Blog Anniversary

I have no idea WHERE the time has gone!

I sat and had a good think about how to mark the occasion, and rejected the option of a "reflective musing" post - I reckon I've done enough 'blether' for a while with the last couple of offerings, and decided it should be a game report.
But what to play?    I've uploaded a D&D episode here:  On the Trail of The Stone  this week, and there's another ECW scrap to be posted here:  "For Parliament or For King"   in the next day or so.

What seemed most appropriate would be a return to the zombie apocalypse given the current pandemic situation and it was the first campaign I started!
Yes, just five posts in and the "introductions" out of the way, the ATZ: Final Fade Out campaign began way back here:  ATZ: "Day minus One" and we followed Brad and his group as they struggled for survival. As is the way of things with us gamers, this particular story has had to give way to other tales which needed to be told, as the wargame table witnessed conflicts involving 'other' genres of topical interest.
The last time I checked in on the survivors was with a short episode which formed one part of a larger post,  but we learned that they'd found themselves in hostile territory, and after a tip off from one of the opposing gang members Brad's group are moving on.

A quick consultation with "Mythic" (the GM emulator), and it turns out that since when they left the group didn't destroy the warehouse they'd temporarily stayed in, or set fire to the petrol station across the road (the kind of mean trick the hostile gang bosses would have done!), the guy who left the note decided that he and his partner were going to cut and run and try to join this group of 'lawful' survivors.

So it was, that on the outskirts of Lorenzo, Bobby Johnson and Madelyn Hopper found the road ahead blocked. They had to clear the road and fast, not just to keep up with the friendly group, but they were worried that they probably had gang members on their tail.
(They did, and they would arrive at the table edge on a successful die roll!)

With Maddie watching the rear, Bobby stepped up and dispatched the crawler by the wrecked pickup,

before calling Maddie over to help deal with the zeds approaching the junction.
(The PEF resolved as just a bad case of nerves)

They needed to get the bike out of the way, but for the moment it provided a handy barricade,

and allowed them to pick off the walkers without having to fire a shot.

With the nearest of the undead cleared, Bobby had just flipped the bike clear when something burst through the doors of the diner -

another pair of zombies!

The zeds lurched across the street towards Maddie, but Bobby managed to get alongside her just in time

and in the pair of them quickly saw off the attack.
Bobby ordered his compaion back to the delivery truck "The place looks like it might hot up - let's get while the goin's good"

The pair climbed back into the UPS wagon and fired it back up,

then headed North at the junction towards Cone.

A while later the gang members turned up.
(Pathetic dice rolling - they needed a 6 on turn two, 5, 6 next turn, 4,5,6 the turn after etc, but failed to arrive until it was too late)

Surveying the scene it was obvious that the fugitives had passed this way, but they had no idea which road they'd taken ("Mythic" was consulted to see if the UPS van had left any telltale signs), so they had to return to Lorenz empty handed..... and their boss would NOT be pleased!

So, there we go. Just a quickie because I'm off to pour myself a cupps and cut a (big) slice of anniversary cake!
Thanks to everyone in the blogging community for all of your help, support and inspiration, without which there's every possibility I'd never have got this far with my own humble offerings.

Remember, be like Bobby & Madelyn, and even if you can't carry a machete, katana or assault rifle, stay safe out there! (and you can always leave me a quick comment if you get the chance and feel inclined - it would be most welcome)

Dark Clouds...

...... and Silver Linings, or, "Full Steam Ahead"!

To say it's been a horrible week and a bit would perhaps be stretching things, but it's certainly been far from 'fun'. First of all I had the problem with Blogger not uploading photo's (which would hamstring my activities here), which meant spending hours of frustrating effort trying to get it sorted - I HATE having to faff about on computers when they're not doing what they're supposed to, and the whole episode resulted in my hobby mojo taking a knock.
Then, while this was going on, I'd braved the great outdoors to do some shopping for my mum, and on the way home the van developed a rather unhealthy knocking from the passenger side rear wheel. It was late afternoon, so I delayed the job until the following morning - and thus spent a huge chunk of the next day stripping and re-assembling the brake caliper which was seizing up (probably through lack of use during the lock down)........ managing to sprain my wrist in the process, but hey ho, the job was done and surely things would improve from here on?

