Category Archives: life, the universe, and everything

This mornings outdoorsy stuff

#backtothehills, hiking/backpacking/camping, life, the universe, and everything, outdoors

As I take a small break from painting minis, and transferring the contents of Twilight Imperium 4 and the Prophecy of Kings expansion into a single box using the 3D printed insert Colin has printed for me (still need the final pieces to finish off the transfer, there are rather a lot to print). I continue to do or play around with some outdoors related stuff.

This morning I decided to brew up using two stones from the Pillbottle stones stove and the Keith titanium canteen and cup.

I do like this stove. It’s genius really. Soak the stones in meths. Wait until all has been absorbed. Remove. Stack on top of each other. Light. Balance pot on top.

The simplicity. No spills while cooking. You don’t even need a pot stand. Although I do use these with a Fire Maple Lotus Titanium Solid Fuel Stove.

I also using an altoid style tin (which I can’t remember what came with it) create a char cloth tin. Which is basically putting a small hole in the lid and storing char cloth in it.

I also tested the char cloth (not created by me – that’s a future project) with the BCB ferro rod. Just to check if this char cloth was as advertised. It did indeed take a spark to create an ember.

At some point I’m going to have to go all Ray Mears and buahcrafty and try starting a fire this way.

Which reminds me I do have a flint and steel on the way! And yes I will be playing with that too.

This is the totally utterly last resort for me on starting a fire.

None of that friction bow crap for starting a fire. That’s all well and good when playing at shit hits the fan, I’m super stunt man survivalist.

But in reality it’s not practical in real life situations that most people want a fire.

For me it’s lighter first, matches, ferro rod. If with whatever tinder I have to hand can’t get a fire started with those then the friction stuff isn’t going to make any difference at all.

Enough of my rant. Have a nice day.

Barista on the trail!

Camping/hiking gear, hiking/backpacking/camping, life, the universe, and everything, news

I’m becoming abit of a Fire Maple fanboy.

Today Fire Maple launched a Petrel pour over kettle.

We all know I like my coffee. I like pour over coffee. It allows a consistent great coffee to be brewed. So this is the perfect walk accessory for me.

According to the blurb this kettle has a 350ml capacity, and there are measurements inside to allow accurate measuring of the water used.

Is this a G2?
Photos off the Fire Maple website

Looking at the photo this pour over kettle fits inside the G2. The spout and handle fit inside the kettle itself.

I do like the heat exchange technology they use. It really does work.

Currently until the end of the month if you order from Fire Maple you get 10% off. Here is the link.

Making my own fire starters

#backtothehills, Camping/hiking gear, hiking/backpacking/camping, life, the universe, and everything, outdoors

This morning decided to try making my own fire starters using the guidance of Coalcracker Bushcraft via their YouTube video on the subject.

Basically using a 1:1 ratio of wax to lighter fluid and 100% cotton, cotton pads. I spent a relaxing few minutes melting wax, mixing in lighter fluid, and then dunking the cotton pads.

The recycled baked bean tin
Testing

I used a recycled baked bean tin to melt the wax in. And a pot gripper to lift the tin on and off the stove, and to pour the melted wax. The actual dunking was done in a recycled soft cheese container.

I did test them once dry by tearing one to open it up, and using a ferro got it to light first time.

A fun little project with practical uses.

Operation A Dog Named Sue! #7

#littlemonsters, #livefromperu, life, the universe, and everything

There was an overnight update on Ace.

From the photos shared his paw looks to be healing nicely.

So for this post I’ve collected the photos of the paw that have been shared so far.

They show the paw healing.

However there is still a ways to go.

Looking at the progress over about a month the difference is amazing. I’m hoping the healing continues at this rate.

WARNING! these pictures are not easy to look at

Taken 17th Feb
Taken 7th March
Taken last night

Naturally I can’t wait for the healing to get to a point where we can start the process of bringing him over to his forever home with us.

I’m starting to think we won’t have Ace with us now until the end of the Summer, early Autumn.

