More Yankees...

... part the third.

Whitsun roses are coming out (Arthur Ward, climbers, absolute perfection), and I've been digging and planting on the allotment plot. It's difficult to convey the satisfaction of digging out my runner bean trench, adding horse manure, and rebuilding the trench, but, I can assure one and all, that it is satisfying.

That was a long-winded way of saying that the 1812 in 20mm plastics project is progressing even more slowly. Nonetheless, the US artillery contingent is now ready:

 

A rather interesting blog, Les Uniformes de la Guerre de 1812, informed me that the Yankee invaders painted their guns in pale blue, so that's how I painted them. There are another two guns and crew who will become the Royal Artillery, with guns in grey.

 

Rather nice figures these. I especially like the chap lugging the bucket, lots of movement in just 20mm.

At the moment, the Americans are being stored in a tin box I brought back from a recent, brief, trip to Amsterdam:

 



 

I am partial to illustrated tin boxes (sadly, I realise that I probably have a sort-of collection of these too!). Traditionally, in man-caves (aka sheds and garages) up and down the lengthy of Blighty, tin boxes were used to store old nails, nuts, bolts, and screws. My father had plenty in his day, and could often be found straightening out bent nails from his tins, usually old cocoa tins. But as to my tin, well, I was very pleasantly surprised by Amsterdam, which is an elegant city, and I will, I hope, return.

 

 

Continuing on a Napoleonic theme, the newspapers here are picking up on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The French, well, the French government, aren't really taking it in the right spirit, having complained to the Belgians about one of their Euro coins which is to depict the lion mound (or whatever it is called) on the obverse, and have refused to send a suitable official to the commemorations, citing 'busyness' as an excuse. However, there are plenty of sporting Frenchies who will be there, with re-enactors from across Europe. Yesterday's Daily Telegraph had a rather good photo essay showing some of the re-enactors who will be there:

 

If you can get a copy (perhaps it's on the Telegraph's web page), it's worth having. The photographs are by a fellow called Sam Faulkner, and jolly good they are too.

I did a bit of re-enacting myself a few years ago. Actually, it was more 'living history' as the little group I was in didn't do 'battles', we were far, far too small for that, and, anyway, it would have required an opposition, which, in the group's case would have been Carlists, Falangists, Spanish Army regulars, Moors, or Legionaires from the Spanish Civil War - all of which would have been way beyond the pale for most of the group. Funnily enough, my 're-enacting' of a Commissar wasn't. Odd. But it was fun, puffing my pipe, tapping away on an old typewriter, and putting names of Trotsky-fascists in my little book. The Telegraph article made me, briefly, think about trying it all again, perhaps as a Loyalist in the American Revolution, or a middle-aged volunteer for some auxiliary unit in the IIWW. But, then again, there is the satisfaction of digging out my runner bean trench and adding manure.