Rain and rest

While the earthquakes in NZ trump anything happening here, I still had a nervous weekend, vicariously, as my mother's place in NE Victoria was under threat from floods as rivers rose alarmingly all over the state. My sister and her family had gone up to visit her and go to the snow, but due to the state of the weather and imminent threat of floods, they stayed and helped Mum sandbag the house which is just across the road from a branch of the river that flows through the town. Saturday night they received the official robot call from the emergency services to evacuate and spent the night in the local sports centre. Luckily they took the bag that had all the Father's Day presents for my nephews to give to my brother-in-law! The house survived and fingers crossed the worst has passed.

Yes, Sunday was Fathers' Day here in Australia and I had a nice relaxing day courtesy of my kids serving me breakfast in bed and giving me the artwork they'd been busy working on all week, and my wife who gave me the day off from the usual weekend chores. I managed to put the finishing touches on my terrain boards and started painting up the Italeri stone wall set I bought last week (below, from Italeri website).

Terrain mat.
Since this picture, I've reflocked the edges, joins and some mangy patches in the centre that may not be so noticeable in this photo.

I've come to a bit of a halt figure painting-wise as my last battalion of Portuguese is taking me a long time to finish. I've only got 3 more figures to paint, so it shouldn't really be taking me that long to finish, but I can't seem to find the time at the moment. I will knuckle under and try to finish them this week, then start on the 13th Light Dragoons.

This Friday I'll be using Tim's Austrians to get some game practice for our big New Year Battle which in 2011 will be the 201st anniversary refight of Aspern-Essling. Hardly ever having played Austrians before this'll be a learning expeience for me. I also hope to give the terrain tiles their first outing, too.

Another bit of news that I haven't passed on was that our campaign came to a close and my team was the most successful in conquering territory and raising armies, so as a consequence, we were declared the winners! Huzzah!