UPDATE: 20/3/26

Last night another photo was shared with us showing Ace’s leg healing nicely.

20/3/26

Hopefully this saga will be over soon and we can focus on getting him over to his forever home.

UPDATE: 30/3/26

Literally hot off the press so to speak are these amazing photos below showing just how well the healing process is going on Ace’s paw.

UPDATE: 29/4/26

Wow the recovery is almost done. How the paw looks now is incredible.

Ace will be ready for his rabies shot any day now hopefully.

March 2026 Gaming Roundup Part 1

Gaming roundup, life, the universe, and everything

Well March hasn’t gotten off to a great start.

Not gaming on a Tuesday has had an impact for sure. Who knows if that will start up again.

So here are the handful of games I’ve played up to this midpoint of the month.

Subastral: an interesting quick set collection game. It was ok, I was left a bit cold about our first play, despite winning. I don’t think I was feeling much more positive about it after the second game.

Root: once again Jeff managed to snatch victory from within my grubby mitts. We used the expert setup to select our factions. We used the Exiles and Partisans deck, and the Landmarks expansion (selected the Tower because I thought it would encourage more conflict!)

Viticulture: basically an all in game using the Bordeaux board, expert workers, and the structures modules. I think it’s taken as read we were using the Visit from the Rhine Valley decks. I won by a point. This was the first time ever playing with the structures modules. And during this game I was the only one drawing the structure cards. I actually liked this module.

Tokaido: yeah I’m really glad that the reprint by Stonemaier games was the excuse needed to get this to the table on what is proving to be a regular basis.

New Arrivals

  • Heat Tunnel Vision
  • Heat Rocky Road
  • Heat Heavy Rain

Road to UKGE 2026 #2

life, the universe, and everything, UKGE

Finally!

At long last the NEC is allowing visitors to prebook their parking ticket for the expo.

Unlike the expo itself there is a benefit of prebooking. You save money. Granted it’s about a fiver. But still that’s better than nothing.

I had planned to go for the express parking that is nearer to the halls of the NEC, and guarantees you a parking spot. But at £84 for three days compared to £27. I found it very hard to justify the huge increase for the sake of a bit of convenience.

Besides the bus service is pretty good from the halls to the car parks, and not very long waits between buses.

So I went with the cheaper option. Besides get there earlier enough you can get reasonably close and use the E1 car park. But you need to be there damn early.

Welsh Cakes and EPiC

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Sunday was St David’s Day. Which saw me doing something in my fifty seven years I have never done.

I made Welsh cakes.

Ok technically not a true Welsh cake because I used raisins, blue berries, sour cherries, and cranberries.

I also didn’t use a cookie cutter to get the perfect round Welsh cake.

My hand shaped Welsh cakes

I will say for what is technically just five ingredients (I used the recipe off the Welsh tourist board site) these were a lot simpler to make than I had imagined. The hardest (not really) bit was the rubbing of the butter into the flour.

If I do say so, and I may be biased, they were rather nice. They are like a thinner scone. Mum and I had some for dessert, I had a couple for breakfast the next morning. And mum must of liked them because she two had a couple for her breakfast too.

I think these will be made again soon.

Yesterday saw me experience EPiC aka Elvis Presley in Concert at my local cinema The Luxe.

EPiC is basically newly found and restored footage of Elvis from his two live movies Elvis on Tour, and That’s The Way It Is. Plus I think they used a newly discovered interview with Elvis to narrate the footage.

The much in demand film poster advertising the movie

I think That’s The Way It Is was one of the movies from that all night tribute showing I went to in 1977 after the death of Elvis.

As an Elvis fan I loved it. It captures Elvis and the phenomenon he was live.

I read the guardian review of EPiC and they bemoan that the film glossed over and failed to hold Elvis to account. But I feel they miss the point of this movie. I think the reviewer has a point if applying those comments to the directors biopic from a couple of years back (which was awesome). Although I would argue against a couple of the points because I feel they are not valid. However this movie is about the restored live footage. The performances.

