Looking Forward to Vacation

Planning a trip to Maryland to visit an old family friend in the last week of August. Might see a couple museums or something, but likelier to just relax and shoot the breeze - I want to get away from work. At least this month I won't have to do storytime as the auditorium we normally do it in will have its air conditioner replaced. (As a hint to how chaotic a mere storytime and craft can be, we literally do not have room anywhere else in the branch for the 30-50 people we typically get for programs!)

I'll still have chess and occasional other boardgames to run, as they have few enough attendees that they can fit elsewhere. I've also been building my Warhammer Alliance minis in preparation for a painting program August 9. Like papercrafting, I find assembling the little guys to be enormously relaxing - I have 18 of 48 done so far. Though I may stop at the half that are fantasy, given the DnD theme of the event. I also have leftover elves, dwarves, goblins and Skaven from old Warhammer starter sets that will look more like DnD character miniatures than the Space Marines and Necrons also in the box. After building, I'll undercoat them with the one spray can I have, white. I prefer light brown for figures that may end up any color, but white will also allow kids to experiment with Contrast paints if they like. I am a bit torn as I don't know the numbers we'll get; most will be playing DnD and we have five seven-player tables planned, plus a couple other "background" activities. It might be best to just use the Warhammer Alliance stuff to keep things structured. There's a good chance we'll have an older crowd too, more amenable to instruction to thin their paints and clean their brushes. (I'll finally have a partner this time to help refill the water!)

I missed my goal of finishing the BEF minis. I have 16 built and ten armless/headless bodies based, plus the prone figures who I haven't decided yet whether (or how) to put on round bases. 

An officer conversion has a cuppa while his LDV comrades
look on. My brother shouldn't have any problem painting these;
He doesn't know much about WWII but he has watched Dad's Army.

I also built six more of the Zvezda trees, but am struggling with the bigger ones. May have to try to get some completed Merit ones after all.

Readingwise, I am working my way through Henry Hyde's Wargaming Compendium for the second time; again, I find his style of wargaming writing (shared by the writers of Charge!, The War Game, and 1990s-2000s White Dwarf to be relaxing. And I need that. Also working on David Drake and Eric Flint's Belisarius series, about four novels in.

Oh, and I just dropped off two old military posters to be framed. Now I just need a second bedroom to turn into a gaming den...