:
“The girl spent all day yesterday buying the antibiotics, the other medicines, and the medicated and adhesive bandages to do the daily dressings.
On Saturday he will have to return to the veterinarian for his checkup. The doctor wants to see how Aces is progressing with his paw. He is very loving, like any young dog, and very playful. Tomorrow the girl who takes care of him will also go buy his bed, blankets, and more bandages to continue with his daily wound care.”
Yesterday morning while waiting for some homemade sausage rolls to cook I decided to play with a brew kit I put together and make a coffee.
For early February it was rather pleasant with the sun out, and barely a breeze.
The brew kit I had put together uses a Camping Moon pear shaped canvas mini bag (purchased off that AliExpress place) to hold everything. Well almost the mug (in this case a Kupilka 21 classic cup) is external.
Inside is a Trangia 27 aluminium kettle, which is 600ml capacity if I remember correctly.
Trangia with a preheater attached, and a cross stand. Trangia Aluminium Kettle 27.Trangia triangle with a pan stand,Kupilka 21 Classic Cup
Inside the kettle is the Trangia stove itself and a preheater attached to it. Plus some sachets of coffee, whitener, and sugar.
In the bottom of the case is stored a Trangia Triangle and an official pan stand plus a cross stand.
This is a nice relatively compact brew kit, granted the cup is external, and it needs a folding spork/spoon adding. Which will easily fit inside. Plus fuel not in the Trangia is also stored external. Which I prefer.
I used my ferro rod to ignite the Trangia. Typical it was at this moment that a slight breeze decided to make itself known. Although the meths ignited the breeze however slight was enough to blow out the flame.
After four attempts with the same result I was beginning to regret using the cross stand over the triangle. But fifth time the charm.
The breeze had disappeared.
Even though this wasn’t the peace and quiet of the middle of nowhere or a woods. It still had a restful affect. The change of pace. The break from routine. The waiting for the water to boil.
Yesterday Diogo and I had our initial consultation with the dog trainer/behaviourist.
Part of the consultation saw Diogo going out for a walk, much to Dolly’s disgust. The intent of the walk was to allow the dog trainer to see how Diogo reacted towards other dogs.
Obviously getting ready for the walk allowed the dog trainer to see how Diogo reacts, and his excitement that is vocalised as barking.
We headed off to Tillery Park. A five minute walk.
Back as a teenager when we lived in Princess Road, Tillery Park was literally opposite the house. It was where each day I used to walk our dogs Timmy (a jack russell) and Rex (mostly lab). Back then there used to be a fallen tree in the middle of the park. A tree as an even younger kid, like many others, used to be climbed all over.
When we got to the park there were people present on the benches. But alas no dogs.
We didn’t see a dog until near the end of our circuit of the park. Diogo reacted with his usual response of barking.
Having not seen another dog until that point, we saw another three or more on the way home.
The trainer confirmed my assessment of Diogo getting excited at the start of the walk, and that he was pretty good on the lead.
The barking at other dogs she thought was more to do with frustration that Diogo couldn’t just run up at them. Which is what he would do back in Peru living on the streets.
It was a positive that not only would Diogo respond/get distracted by food, especially in his excited state.
Back at the house the trainer went over the structure of the sessions. Two of the five will be in a paddock with another dog to teach us both how to handle the situation.
The rest will be indoor training. Which will see us working on the vocal excitement.
The trainer did recommend that Diogo and I take part in one or two of her socialising dog walks that she holds. And I will do that. But Dolly will be on those too. I saw on Facebook that they take place in places like Hunstanton beach or Shouldham Warren. The latter Dolly and I are familiar with.
Our first session should be at the end of the month once the trainer is back from her holiday.
Sunday was St David’s Day. Which saw me doing something in my fifty seven years I have never done.
I made Welsh cakes.
Ok technically not a true Welsh cake because I used raisins, blue berries, sour cherries, and cranberries.
I also didn’t use a cookie cutter to get the perfect round Welsh cake.
My hand shaped Welsh cakes
I will say for what is technically just five ingredients (I used the recipe off the Welsh tourist board site) these were a lot simpler to make than I had imagined. The hardest (not really) bit was the rubbing of the butter into the flour.
If I do say so, and I may be biased, they were rather nice. They are like a thinner scone. Mum and I had some for dessert, I had a couple for breakfast the next morning. And mum must of liked them because she two had a couple for her breakfast too.
I think these will be made again soon.
Yesterday saw me experience EPiC aka Elvis Presley in Concert at my local cinema The Luxe.
EPiC is basically newly found and restored footage of Elvis from his two live movies Elvis on Tour, and That’s The Way It Is. Plus I think they used a newly discovered interview with Elvis to narrate the footage.
The much in demand film poster advertising the movie
I think That’s The Way It Is was one of the movies from that all night tribute showing I went to in 1977 after the death of Elvis.
As an Elvis fan I loved it. It captures Elvis and the phenomenon he was live.
I read the guardian review of EPiC and they bemoan that the film glossed over and failed to hold Elvis to account. But I feel they miss the point of this movie. I think the reviewer has a point if applying those comments to the directors biopic from a couple of years back (which was awesome). Although I would argue against a couple of the points because I feel they are not valid. However this movie is about the restored live footage. The performances.
Yes there were moments that water gathered in my eyes.
But still an amazing film bringing to life once more the magic of Elvis live.