Yes there were moments that water gathered in my eyes.

But still an amazing film bringing to life once more the magic of Elvis live.

I’m actually back at the cinema for another movie later in the week. If things go my way I will have the cinema to myself to see a sci-fi, comedy, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.

The Waiting Game

#littlemonsters, life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Life throws curve balls that can’t be avoided.

One such curve ball was thrown recently due to world events.

I’m not going to complain about it because I support the reasons for the delay. My first world inconvenience is really minor and insignificant compared to the cause of it. If it’s not obvious I’m very pro Palestine and if the interruption and delay of shipping helps bring an end to the genocide then it’s a price I’m happy to pay.

Anyway it’s a waiting game for the arrival of the Stonemaier shipment containing the new Bordeaux expansion for Viticulture and the Americas expansion for Wingspan.

The estimated arrival is mid February, with orders in the post and dropping through letter boxes soon after.

I also have a preorder due to ship anytime soon. That preorder is the two expansions that make up the Ashes cycle in Netrunner. This is a reprinting of an “older” NSG cycle. It gives me all the cards that currently make up the standard format.

I’d love to play the eternal format. But that’d require purchasing a second hand collection of the FFG stuff. Which I may look into at some point.

Another item I’m waiting for is the Mayday card sleeves I use to sleeve Wingspan to come back into stock. I can’t even preorder them. It won’t be a small order once they are available. I’m estimating about 700 sleeves to not just sleeve the new expansion but also Asia and the fan packs.

But there has been a positive to the delay, it’s given me a chance to get all the bits together ready for the arrival. Or in the case of Wingspan get the nesting box and put everything inside it.

I’m looking forward to the new arrivals and having the excuse to get the games to the table once more.

Ranting about exclusive promos

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

It’s been a quiet week so far. Nothing much happening at all.

There is stuff in transit. Which I’m obviously waiting to arrive.

Stonemaier Games launched the latest Wingspan expansion Americas, covering the birds of the Americas such as Peru, Brazil, etc. Obviously I’ll be asking Diogo which of the birds he has seen. Along side this a new board for Viticulture was released. There was also a restock of the fan created packs. And yes I did order the new stuff.

The arrival of the new Wingspan expansion was the final nudge I needed to order the nesting box. For those curious what the nesting box is, it’s basically a big box to store Wingspan and all the expansions in. The only drawback is that the nesting box makes taking the game to a game night a bit more inconvenient. However with more and more large boxes joining the collection this is not really an issue these days.

While caught up in all the excitement of the new releases I realised it must be a good couple of years since I played Wingspan. Most likely when the Asia expansion came out.

However in that period we had two new additions to the Wingspan family in the form of Wyrmspan and Finspan. Both of which have seen table time. So in a way indirectly I have played Wingspan.

I do have a copy of the new Lord of the Rings The Two Towers trick taking game plus the Horses and Haradrim promo chapter pack. I think it’s great that the promo pack is free if you purchase from a lgs. I get that the publisher wants to support the brick and mortar stores. However is this really true? I’ve seen reports that stores are getting very limited supplies of the promo pack. Not nearly enough to go with all purchases of the game. And some stores not getting the promo pack at all.

I hate this sort of promotion. Not everyone has a lgs near them, and their only way to get the game is online. So why punish them? Why not have a period of exclusivity for the promo pack for the stores (making sure they have enough copies in the first place), and then make it available for purchase from the publishers website or the bgg website?

At the moment this extra content, it’s not cosmetic, is just putting money in the pocket of scalpers on eBay. I’m pretty sure a lot of the copies for sale on eBay are from retailers. Although I have no evidence to back this up. But they are the only ones that’d have multiple copies to sell.

How did I get my copy? Well Nathan was going into Basingstoke so I asked him to pop into the flgs there and see if they had it with the promo. They did so a quick bank transfer and I’m the proud owner of the game with the promo.

I think that’s enough for now. Hopefully something interesting in my life will have happened by the next post.