I believe the Met Office calls the current hot weather our third heatwave of the year so far. But it feels like one big long heatwave, with the odd day or two of respite.

Yes on those cooler days I’ve managed to get Dolly out for a walk. But not on the longer more scenic walks. Those more tolerable summer days have fallen on days that I had to work.

I’ve also not got over the con crud I picked up from the UKGE. Even after getting a course of antibiotics from the doctors. Yes it had got that bad.

Vantage the latest game by Stonemaier Games was launched for sale on their website last Wednesday. And yes I did order a copy along with the upgraded components and player mats. Oh plus the Vantage Rolling Realms promo pack.

I’m expecting Vantage to arrive tail end of next week. So it will be after my visit to Nath next week.

Yep after tomorrow’s shift I’m on holiday for a week and a half.

What has arrived in time is Railroad Tiles (with a damaged box).

Wave three of Halo Flashpoint with the Banished is arriving Monday. Closely followed by my Enlightened Equipment Revelation Apex custom sleeping quilt on Tuesday.

So next week is looking like a big week on the arrivals front.

Going back to my visit to Nath I have not decided what games I’m taking with me yet. I’m taking his house warming present which is a copy of The Witcher board game. But other than that I’ve not made my mind up.

I do know I’ll be taking my walking stuff so we can have (heatwave permitting) a chill walk with a coffee stop.

That’s it for now, laters.

If you are a football fan (like me) you know that this time of year is all about the transfer market. The coming and going of players from your favourite team (my team is Liverpool for the record) for sums of money we mere mortals can only dream of.

However like my club I am in the midst of a transfer to strengthen my little monsters.

I want to say about two months ago my ex-wife was on holiday in Peru where her partner and her rescued three stray dogs.

It wasn’t just that they were strays, but that they had been injured in one way or the other.

A one year old bitch had a gash down a back leg, an eight month old dog had been hit by a car, a third older bitch I had no details on.

The dogs are now in a rescue home recovering.

Now my ex is trying to find homes for those three rescued dogs over here in the UK.

Two weeks ago I got a whatsapp message from her with a photo (see below) of one of them with the words “he’s only a little one”.

I cracked, accusing my ex of emotional manipulation, and then saying we’d have him.

Ok mum wasn’t too keen on the idea of an additional dog. But we’ve had up to five between us at one point! And three were bigger dogs too.

Obviously I’ve given a new name to this little fella.

When I get the opportunity to name a four legged friend I use a Tolkien naming convention. Being short and hairy I had to come up with a dwarven name.

Meet Durin.

Durin will be joining us in three to four months time. He needs an international chip, rabies injection. I think there was to be a waiting period after the injection. Then Durin will be on a plane from Peru, no quarantine. He’ll land in Heathrow with me picking him up.

So once the transfer is complete there will be an official reveal.

Yep I had plans to get out with Dolly but this continuing heat wave puts a stop to that.

It’s about being a responsible dog owner.

The heat means Dolly isn’t settling in the evenings. So sleep is interrupted. I can assure you if Dolly can’t sleep she won’t let the rest of us.

I’m going on about how Dolly is suffering in the heat because she is feeling it more than Nico or Loki. They seem to be taking the heat wave in their stride. Maybe it’s their genetics helping them.

Despite all this I have played some games and I’ll write about them in a separate post.

It’s about two weeks before I’m on holiday again with plans to visit Nath during that time.

In the meantime I’m alive, suffering in the heat with Dolly, and still trying to get rid of this chest infection.

Forgive me readers it has been five days since my last post.

The little monsters enjoyed having me home and spending time with them relaxing before I had to return to work.

I always plan two or three days after going away to give mum a break, and time to recover. Who knew three little dogs could be so stressful and such hard work?

The later half of last week a cold kicked in. Making work a real struggle.

I think I have to accept that when my body is fighting any infection that it affects my legs. I’m putting it down to getting old.

Where did I get this cold?

The theory I have is it’s what is affectionately known as con crud. Yes I suspect I bought it home with me from the expo. One of those many bodies in the bustle of the expo that I came into contact with, invaded my personal space, very kindly over shared.

So while suffering from the cold I found every day life so tiring as my body waged its internal war.

Having spent a lot of my reserves each morning just getting through a shift at work. There was so little left for once I got home.

Coughing, sneezing was painful each time I did either thanks to whatever I did to my tongue at the start of my expo adventure.

Despite the above I did get some gaming in last week. Which included one or two of the new additions from the expo. But I’ll write a separate post about them.

So there you have it, another bland life update. Life in the fast lane baby!

It’s been a six day silence on here.

Time sure flies by when you are knackered.

Since the last post that seems so much longer than six days ago I’ve been increasingly more tired.

So tired I’ve found myself “snoozing” in the afternoons once I get home from work.

But more worrying is yesterday my legs started to feel like they did a few weeks ago when I had the chest infection when they decided they were not going to work properly.

Luckily I managed to manage my legs at work so although they felt weak and not able to rush around, they didn’t decline any more.

It got me thinking what is my body reacting to again that it’s hitting my legs once more?

Is my tiredness linked to this struggle going on in my body?

I think if there is no improvement in a day or two a trip to the doc might be in order.

That will be a second visit in the space of a month. Unheard of! Before the last visit they hadn’t seen me for years.

The little monsters have had the odd flea. So it was off to the vet to get the good stuff to remove them. The vet weighed them. Dolly was 10 kilos! How is she as heavy as my base weight for doing the TGOC? I agreed with the vet she needs a diet. I’m not over feeding her. But mum needs to cut down on treats. In our defence Dolly hasn’t grown in size since having her. Her future is less food, longer walks (legs permitting).

