Yesterday afternoon I completed the purchase of the house I’ve been renting for the last 14 years.
I’m a home owner again.
This is something I never thought I’d ever be doing again.
But thanks to the generosity of my aunt and uncle I’ve been able to do so.
I can’t put into words how much this means to me or how much I will always be grateful to them.
I now need a will update.
The r&r has started.
Official it started 1pm yesterday when my shift ended.
But I didn’t get to lie-in and enjoy a lazy relaxed start to this week off work.
I had to get up early to help a relative replace the felt on my downstairs toilet. It’s been leaking during heavy rainfall for a while now.
The leak was due to rotted felt under the tiles. The tiles themselves were still doing their job.
So 8am this morning we stripped the roof of the tiles. Removed the old batons and rotted felt.
It was then time to lay the new felt, new batons, and re-lay the tiles (once I’d cleaned the moss off them).
We got that done by lunchtime.
Tomorrow some cement work needs doing and once dry some sealant stuff (that’s about as technical as I get on this diy stuff), and it’s all good as new.
What this means is that my visit to Nath is going to be at the end of the week.
And hopefully before I see Nath I’ll have some big news to share with you.
I can’t believe it’s been a week nearly since my last post.
The work life balance seems out of whack at the moment. Maybe not in hours worked but more the physical and emotional toll.
Sometimes it feels age is catching up with me and despite getting about eight hours sleep. I am still having an afternoon nap.
However since the last post I’ve been on the first of three training courses to become a union health and safety rep. It was a three day course at the unions branch office, with accommodation provided at a local Premier Inn.
Yes breakfast was included. So it would have been rude to not have the full English to start the days off correctly.
I even made a batch of cold brew coffee over night in the hotel room to have during the day on the course.
Yes they had coffee, tea, biscuits etc to help yourself to during the day. But sachets of Nescafé coffee just won’t cut it as the caffeine option.
So I felt forced to make the cold brew to get that fix.
How did I make the cold brew?
Well I had my 1 litre Nalgene bottle, cold brew filter bags, Hario mini mill plus, and some coffee beans in the car (along with a few other bits, like gas stove, dehydrated food).
That first night in the hotel room saw me grinding beans, filling the filter bag, placing it in the Nalgene and pouring in the bottled water purchased from the Tesco next to the Premier Inn.
The next morning I had a litre of cold brew ready to take in with me.
I had been due two back to back days off but I was asked if I’d do some overtime Friday. Which I agreed to.
The bright side of all this is that in seven shifts time I’m on holiday for a week. I’ll talk more about those plans in another post.
Castle Combo arrived, and once some more Mayday premium sleeves also arrived, was sleeved.
Thanks to Jamey Stegmaier and his latest YouTube video (at time of writing) about his favourite mechanic in Splendor: Pokémon I have now ordered a copy.
The thing about this version of the game is it’s not available out side Korea. So to get a copy you have to import a copy or hope a company specialising in imported games has it. I went the former via eBay. The later could have been an option but the company I found was out of stock for it.
This kind of reminds me of the “original” Star Wars Love Letter that sadly was only available in Russia. At the time I did try and get a copy. But as you have probably already guessed I was unsuccessful in those attempts.
Carcassonne Star Wars was a similar thing for the US. Available in the UK and EU. But not licensed for the States.
The joys of franchise licensing.
Back to Splendor. I don’t actually own the original game, despite liking it. I sold on my copy plus it’s play mat once I had the Marvel edition in my collection. I preferred the extra bits that they added to the Marvel version such as the Avengers Assemble tile.
I can see there being room for two copies of the game (possibly).
I’ve been looking everywhere for my copy of Strike! But can I find it? So like previous times in similar situations I’ve ordered a replacement copy. If it does turn up it’ll be handy having two copies.
Right I think that’s enough for this post time to spend the day just chilling before work tomorrow.
Wow I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted last.
I have been rather tired and dozing off in the afternoon once home from work, and then getting to sleep early. But that’s just getting older.
There has been some gaming but not much. I got to spend a rather pleasant afternoon Saturday gaming with Ben and his family.
We played the newly arrived expansion for Tokyo Highway, Rainbow City.
We jumped in with using the additional rules for missions. Which makes the game a bit more gamery!
It was a big hit with Ben and his family.
We also played Tonga Bonga. Which was great fun. I did like the mechanic of placing money on your ships to tempt people to place their die on your spaces over others. That and placing your dice gets very very tactical.
