Back Down South Again

This weekend we celebrated a significant birthday for her indoors. I offered a party as a celebration, but she objected saying that..."it's an unnecessary expense..." So instead we headed south for an epicurean extended weekend in Queenstown.

For those that have never flown into Queenstown, it is a difficult approach, descending through a number narrow valleys in the Southern Alps on a computer guided path that passes as close as 0.3 Nautical Miles (1800 feet) to terrain that rises as high as 6000 feet above the airfield.

Anyone familiar with aviation will appreciate the difficulty from this approach plate... 

But the view was spectacular on this fabulously sunny morning (but chilly at -1C). 

On arrival we picked up our rental car and drove directly to Wanaka, where we had a generous lunch before driving back to Queenstown, our home for the next three nights. 

A view of the steamer wharf in the late in the day

A pleasant Thai dinner and a bottle of Otago Pinot Noir rounded out the day.

At latitude of 45°2'1" South sunrise on Sunday was at 0754 and it was a cool -2 degrees C. Again it was a gorgeously sunny day and that weather promised to continue for the rest of our visit. We started the day with a walk around the promontory on which the Queenstown Gardens stand, followed by coffee and cake in a spot in "Restaurant Row".

A bit of retail therapy was followed by a drive to Arrowtown where a walk along the banks of the Arrow River was taken in considerably cooler temperatures, with a heavy frost.

"I'm sure that looks like gold,” she said. But alas it was not!

A delicious lunch in a warm restaurant kept the cold at bay.  A return to Queenstown and aVietnamese dinner finished the special day.

Monday had a slightly cooler start and light breeze dropped the perceived temperature to -6C. A little bit of low cloud shrouded the lake. We decided to drive over to Wanaka again intending to have lunch at another of our haunts. To avoid any possible frost on the Crown Range Road we took the longer route through the gorge so we didn't arrive until just before 11:00. Low cloud kept the temperature low and made it seem a little gloomy, but coffee and cake soon warmed us up and we went for a walk along the lake front.

We changed our minds about lunching in Wanaka and headed instead for the Cardrona Hotel where we had a couple of excellent burgers and spent a couple of hours before returning to Queenstown.

By the time we made it back to Queenstown the clouds were gone, the skies were clear and the sun was illuminating the Remarkables to the southeast.

A few "Happy Hour" drinks and a Thai dinner closed out the day and a fabulous break.

Our departure tomorrow is early and we expect to be turning the key in the door at home by 10:00.

French Generals

Well I have finished the mounted generals for the French FPW army. In addition to the three infantry brigadiers completed a couple of weeks ago I have added:

• The corps command group of three mounted and two dismounted figures

• A divisional command group

• Three more brigadiers

Finally, for a bit of fun, I took this image of all the staff figures painted in the last few weeks...

...and asked Google Gemini to "...Extract the figures from the image then render them into a painting in the style of Édouard Detaille..."

It did a pretty good job, but the flag is too big - HQ fanions were only about 400mm square - and there are three system generated characters lurking in the background in odd looking uniforms.

More Duchy of Warsaw Infantry

The week sees the completion of the 2nd battalion, 13th Regiment, Duchy of Warsaw Infantry.

This, along with the two skirmisher stands, sees the completion of the regiment.

And the two battalions...

Franco-Prussian French Cuirassier Regiment Number Two

After the detour to Poland and the McPherson farm I have returned to the French cuirassiers from 1870.

This completes a brigade, displayed here in all its glory with its new brigadier.

The great thing about these cuirassiers us that they all have the standard uniform - only the regimental number on buttons, etc, differentiate them, so the stands can be mixed and matched.

Next it back to Poland.

The McPherson Farm Part 2: The Wagon Shed/Corn Crib and Pig Pen

The next component in the McPherson farm set is the wagon shed/corn crib along with the pig pen. Corn was an important element of the farm,  accounting for nearly 40 percent of the planted area and half the income. This building was a relatively simple wooden structure and I have used two historic photos as references for its construction. The top image below was taken in 1863 and the lower in the 1880s.

Simple the building may be, but because it is open there was a need to do a bit of internal work, some of which just painted, but some is modelled.

On the eastern face of the wagon shed stood the pig pen. I have modelled this from a couple of images from the 1850s-1860s from other farms and surrounded the area with post and board fences described in the documentation I found.

Work on the barn is underway with about one third of the cladding done, but it is a bit of a monster so it may take another couple of weeks to complete.

I have also completed this piece of scatter terrain - a ruin of a small stone dwelling (probably better suited for Europe rather than North America). It has obviously been derelict for some time as a tree has grown out of the wall.

This piece, along with some other similar pieces, have been sitting around in the edge of the work table for some months while I add bits to them from time to time - a great way to use up any surplus epoxy putty.

A teraz coś nieco innego

Apparently that is a translation into Polish of "and now for something a bit different..." or so the translation app says.

I needed a change from things Franco-Prussian so I have switched to some Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw infantry.

There is a bit of back story here. A couple of months ago a friend was cleaning out and had two Perry Duchy of Warsaw infantry command sprues. I took them simply for something different to paint - maybe for a little diorama group to sit on the bookshelf in the study. Then when I was placing my last Perry order I was short of the value needed for free postage. I figured that if I bought two boxes and combined them with the command sprues, I could get four battalions...so I did and now I have on hand enough figures for four 24-figure battalions, plus four two-figure skirmish stands. There is no plan to expand this force - it's only intended as a brigade to supplement the French which are now seriously outnumbered by the coalition forces.

So here is the first battalion of two that will be the 13th Regiment which, according to the Perry painting guide, is the only unit from the Duchy to wear white. They also differ in that the grenadier seemed not to have worn the bearskin and the voltigeurs didn't wear a plume. A white unit also creates some variance from Duchy forces owned by another in the group. 

About two-thirds of the way through the unit I began to wish that I had gone with another regiment with the blue uniform, that I think I like better, but I had gone too far down the road.

Now it's back to the Franco-Prussians.