I have been gaming. Played one or two new games. But that will be the subject of another post.

I had hoped to write this post a couple days ago. However I’ve been shattered and trying to “recover”.

So last Saturday I drove the four hours plus from Wisbech on the eastern side of the UK to Blackpool on the north western side of the country.

I’ve never been to Blackpool in my fifty seven years on this earth.

I’d seen the signs for Blackpool as I drove up the motorway towards the Lakes or Scotland.

But until now I’ve never had a reason to turn off.

After parking my car in the multi-storey car park I had a little walk to find my hotel.

The hotel was on the corner of the road and was basically a converted three storey house. Checkin was finding my key and door code in an envelope in the hallway.

My room was on the second floor (the third floor was for staff). What I hadn’t realised when booking that none of the rooms were en-suite on the floor, but instead had to share a toilet and shower.

But it got worse. The toilet had no lock, and no toilet paper.

In my room there were no towels, and the pillows looked awful. Too soft and thin.

But the view of the sea from the room was cool. Plus the hotels location was actually great.

If I threw a stone I’d have hit five or six chippies. Two minutes from the dirtiest McDonalds in the country, 10 mins from the conference, five minutes from Primark, TK-Max, Poundland, and other shops. I think it’s best to say it was more or less on the sea front.

Luckily I had enough time to make it to Primark and Poundland to purchase some towels and toilet paper.

There was no breakfast included in my booking. However if there had been I don’t think I’d have eaten it considering the state of the hotel.

So for three of the four mornings I had a McDonalds breakfast. I’m not very adventurous and always go for the double sausage egg McMuffin, hash brown, white americano. Some times I add a second hash brown, and if really hungry a second breakfast McMuffin of some kind.

Sunday morning I got chatting to the manager at the McDonalds. It would appear this was the worst weekend of the year to be in Blackpool. Apparently this weekend each year is the Young Farmers AGM, who it would appear treat it as a three day stag weekend.

The conference itself was very interesting, and the debates informative.

‘First time delegate, first time speaker’ was greeted with a round of applause from the conference floor. But it felt very much like ‘long time listener, first time caller’ to me.

I was wearing a different themed tee each day. Such as a Star Wars pride tee for May the Fourth, or a V for Vendetta tee for the day we had a Labour guest speaker (turned out to be Wes Streeting).

I wasn’t overly social in the evenings. There was a branch meal Sunday evening at a Wetherspoon’s, plus a company sponsored meal Saturday for union reps in their employ.

On the last day of conference I got up early, packed, checked out (put my key through the letter box). Then with more stuff than I came with made the up hill walk to the multi-storey car park. Paid and then made my way to the car park next to the conference.

After parking I went to the Greggs round the corner from the conference, bought a bacon butty, hash browns, and a coffee. I had these outside sat at one of the benches in front of Blackpool church in the morning sun.

The conference didn’t finish until 3pm on the Wednesday. Another four hour plus journey back across the country, saw me arriving home at just gone seven thirty.

By the time I’d made a fuss of the dogs, unloaded the car I was in bed.

The two days at work had been very taxing because I was knackered. So as I type this post up I’m hoping a day of taking it easy will be enough to recover.

So that’s my week just gone.

I’m at a union conference this bank holiday weekend. First union conference ever. It’s also the first time in my life I’ve ever been to Blackpool.

I’ll write a longer post about this experience in the week. It will make you laugh and gasp in shock when you read it.

But until then here is the obligatory selfie for Star Wars day.

I’ve had backend issues that have got in the way of writing posts.

I use the Jetpac app on my iPad to write these posts and recently it decided to stop working!

Well not connect to the site. It wasn’t showing any written posts, drafts, photos. It was as if the blog was brand new, containing nada.

Yet log into the blog via a browser and everything was still there.

I hated having to use the WordPress post editor. It’s horrid. It really puts me off writing. Yep that’s how much I hate it.

However managed to resolve the issue this morning. So normal service can resume.

I’m currently on day five of seven of the steroids I have to take to try and clear up a chest infection I’ve had for over three weeks. Probably more likely over four.

It all came to a head last Friday when during work I slowly started to lose the use of my legs! I could move them but had no control over how they moved. My footsteps got gradually heavier as I walked. It got so that I was at times struggling to stand. Luckily I had a flat top that I could use for support.

I have to admit I was a bit worried. It felt I was getting a glimpse into mums world.

There was no way I could continue at work so I went home early. Calling the doctors on my way to get an appointment.

I rarely go to the doctor so it must have been serious.

A rest at home before my doctors appointment made a big difference. At the doctors the diagnosis was the chest infection was stressing my body so much that it affected my legs. I was prescribed the steroids.

Luckily Saturday was a day off when I could relax and take it easy. Which did include a gaming afternoon at Diego’s. More on that maybe in another post.

So that’s been life for the past week or so. Why I’ve been quieter than normal.

See you in the next one.

It’s been a hectic last few days. Changes to shifts have thrown things out.

There has been some gaming but not much.

I was particularly too knackered Friday and needed an early night. So no get it to the table night for me.

A friend on Facebook did remind me of a great quote from Lord of the Rings that I thought speaks volumes for our current times.

I thought I’d also share almost a cliche quote these days, especially for the outdoors. But still a favourite of mine.

In the meantime I’m looking forward to next weekend when I get to play Scythe with the metal mechs.