The afternoons gaming was finished with a very cut throat game of Big Shot. That I really liked. I do like the auction mechanic it uses.
I liked both the (to me) new games. They weren’t heavy by any means. But still very fun.
A few weeks back I asked Dave if he’d use his wood crafting skills to make me a practice board for tying knots.
In one of the posts was a 5mm hole that allowed me to thread through some 5mm bungee cord to create a loop to simulate a tent/tarp tie off point.
The idea is that whilst I’m chilling at home whilst I have something on tv playing I can have this out and practice my knots. Practice makes perfect they say.
Back in a previous post I wrote that I personally only needed to know and practice five knots.
This board allows me to practice those five knots.
I’m tempted to ask Dave to add a horizontal bar connecting the two vertical ones maybe 2 or 3 inches from the base.
But I do love what he has made for me.
Life is moving along.
Work is still frustrating at the moment.
But the big thing over the last few of days is I did put in a bid for the first expansion for the Fallout board game on eBay.
However I didn’t win the auction. The final price for the winner of the auction was £170 plus postage! Yeah the expansion isn’t worth that amount by any imagination.
I know this could be a separate very short post in its own right. But I don’t feel it warrants it.
Continuing my opportunistic approach to buying camping gear ready for next year I’ve bought a stove for camp use.
Sadly it’s not the Jetboil Genesis Basecamp. That’s very expensive and not sold in the UK. So the cost gets even more expensive getting it from abroad.
This morning one of the cheaper alternatives I’d been looking at on Amazon was part of the Prime Big Deal days. The Naturehike 2-in-1 Gas Camping Stove was reduced by 15%. So I decided to pull the trigger on purchasing it. It comes with a griddle. Which has saved me the expense of getting one.
I’ve also bought a ultralight portable beach table. It should be wide enough for the new stove, and low (or is it high?) enough so the stove can be used whilst I’m sitting in my little camp chair. The table was also part of the Prime Big Deal day.
The nice thing about not leaving the purchase of needed equipment to nearer the time is that I can take advantage of such deals.
It’s Saturday morning. I’ve been awake from bloody early a.m. on my day off.
The status update of my McDonald’s breakfast seems stuck on “picking up my order”.
I’m just too knackered after my seven day tour of duty at work.
I’ve come out of it feeling battered emotionally. I won’t go into details but the frustration levels have been through the roof.
So I feel I’ve earnt this lazy start to my day off.
Yesterday Mini Rails arrived from Zatu without any problems. Which has been my experience with them every time I’ve ordered from them. That will shock some. But for me my experiences have been positive.
Also through the letter box came the new Zelda game The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Where I think for the first time you can actually play as Princess Zelda. Another entry in my long to play list.
Last night was a “get it to the table” night for Fenland Gamers. Which saw Marcin, Anthony, and myself play Marcin’s copy of Coimbra. Which frankly I’m shocked he owns based on its theme alone! It’s not exactly post apocalyptic.
However it’s a fun game that has dice drafting, and then using those dice to do something, with the value of the die being used determining the cost of what you purchase. Plus the colour of the die comes into play in a later stage of the round.
Each round player order changes based on number crowns each player has accumulated that round.
You have a bit of engine building going on with the cards you purchase. Add in also trying to move a pawn round a map to collect bonus tiles, and racing up four influence tracks to try to have the most in each. This a lot to try and do with the three dice you draft.
It’s also only four rounds and plays very quickly.
It is a fun game.
History will record Marcin won on a technicality.
Along with Mini Rails the final cards of my two new decks arrived.
Those two incomplete decks got an outing on Tuesday just gone when Marcin and I play Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) using our Twin Suns decks. I suppose you could say that this was the SWU equivalent of the popular MtG singleton (one one copy of a card) format Highlander.
The two incomplete decks worked well. Or I should say as intended. So I have three Twin Suns decks. Marcin has two. Which means if we have a fourth player join us we can lend them a deck if they have no deck of their own.
I now need to write up these decks.
I’ve been so knackered this past six days. Work has been especially tiring.
So tired in fact I’ve been napping in the afternoon after getting home.
I suppose that’s the drawback of getting older.
Being so tired has meant I haven’t finished writing my thoughts on the Twin Suns deck I built. But being on two days of rest now I should get that post done now.
