At Last!

Back in the early Spring Phil and I tootled over to the Newark Showground to attend 'Ommer'ead. We'd actually resolved not to go this year, but the unexpected cancellation of WMMS lead to our plans being reappraised. One of my purchases there, from show stalwart Dave Thomas, was the Perry Miniatures baggage wagon set from their Wars of the Roses range. It has sat in the Lead Pimple ever since, the very definition of an impulse purchase if ever I've made one! Well last month I finally resolved to assemble the kit of parts and spray undercoat it ready for it's encounter with the Brush of Doom! It's not been exactly plain sailing I have to say...

Phil would tell you that my patience, in respect of hobby stuff at least, is not the greatest. Instead of thinking ahead about the painting process I moved right ahead to cleaning up and assembling the cart, the load, the oxen and the figures! Partly I confess because Superglue and I do not enjoy a disaster free relationship...

You'll hopefully recall this picture from an earlier post! It neatly leads me on to cataloguing my problems at the painting stage, starting with the oxen. The beasts' heads needed fixing to the bodies, but that meant fixing in place the yokes first. I assembled each pair, only later realising how fiddly painting them would be once I'd glued each pair onto their bases. Similarly with the cart, I glued the resin cast load into place on the cart bed and then glued the side pieces to the bed and load. I never thought about the painting stage at this point. If I'd left off fixing the cart wheels and fittings painting would have been more straightforward, but hindsight is a mixed blessing.

There was a good deal of overpainting, repainting and accompanying curses along the way either side of our trip Oop North and liberal washes of Agrax Earthshade to disguise the myriad mistooks! Most difficult at the end was painting the two civilian cart passengers as I fixed them in place again without considering the painting process on small pieces firmly attached to the whole piece. You can judge for yourselves, it would look good 'to a blind man on a galloping horse' as my late father would surely have remarked ~

I added the musician figure to create a bit of interest, its probably from their 100 Years War range. It was in one of Aly's packages for the deserving poor!

Agrax Earthshade covers a multitude of sins. It also helps the figures to stand out and look a little better than they really are!

As I hope you can see in the final picture, the musician adds a point of interest and colour to the mostly dull look of the baggage set.

Still, its done now, so on to other things in due course. I thought I'd round the post off with a couple of holiday snaps, à la Matt ~

Pagecroft Cottage, near Haydon Bridge and handily placed for the more accessible parts of Hadrian's Wall.

And the view from our cottage's front porch. It takes a lot of that to make you ill!

Finally, a  bit of Wall...

Hadrian of Wall fame!

At Chesters fort museum, a bronze tablet, the reward for 25 years service gifting Roman citizenship!

The wall from Housesteads Fort...

...bleak does not even come close to describing its location the day we climbed up to visit!

Reconstructed sections at Vindolanda,  both in timber and in later stone.

Gladiators immortalised in glass. I find it amazing how it survives!

Adapting to the posting, evolution of the Roman soldier's appearance on the wall.

The different styles of armour shown at the Roman Army Museum, a twinned visit with Vindolanda at £20 each for both. We split our visit to each over two days.

And finally, we never did encounter that ghostly Roman soldier though...