Open the box ...

Because yesterday was quite a busy one, I did not have time to have anything other than a cursory glance at the contents of the package that I picked up from the local Post Office sorting office yesterday morning.

This morning I managed to unpack the package, and this is what it contained:

I now have enough American Civil War Union figures to easily form an blue-clad Infantry Regiment, and as far as I can see, the additional Confederate troops should enable me to form a second Infantry Regiment that will be clad in grey uniforms. I have also acquired a couple of Gatling Machine Guns, which will considerably enhance the Cordeguayan Army's firepower.

All I am waiting for is some cavalry, and the Cordeguayan Army will be pretty well complete.

Long live Cordeguay!

Cut-price Cowboys and Indians

I finally go around to opening one of the bags of cheap Cowboys and Indians that I bought yesterday in Herne Bay.

Besides the wagon (which also has two rather small horses or ponies to pull it), the bag contains two lengths of fencing (which might prove very useful), a spare pony and Indian rider, and mixture of Cowboys and Indians of rather poor quality.

Still, for £2.49 a bag, they seem to me to have been quite good value, and the wagons will certainly do until I can acquire something better.

Even more reinforcements

On the way to visit my father-in-law in Herne Bay this morning, I stopped off to pick up a package from the local Post Office sorting office. I was not able to open it until I got home just a few minutes ago, but when I did I found that it contained a large number of American Civil War Britains Deetail toy soldiers that I had bought last week in an Ebay auction.

But there is more; whilst I had been out, the ordinary post had delivered a smaller package that contained another batch of Britains Deetail Apaches ... enough for another regiment of irregular light infantry.

But there is even more; whilst I was in Herne Bay, I popped into a toy shop and found two bags of cheap Cowboys and Indians on sale for £2.49 each. Part of the contents of each bag was a covered wagon ... so I bought both bags. The figures may have some uses, but the wagons give me the basis of a supply train for my FUNNY LITTLE WARS army.

All-in-all, it has been a good day so far, and my Army of Cordeguay is beginning to take shape.

More reinforcements

When I got home there were two more small packages of American Civil War Union Britains Deetail toy soldiers waiting for me ... and a card from the Post Office telling me that another parcel was waiting for me at the local sorting office (so I know where I will be going first thing tomorrow morning!).

The first package I opened contained an officer, a standard bearer, an infantryman standing and firing, an infantryman kneeling and firing, and an infantryman loading his musket. The second package comprised an officer, a standard bearer, two infantrymen standing and firing, two infantrymen kneeling and firing, and two infantrymen loading their muskets. I now have a total of nineteen Union infantrymen of all types, and this is almost enough to form an Infantry Regiment.

What is interesting to note is that figures that at first glance appear to be the same are in fact subtly different. In the case of the firing infantrymen, some have a moulded on right arm and some have an arm that is kept in place by a plug that fits into the body. They also have slightly different colour schemes. For example, none of the officers has the same uniform! One has dark blue trousers and the other two have light blue trousers ... but one of them has a yellow stripe up the seam of the trousers!

As a result my army is already looking a bit 'rough and ready', and as further batches of troops are added to the collection, this trend will no doubt continue.

The end of the week is almost here ...

It is Friday afternoon, and I have just finished eating my lunch. All I have to do before I leave and go home is to collect some work from another member of staff so that I can assess it over the weekend, and do my break duty. The latter involves standing outside the main entrance and making sure that the smokers (who have to stand outside the gates to indulge their habit) do not run amok!

Other than doing the assessment work, I hope that the rest of the weekend will be spent doing things that I want to do rather than have to do ... although I suspect that a large part of Saturday will be spent dealing with my father-in-law's domestic problems.

If the deliveries of further Britains Deetail toy soldiers continue to take place at their current rate, I should have quite a sizable FUNNY LITTLE WARS army by Monday. I also want to have a fresh look at my PORTABLE WARGAME rules. I have left the latter alone for over a fortnight, and when I go back to them it will be with a somewhat fresher eye ... and although this might mean that I tinker with them a bit (Sorry Conrad Kinch!), I hope that I will be reading a set of rules that are just about as developed as they are ever going to be. If I manage to do that, it will have been a weekend well spent.

Reinforcements

The first of my American Civil War Britains Deetail toy soldiers arrived in the post today. The six figures are Union infantry and include an officer, two men loading their muskets, one standing and firing, one kneeling and firing, and one advancing with his musket held across his body.

This is the first of several parcels that should be arriving over the next week or two, and I will keep my regular blog readers (and the Forbodian Intelligence Service) up to date with what each parcel contains as and when it arrives.