There have been one or two new arrivals that I’m eager to get to the table such as the new Stonemaier release Stamp Swap, the expansion for Apiary, plus the Rolling Realms expansions. Also Tribes of the Wind arrived. Hopefully I’ll get one of those to the table Friday at club night.
Once these two days of r&r are over it’s into a seven day tour of duty. What makes this worse is that there is no two day break at the end. I get just a single day to recover.
As I type this little update I ordered a McDelivery of a McD breakfast using up some of my loyalty points to get most of the order free. It’s a lazy way to start the two days but I feel I’ve earned it.
Catch you later.
Whilst I gather my thoughts about Tuesday’s games of Star Wars Unlimited using the Twin Suns multiplayer rules. I thought I’d share the photo I was messaged this morning.
A few weeks ago I messaged an artist I follow on Twitter/X. I really liked her art style and her previous art she’d shared. I asked her for a quote to turn the photo of Strider I took on Holkham beach at dawn way back in 2010 (iirc) into a painting.
Strider and I had spent the night sleeping on Holkham beach sand dunes on a hot balmy Summer’s night. We’d done about three quarters of a nine mile circular walk the previous afternoon, stopping on the dunes for the evening.
It was so warm I didn’t even bother setting up a shelter of any kind. I wasn’t expecting any rain.
Strider and I just chilled out in the dying embers of the evening as the sun set.
We woke early to the most amazing dawn I’ve ever witnessed. It truly was a magical scene that photos I took barely capture or do justice to.
After a brief discussion about what could be done and obviously trying to capture the photo on a different aspect ratio to my original stitched together image. I was quoted a price and gave the go ahead.
This morning the artist shared with me a photo of the finished water colour.
I’m speechless. I think she has done an amazing job capturing Strider, and that moment.
My eyes can’t stop leaking every time I look at this photo of the painting. I miss not only Strider but the other two members of my wolf pack Bud and Barney.
If you had asked me if a piece of art could move me so much before this I’d have said no.
I’ve looked at the original photo so many times and not had such a strong emotional reaction.
But today the waterworks have not stopped flowing.
I’m going to need a lot of snuggles from the two little monsters today.
I’ve given permission for the artist to sell prints of this if anyone is interested. You can contact them here on Twitter/X if interested in getting a copy. For the record I will get nothing from the sales. I want the artist to get all the proceeds. I have (or will have) the original and I’m happy with that. You can also visit the artists Etsy store here.
PS I am now planning to get paintings of Bud and Barney also done. I have an idea for the one of Bud. But not decided on Barney picture to use.
Wow I don’t think I’ve had this long between posts for like ever.
I’m most definitely still alive.
Gaming has taken place but I’ve been so tired from a six day tour of duty at work.
I’ve been getting home and barely getting the will power to do anything.
The times I have played something I’ve been limited to how late I could stay out. My curfew being earlier than Cinderella’s.
The having to get up about 4:30am each work day does take its toll if I’m not out like a light by 21:30 the latest.
Usually I get Tuesday and Saturday off. But holidays at work meant this week I had no Saturday off.
Six days without a day off is taxing. It drains you.
So that’s why I’ve not written anything for a few days. I wanted to. But the energy just wasn’t there.
Normal service will resume asap.
Here we are with yet another I’m still alive post.
I have partial posts about recent gaming sitting in the draft folder of the blogging app that I use.
But tiredness and apathy stop me finishing them off.
I get home and just want to shutdown.
Guilt hits me as I try to switch off.
I know there is stuff I could or should be doing.
But motivation is lacking.
I’m not going to go into the reasons why on here. But last Friday after finishing my shift I walked into the instore barbershop and had them shave off not only my hair but also my beard.
It’s been something like 15 years or more since I last was clean shaven.
I’m still not used to the face that looks back at me in the mirror. It’s taking sometime to get used to.
At work my friends and colleagues have been positive, agreed it’s a major change and I look younger.
For one or two I had to speak first before they realised it was me. Which was kinda funny.
The car is going to cost me more money because it needs new brakes. An expense I could do without with the purchase of the house going on.
I did have a good long chat with an old friend who I hadn’t spoken to for a long time the other night. It was good to catch up. There will not be such a long gap before our next time.
I am trying to work it so I can get out and spend a night under canvas (or should that be silnilon?). But not having consecutive days off makes the logistics and being able to go somewhere somewhat challenging.
Think I’ll call it a day there and catch you in the next post.