Distractions - Welcome and Otherwise

I was home Thursday last week waiting (OMG it is Thursday again today - has a week passed already...) for a service man for the garage door to come and tell me that the bearing on the garage door opening motor is shot and needs replacing. And by the way the springs on the door should be replaced too (I knew this and had been putting it off). The whole repair would cost $1200. Ouch! Still it has to be done and he will do the work tomorrow. This was an unwelcome distraction.

Still reeling from the thought of spending four months of toy soldier money on a garage door repair, I went back into the house and made a strong coffee. While that was brewing I saw that the May copy of Wargames Illustrated was ready to download. With the coffee brewed and armed with my new reading material I went outside to drink and read in the sun of a beautiful autumnal day.

The coffee hadn’t even wetted my lips and I hadn’t yet turned to the first page of my digital magazine when the BING-BONG of the front door bell disturbed my peace. Prising  myself from my sunny comfort I opened  the front door and there stood a smiling young woman with a bag of brochures under her arm.

“I hope I am not disturbing you (you certainly are I thought), I am from Contact Energy...” she said and there I butted in.

“Not interested thank you.”

“But I am not selling anything,” she protested.

Oh yes you are, I thought...your certainly not here out of the kindness of your heart to do the housework and mow the lawns for free.

“Not interested,” I said again a little firmer this time with a certain finality in the tone, and minus the thank you.

She smiled, shrugged and walked away. I closed the door and went back to my slightly cooler coffee. This too was an unwelcome distraction.

I hadn’t had more than a few sips and just turned the magazine onto the first of Observation Post pages when bing-bong. NOW WHAT!?

I was getting grumpy now as I left my comfortable sunny spot again and as I moved towards the door I heard a vehicle moving off. I open the door and was about to growl “not interested” when I saw the parcel. My heart rate increased although I knew what it is before I saw name of the sender. It was the first of the Perry plastic British Napoleonics. This was a very welcome distraction.

I immediately opened the box revealing the three boxes of miniatures therein. The first box of British infantry was quickly opened and the sprues removed and examined. Thirty minutes later the coffee had gone cold and the iPad had long gone into sleep mode, but the first six figures are glued up and fixed to old paint pots ready for painting.

Fast forward five days and here is the first full battalion, the 20th Regiment, completed for the Peninsular War (and War of 1812) with stovepipe shako. 

The plan for this force is that there will will be seven battalions a regiment of light dragoons and a couple of guns, all in the stovepipe shako. For once there will be no scope creep here because this will be a force to complement others in the group who are collecting British.