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.
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 FebTaken 7th MarchTaken 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.
UPDATE: 9/5/26
Yesterday Ace had a checkup with the vet on his paw. There were no photos of the paw. However we were sent two photos of the x-rays that were taken showing what looks like pins that were put in to correct it.
UPDATE 17/6/26
This evening I received two new photos of how well Ace’s paw is recovering.
It should be pointed out that Ace had his rabies shot about a month ago now, and yesterday was at the vets for one of the scheduled visits to do with coming over. My estimate for his arrival is end of October, start of November at the earliest.
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.
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.
Yep it’s another one of these made up days using the incorrect way to write dates.
However it does give us an excuse to play some Mario, build some Lego, even watch some Mario (including the latest trailer for the new Mario movie out next month).
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.
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.
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.
The 25th anniversary back to back screening of the Lord of the Rings extended editions took place at my local cinema last night.
I got to the cinema about an hour early to have a coffee and catch up with staff.
There were about 33 like minded souls joining me for this ultimate Tolkien endurance fan experience.
Once Gavin arrived I handed over my old copy of Parks first edition, plus expansions and play mat. I was happy to have found a good home for it.
Then it was to my luxury double seat at the back of the cinema to get settled in and ready for the night ahead.
After a brief introduction by the cinema owner we were straight into the night’s entertainment.
Each part of the trilogy was preceded by a “short” introduction by Peter Jackson himself. Which was a nice little extra to make this night feel a little bit more special.
Sting (3D printed by my friend Duncan)My nest for the nightOur reward for making it through to the endBack of the can
So how did I do sleep wise? Did I stay awake for the whole thing?
The short answer is no.
During the Fellowship of the Ring I drifted off once. For the Two Towers that went up to twice. Then finally for the Return of the King I drifted off two three times in the first hour.
I definitely think during the last film I snored a couple of times.
However I was not the only one that had to rest their eyes during the night.
Was there the odd leaky eye during the “you bow to no one” and Frodo leaving Middle Earth? Yes for more than one of us that may have happened.
To help the hard working staff everyone took their own rubbish out.
As we left we were handed a reward for our remarkable act of endurance, a rebranded can of Taters.
It really was an epic night. I’m glad I did it. I had a great time.
How the time has flown and so much has changed. I’m sure I’ll reflect more on this after the event.
But to get a chance to see the LoTR trilogy movies on the big screen in their extended cut, who can pass up that opportunity?
I don’t think they have been released on the big screen before.
So I’m pretty excited about this.
The last time I did anything like this was back in 1977 after the death of Elvis.
I was (and still am) a big Elvis fan. Back then when the news of Elvis’ death broke it really hit me hard. It was probably the first time one of my heroes had died.
The celebrate the life of Elvis and to remember him our local cinema at the time The Unit One, held an all night run of Elvis movies.
My “little” nan (I was so imaginative as a kid in my naming of my grandparents, yes my nan was “big” nan, and I used the same naming convention for my grandads) took me to the all night showing.
I can’t remember which movies were shown, and I did fall asleep at one point. But I think this was the nicest thing my “little” Nan ever did for me.
Obviously I’ve done a couple of all nighters for other things. But they were not movie related.