I’m actually back at the cinema for another movie later in the week. If things go my way I will have the cinema to myself to see a sci-fi, comedy, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.
So in the space of about a week I have painted the lance (four mechs) in the BattleTech Inner Sphere Fire Lance, the thirteen mechs that come in the BattleTech Alpha Strike box set, a mech from the BattleTech Beginner Box, and a mech and ground support vehicle BattleTech Mercenaries Box Set. There are three more mechs drying off before the bases are done to make them complete.
The remaining mechs and vehicles for the Mercenaries box set have been primed and started the paint process.
Obviously I still have four more box sets to paint up and a support vehicles pack. Plus the nine blind gothic boosters.
Next box set to go through the process is the BattleTech Aces Scouring Sands box set, and a single gothic booster.
The gothic booster is to test an idea for a gothic colour scheme I have in mind. I have a plate armour gray primer coming. Which obviously will be the underlying colour of my gothic mechs.
So let’s start with a look at the games I played in the second half of the month.
Viticulture: I really do like the Bordeaux board. This time we added in the special workers expansion. It’s not a big addition and makes the decision when training a new worker a little bit more interesting. I think I can take or leave this expansion. It’s not essential.
Rebel Princess: ‘nuff said. We know how I feel about this game.
Euphoria: with the Essential edition coming out later in the year (I think April/May time) I wanted to try the game first. Luckily Charlene had the game. I rather liked it. So yes when the Essential edition is released I’ll pick a copy up.
Innovation Ultimate: we played with the Unseen and Cities expansions. Which is the maximum number of expansions you can play with at one time, and the two easiest ones. Once we got over the hurdle of the rules for the two expansions, the game with them was a lot of fun. It felt like there was a lot more take that going on. Which was needed to prevent a run away winner.
Heat Pedal to the Metal: Really liked this card driven race game. It’s a car version of Flamme Rouge. Which I enjoyed also when I played it years ago.
Scout: such a great card game in such a small box.
The Stats
Looking at the overall stats for the month the numbers aren’t the best. You can see the impact of not playing on a Tuesday has.
I’ll start off with another Ace update. Yes I know I only posted about Ace yesterday. However within twenty four hours of that post going up I was sent two very brief videos of Ace at the vets. Which I now share with you below.
The kinda sad news is that once he has recovered and healed Ace will have a permanent limp.
Onto Diogo.
I’ve finally had a response from a local dog trainer/behaviourist. Which is exciting news.
Next Wednesday they are coming to see us for an initial consultation. Which if that goes well will see Diogo start a five session course to help him with his over excitement when getting ready and on a walk.
The only drawback at the moment is that the dog trainer/behaviourist is booked solid for the next two weeks, and is then going on holiday for two weeks after that. So the earliest that we will be starting to help Diogo is April.
But I’m hoping that once I’ve been through this with Diogo it will allow me to help Ace once he is with us.
It’s also likely that I’ll look at getting Diogo lessons that will allow him to be off lead as well.
And yes this does sound expensive. But making sure Diogo is happy and safe is the priority.
I awoke this morning to an update on Ace and his recovery from the operation.
Sadly it looks like his recovery has taken a set back. I’m not sure how major it is at the moment.
But here is the update I was sent. For the record Mancho is Ace’s rescue name.
“Mancho is back at the vet. He has a nasty bone infection. He has had to have his frame removed and he rejected it and it is infected. He will be in the vet 7 days. His leg seems rigid so it looks like the operation was still a success. Poor thing has been suffer ing. Felicia didn’t take back to the vet where he had the operation.”
It does sound like Ace is not in a good place. I just want him over here with us in his loving forever home.
Hopefully this doesn’t delay Ace joining us that much.
It’s no great secret that the part of the miniatures gaming hobby I dislike, nay hate, get no enjoyment from at all, is the assembly and painting side.
So it will come as a big surprise not only to you but me that I’m painting some BattleTech minis.
At last years UKGE I bought some paint pens. Which saw me paint two or three bits of Halo Flashpoint scatter terrain. I even primed some miniatures. However the novelty wore off and I stopped.
However in an attempt to delay, even stop the nagging by Diogo in the mornings to have a walk and be fed, I changed our morning routine.
So now instead of barely having time to drink a coffee before the nagging (barking) starts. I get up, make my coffee, open the back door, and put down half of Diogo’s breakfast. I stay down stairs doing something like sleeving two Wingspan expansions whilst drinking my coffee. Diogo is much more chilled, comes down, goes out, eats. Then goes back upstairs to destroy the evil pillows on my bed. However I’ve managed to delay our morning walk by an hour, and there is no nagging. Although we still get the excited getting ready barking.
Once the card sleeving had been finished I needed something else to do downstairs. So I started out with the Inner Sphere Fire Lance that I had.
Zeus BattleTech mech
I primed them with a green primer, then using red, light grey, gunmetal, black, and dark aluminium I painted parts of the mech armour.
It’s not the best painting in the world. Thanks to old age effecting the eyesight, and fine motor control of the paint pens. Although I never was the best painter.
However with the pot of shader that you just dip the models in I’m getting that used universe look I like.
The models look barely tabletop ready. But from a distance they are ok, just don’t look at them close up.
I just need to flock the bases now (stuff on the way).
The models of the Alpha Strike box set have been primed and I even finished painting the easiest of them, the Atlas mech.