Well, yes and no! The lovely Tarot rode to the rescue and provided the solution to the Blogger issue (Yay!), but I've still got pain and stiffness in my right wrist and thumb / forefinger guiders (Boo!).
I needed to do something, rather than lay off and allow it to stiffen up but as I say, I didn't feel like doing any 'gamey stuff', so I decided to tackle a couple of jobs on my model railway that had been on the "to do" list for about 3 years!!
The Westwood & Loscoe Light Railway had taken delivery of an old workhorse in need of some TLC (a secondhand Accucraft "Caradoc") - here's her new driver and fireman having their first look at the latest addition to the stable...

The loco is still in 'factory finish' and looks quite plain at the moment, but I do like her chunky appearance and I'm looking forward to getting her repainted into WLLR black, and adding some detail to bring out the character of a hard working narrow gauge loco (lamp irons, handrails etc).
Back to the job in-hand though, I set to and replaced the factory fitted gas burner with a much more efficient one and like-wise removed the standard gas and steam regulators with "fine adjustment" versions - replacing the unrealistic looking control "knobs" with levers while I was at it.
These improvements meant disconnecting the gas and steam pipes, so before the work could be 'signed off' I had to check for leaks and she was duly fired up and brought up to pressure....

Buoyed by my success, I decided to make a start on another job on the railway which has long been awaiting the 'round tuit' stock replacement. This summer will see the "quarry section" of the line removed so that I can re-route the main running line away from the bottom corner of the garden. The quarry was only added to hide the hedgehog house from view, and since the rescue centre has sadly closed we'll no longer be releasing 'hogs, so the realignment has finally been granted approval by the higher household authorities.
Before getting down to the business of shifting rocks and lifting track I marked the occasion with a quick photo opportunity, recording the moment that Rusty and the Blue Meany (a pair of scratchbuilt battery operated diesels) were removed from Waingroves Quarry to enter service on the WLLR.

"Hang on, I thought this was a wargames blog" I hear you cry, and yes it is, but bear with me and I'll explain the relevance of the above......

The track realignment is underway, but will take some time (track laying in the garden railway scales bears more resemblance to the real thing than the indoor baseboard layouts), but having got the modelling juices flowing again I was keen to tackle another job, and appropriately a had yet another project that has been neglected for nigh on 3 years - and so my old "Mighty Fortress" from Games Workshop has finally got painted up and can at last be used on the table!

At this point, just as I was thinking that everything was back to running smoothly, we received advanced notification from HMRC that we would be able to make a claim for the self employed income support scheme this month (instead of having to wait until June as originally forecast - Yay!). BUT, anti fraud measures meant that we had to visit the GOV.UK website and create a "personal tax account" (we don't already have one since our annual returns are done through an accountant for peace of mind), because the whole claim / notification procedure will only be conducted via this secure account. Guess what........
....MORE hours wasted in front of the computer screen trying in vain to set up this account (Boo!).
In all fairness, it might well be down to sheer volume of traffic on the website, and this is a brand new scheme that HMRC have had to set up from scratch and teething troubles are to be expected, so I'm not knocking them and I'm sure they'll get it sorted in time - but did I mention that "I HATE having to faff about on computers when they're not doing what they're supposed to"?

Sorry about the "Off Topic" nature of this post, but hey, it's the blog's third anniversary in a few days time (another '3 year' tie-in!) so I'll celebrate by returning to normal service!
Until then, take care, please leave a comment if you so wish, and..........

Oh Dear!

It seems like I've got a nasty case of Blogger Blight - I've read of fellow bloggers experiencing the same sort of problem, and not being able to add photo's (in any form, jpeg, giff etc) to their posts.
Every time I try to upload a photo, the error report "Server Rejected" appears.

The word from the wise (Blogger "help" team) is to clear the browser cache - which I have done
but it doesn't work!

If anyone has found the cure to this problem I would LOVE to hear from you asap.
Thanks in advance,
Greg