Gudbuy T'June

I know well

That the June rains...

Just fall

- Uejima Onitsura

There has been a fair bit going on in June, a month in which it was first very hot and then very wet, that I have forborne from posting about. For example I went to see the NT production of Salomé, which was visually impressive (notwithstanding the Guardian describing at as looking as if the Last Supper had been held in a branch of Yo Sushi!), but wasn't terribly entertaining. I hung out in pubs watching bands, saw my second production of 'Kiss Me Kate' of the year, went to both Sheffield and Barnsley, took part in the Otley walking festival and still found time for occasional trysts with the big bouncy woman. In honour of one of those items, here's another entry in the occasional series featuring bridges of the Yorkshire Dales; this one is the railway viaduct at Knaresborough as seen from the castle.

However, this is a wargaming blog so let's stick to that. There have been a couple of Italian Wars games using Pike & Shotte and about which James has written. I like the rules, although things do fall apart rather quickly once they start to go wrong. On the painting front I have achieved very little. I have completed another dozen WWI British riflemen, but other than that it has all been repair work. When I pack away a Napoleonic game I always do some labelling (on the underneath of the bases) and some rebasing and repairing. Some of the figures are fifteen years old or so and are showing their age. I find doing a few at a time after they have been used is more bearable than thinking about doing everything at once. And I have finally bitten the bullet and thrown away the gloss varnish that has been repeatedly causing problems; just a shame I didn't do it before I used it on the three units of Prussian Hussars. As for next month, I mentioned that I might set up a Great War game and therefore wargamer's logic has determined that I have assembled and primed some chariots.