Friday 29 December 2017

A Welcome Break

I have been off grid for the last few days...well not strictly off grid but in an area with reduced access. We chose, for the second year running, to head up to a resort in Fiji for Christmas. We have not both had a busy year and a few days in a place where one’s biggest decision is whether to have the cocktail or the beer at happy hour was pretty much irresistible. So we headed there on Christmas Eve and returned on the 28th.

Christmas in the tropics is pleasantly different. For one Santa, with no snow to land his sleigh on and no chimneys to descend, has to make a few changes. For those vital deliveries he trades in Dancer and Prancer and their friends for a solitary Japanese bred reindeer called Yamaha, as evidenced below.


Obsessed as I am with our magnificent hobby, my mind did not stray too far from my current French in Egypt project. Since my last post was about palm trees I spent some time studying them in great detail, from beneath.


Later in the day, as the temperature soared to 30 degrees Celsius, I did some more study.


Now that I am back at home its back to the hobby related items. Before we left for Fiji I finished off two more items for the French in Egypt. The first was the second battalion of the 85th Demi-Brigade.



The second item is the limber for the third field gun.


11 comments:

  1. Great job, especially like the limber!

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    1. Thanks Mark. I really like the equipment for this range...I can see a requirement for the camel ambulance set in the near future.

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  2. That's the sort of break I like - a few days away to recharge the batteries. I prefer to go somewhere without palm trees however, as we must have forty or fifty of the things and I spend half my life picking up palm fronds.

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    1. Forty or fifty palm trees dropping fronds...your basket weaving skills must be superb Lawrence. The best thing of all about the Fiji trip was buying access to the club area of the resort where no under 16's were allowed, so there was no large inflatable plastic swans or dolphins floating in the pool and at the hottest points of the day one could enjoy one's cocktail in the pool without the risk of it being diluted by the splash of a volleyball.

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  3. Brilliant additions to the project and for convincing your wife to spend Christmas on Fiji so that you could conduct palm research. You have many talents!

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    1. Ah you saw through m cunning plan for in depth research...my wife still innocently thinks we were just getting out of Dodge to avoid the Christmas bun fight.

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  4. Mark this is where you will always have an advantage over me.... you know what hot sun and sand feels and looks like...
    Here in the Nottingham Lead Belt all I have is my imagination .

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Having visited Nottingham for a couple of chilly, windy days in the summer of 1986, I can see your point Aly.

      We came to NZ from the Canadian prairies in 1963 where Christmas temperatures were typically -20F or less at Christmas. I can recall my very traditional mother being horrified on our very first NZ Christmas when Santa came along the beach on the back of an old truck, with a wilting bough hacked from a pine tree tied to it, hollered "HO HO HO", tossed lollies to the gathering of children and then drove off.

      On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Fiji a local village choir came and sang Christmas carols around the resort, which sounds a bit cheesy, but was actually rather pleasant. As they sang "...dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh..." I thought how could you ever imagine what snow is, or real cold for that matter, when the winter temperature rarely drops below 25C

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  5. -20... That is cold!

    The main thing we get is Grey... it’s probably why I seek out shiny things...

    All the best ...Have a good new year. Aly

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  6. Lovely battalion and limber, you must almost be done on this project!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain. I still have five battalions anf a regiment of hussars to go in the project...however...there is some scope creep coming in. There will be another six battalions, a regiment of dragoons and four 4lb guns added!

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