A great weekend, all things considered. I went out with the missus for dinner & movie for the first time in a nearly a year, since COVID. Restrictions in the Territory have been very light, we've been very lucky not to have an outbreak here. Hopefully things will improve elsewhere.
We saw 'Another Round', and the cinema was well attended. It was an excellent, thought provoking film about the ups and downs of social inebriation. People were laughing & giggling in the cinema. I also enjoyed it, whilst having mixed feelings about the messaging. When I woke up this morning, I was still in two minds about it all. We chatted about it some more over breakfast. Surely the sign of a good film.
I pottered about all weekend, running around with kids to parties & sport, played my drums a little, painted a little, with a little more progress on my Sheriff of Nottingham figures. Nothing too epic, but trying to maintain just half-an-hour here & there throughout the weekend. I managed to finish these axe guys as well as a flag bearer on horse back.
I'm trying my hand at horses now as well, if only to break the trance-like spell of painting axe/sword wielding figures. It's keeping me motivated. I'm experimenting with three different Citadel contrast paints. Snakebite Leather, Cigar Brown, Nazdreg Yellow (pictured). I'm not entirely convinced that digital photography does any of the colour schemes any justice what so ever, but the figures seem to be passing the old 'three foot' test, so I'm happy with that.
My daughter has started prepping the Orion 'Vikings' figures as well. She seems happy enough to duck & weave with me on these. A splash of glue here, a dab of paint there. No pressure...all my stuff is just sitting at my little hobby table to the side of our main living area anyway. These figures are slightly larger - not quite 25mm - and slightly dominate these Airfix ones. We'll see how they compare. It's all I've got to go on anyway. I can't really afford to buy anymore. The entire point of this endeavour was to paint what I already have.
Speaking of Airfix, I started watching 'The Battle of Britain' with my son this weekend, as a tribute to Christopher Plummer. My wife informed my kids he was the bloke from 'Sound of Music'...but I thought to myself, 'It's time'.
It was a film my dad let me stay up late to watch when I was a much younger lad, way back in the '70s, when it was on CTC 7 in Canberra on a Saturday night.
It's still one of my favourite films, especially Robert Shaw...for some reason he was always my favourite. Just a cool, gruff character. Do this or you'll get killed. Getting' it done. Just brutal. The scene with Edward Fox crashing through the glass house is one of my favs as well. The quintessential well-mannered Brit, happy to smoke a cigar and wait to be picked up for another sortie.
My boy still has no idea about the Second World War...the who's & why's & wherefores. He's only just turned eleven, and I kind of feel a bit guilty telling him about it, simply because he's still just a naive, sweet kid. Nintendos, Minecraft and silly games in the playground.
Then again, you can't beat a Spitfire. And those flight scenes. I kept repeating:
'There's no CGI!'
When I saw BoB back in the day, my dad kept me awake right up till the very end credits, just to prove to me that there were Australians in the battle. It still gets me worked up watching it, and retelling all this stuff to my kid, about the Commonwealth making the stand against the Nazis.
So proud.
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