Christmas Time Blues, Dwarfs and Movies.

As far as Christmas's go, this last one has seen me age about twenty years almost overnight, although I hasten to add that I hope to be back to my normal age quite soon.

 

My reasoning for this statement, well for many reasons this year I just could not get into the festive spirit no matter how hard I tried and so in the end I gave up and gave in to my boring side.

 

( For those who are beginning to feel "oh my, its another depressive one - I can only say, "hey mister, this is MY blog, its not a personal email to you ... if you want to read something light hearted and jovial go back a few entries or better yet, go pick u something from Spider Robinson or Craig Shaw Gardener" :o)

 

I have to admit that it all started when my friend from the train let me down by not repaying the money I gave to her back in February of this year. Despite begging, threatening, cajoling and otherwise trying to get her to repay it, she has steadfast refused to budge and thus seriously harm my bank balance.

 

Partly because of this, and a few other things of course, meant that I have heavily relied upon my overdraft facility. I was unaware that this is considered a serious faux pax by the British Consulate's across the world as was a major factor in my ex-girlfriend being refused entry for Christmas. ( nb. she was still my girlfriend at this point! )

 

When I found that this use of my overdraft had gone against us I decided to refinance the house mortgage, so that I consolidated all my debts in one place and wiped out my overdraft at the same time.

 

However in order to do this it meant I could not afford to continue to send over to her any more money and THIS was when she got all personally affronted and we decided to call it a day. It deeply depresses and saddens me to learn that less than a week after receiving the last amount of money was sent over she can suddenly fall out of love with me.

 

Of course, the truth is that she can only have been after me for my money, and despite the precautions I took to protect myself against this kind of false affection it still happened.

 

My only real crime was being prepared to try and find love abroad. Many of my penfriends have found love which has led to marriage and children for some, however my luck / choice of partners has not been so smooth or fortunate.

 

Knowing that this is not even the fist, second or even third time that I have fallen prey to this kind of pseudo affection, I have been forced to admit that I am a bad judge of women's intentions and as such will no longer look for love abroad, or even in this country for the foreseeable future.

 

As all this came to a head in the middle part of December, and I had already planned out my entire Christmas > New Year > January holidays around her stay here, I was at a lose end for much of the holidays.

 

With the fiasco of the UK airports, and my finances in the most appalling shape in my life, I did not really want to face the prospect of trying to grab a last minute holiday, and with my lodger away for the main four days, I turned my attention to an old labour of love of mine, to wit ... my Dwarf Army.

 

Apart from the trip to my mothers for Christmas Day meal, the entire last four days I have remained at home, in front of my television for amusement and mental stimulation whilst ploughing through the arduous task of transforming two score and more of dullish grey two inch lead figurines into units of battle scarred and hardy Dwarf Warriors, in preparation of pitting them against the mighty forces of the Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen and the undead fiends led by their own nightmarish Vampire Lords.

 

Without the aid of a magnifying glass, or powerful lamp, I set about a strict regime of at least twelve hours of under-coating, base-coating, detailing and then fine detailing at least fifty of my most used models. I also recreated a Anvil of Doom base and the movement base for over a half dozen powerful war machines.

 

I do not think for a second that this was my best work, but then I have had little practice in over a decade of painting such fine detail on this medium, and furthermore there is only so much you can do with a limited variety of brushes and an equally limited number of paints. I am content that my painting is at least on a par with my fellow group of gamers, but it would never even get past the preliminary round of a Games Workshop Golden Demon Award competition.

 

During this obsessive bout of modelling, I did manage to watch, or at least listen, to quite a lot of television at the same time ( mainly watching whilst the paint of drying! ) however I was aggravated on more than one occasion by the overly long duration of adverts.

 

Not only do may adverts have very annoying jingles, but they seem to go on, and on, and on - repeat themselves two or three times during a single break, and one totally gobsmacked me by advertising for a savings scheme for a Christmas Hamper in 2007 ... on BOXING day 2006. Talk about trying to get in early, but woooow ... that's just not even funny.

 

On the up side though, the Royal Institute Lectures are as good as ever, I have eaten my way through about a kilo of chocolates and mince pies and have re-watched at least a dozen good movies, as well as another dozen no so good flicks.

 

And now, the painting is done, my lodger has returned and with his the usual bedlam and broomsticks are also about to restart, my remortgage is imminently about to complete and as part of my New Year celebration I always resolve to put aside the mistakes of the past year and look forward with eagerness to a bright new start.

 

So all in all ... Hold on 2007, Dickon's coming ... :o)