My Funny Little Wars army: The Army of Cordeguay

My recent buying spree on Ebay was not as haphazard as it might appear to have been. Having decided that I wanted my FUNNY LITTLE WARS army to be a late nineteenth century South American one, it set the parameters for the figures I needed to buy. My first choice of figures were those from the American Civil War as the style and colour schemes were reasonably close to those used by most South American armies of the period. (Most had French-style dark blue uniforms with red or dark blue kepis and trousers, although some had grey uniforms.)

I also had a rough plan of the units that I wanted to raise. These included:

• An Regular Infantry Regiment
• A Reserve Infantry Regiment
• A Light Infantry Regiment
• A Cavalry Regiment
• An Field Artillery Battery
• A Heavy Artillery Battery
• Commander and Headquarters Staff

My purchases should enable me to raise all the Infantry Regiments I need (plus an additional Irregular Light Infantry Regiment), half the Cavalry Regiment, and some spare figures that I can use for a Headquarters Guard and Artillery crew. In the long run I hope to acquire more accurate figures for the Artillery, but until then Infantry figures will have to suffice.

Not a bad start ... but there is still a way to go yet.

My Funny Little Wars army: The first unit ... almost!

As I wrote in a recent blog entry, I have begun to raise my army for the forthcoming FUNNY LITTLE WARS battle that will be fought at COW2011.

I decided that my troops would – wherever possible – be raised from the range of Britains Deetail toy soldiers that are still available from various sources. I made this decision because I did not think that I would have the time to buy and paint a sufficiently large force and it is my homage – however small – to the Britains troops that H G Wells used in his original battles.

By a stroke of luck I have been able to buy several 'lots' of suitable Britains Deetail toy soldiers on Ebay ... and the first batch arrived in the post today.

Now my army is going to be a South American army – the Army of Cordeguay – and as such it will have a mixture of units. The first 'unit' I have recruited is an irregular Light Infantry unit ... of Indians ... that I have decided to call Infantry Regiment Los Indios Colorados (not because they are 'Red' Indians [Apaches, to be exact], but because they wear a red and yellow 'uniform'). Once some officer and standard bearer figures arrive, the Regiment will be complete.

Infantry Regiment Los Indios Colorados

Long Live Cordeguay!

Apology for moaning ...

Just a quick blog entry to apologise for yesterday's 'moan'. Re-reading it, it seemed a bit self-indulgent but I hope that regular blog readers will realise that the actual act of writing it helped me get a feeling of melancholy out of my system.

In actual fact, after writing that entry, the day got better. True, my drive to Cheshunt in Hertfordshire to attend a meeting was worse than normal (they have just begun major road works at junction of two roads that I have to use and the traffic jam was several miles long), but the greeting and feeling of general goodwill that I got when I finally arrived there lifted my spirits and made me feel much, much better.

Aren't friends (and their support) wonderful? ... and I include all the people who have written comments in reply to yesterday's blog entry amongst that group. I may not have ever met you, but your support is – as ever – always very much appreciated.

Back to work after the long weekend ...

The past weekend should have been restful ... but it wasn't. I seemed to spend quite a lot of my time visiting my father and father-in-law, and this required me to drive along some of the UK's most crowded roads when the traffic levels that they were carrying were at their greatest! When I wasn't doing that, I was doing some of the household chores that have been piling up recently. As a result, I was tired before I even began work today ... and today, like every other Tuesday, began with the weekly Staff Briefing.

As you can probably guess, any meeting that starts at 8.20am (when normal starting time is 8.45am) is not going to be well attended, and today's was no exception. So to call it a Staff Briefing is a bit of a misnomer when a large number of the staff are not there. In addition, it is never Brief, which is another reason why I would argue that it is misnamed.

Of particular interest today was the section of the Briefing that related to the future of the school. It appears that the level of the school’s debt has risen … again … and that redundancies cannot be avoided. I know that my contract is not going to be renewed and that natural wastage will reduce the staff numbers as well … but it appears that this will still not be enough to bring the overall costs down to a level where the debt will not increase. In addition, the target number of students we need to recruit in order to be financially viable is over seven hundred … but achieving such a high recruitment level is going to be very difficult.

So I started my day tired, and disheartened … and things did not get much better as the day progressed. I am currently sitting in my office waiting for some students to arrive so that I can put on an additional, unpaid lesson to help them catch up. They should have been here thirty minutes ago … but so far only one has arrived. At the end of the year it will be my fault that they failed, not theirs because they could not be bothered to make the required effort.

It is only ten more weeks before I am out of a job … and probably out of teaching for good. There was a time when I would have hated that prospect; now, it cannot seem to come too soon!