Recent (and forthcoming) arrivals

Despite the school term beginning again this week it's been quite a forward looking introduction to September at house Prufrock. A copy of Quartermaster General arrived from Amazon Japan (via The Book Depository) and I'm very excited about getting some people together and trying it out.

An upside of our brave new Amazonion world is that the shipping from Europe cost only 300 yen (about US$2.60), saving roughly US$30 on what it would have cost to order it from the States. Yay, a short-term win! The downside is that all those lovely old bookshops are now either going or gone, and on Amazon here ebooks are replacing English-language paperbacks (but assuming their price point!).

One almost feels formulated on a pin...

Anyway, to leave that digression behind, progress has also been made on the painting front. We are 30 Norman knights and 20 odd foot figures to the good, but I don't have pictures because the weather has prevented varnishing. My religion forbids me to flock bases pre-varnish, so we'll have to wait until the heat and humidity relents a little more before showing the troops in their dipp'd glory.

We also have another set of arrivals, this time from a TMPer: some shield transfers for Macedonians, Spartans and other odds and ends. A further TMPer order should arrive in the next wee while. The mix of Crusades-era Syrians and assorted Dark Age foot was a curiosity I could not resist and should prove a handy addition to my Dark Ages project and its sibling: Crusaders and enemies.

That's about all I have to report at the moment.

But it's been a funny old week. I am both very glad that my little son is safe sleeping in his bed tonight and heartsick that a littler boy who looks almost exactly like him was lost drowned washed up by waves on a beach.

And this while I await the arrival of 15mm Syrian horse from foreign shores (and label a blog post miscellaneous).

Here's no great matter indeed.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.