Happy Ne'erday - 2019 roundup

Hi folks,

Hope everyone had a good Hogmanay and is having a good Ne'erday (New Years Day). My Steak Pie  (with sausages in - as per my mum used to do to make the expensive meat go further) is in the process of being cooked, with the scratch made mushy peas ready to go on closer to dinner time. Traditional Scots new years fare, which I am happy to have converted my lady wife to.

2019 has been a year of massive ups and downs for me. This time last year I couldn't have imagined the position I would be in now. Having accidentally discovered some old financial issues had been resolved at the start of the year, we were suddenly in a position to look at owning a house - something that even last new years seemed unimaginable. This was spurred on by the fact we found out in February we were pregnant after a long time trying. This led to a relatively limited amount of hobby spending this year as all spare money was diverted. Issues at work caused me some trouble in the first half of the year, impacting on my confidence - which is still having an impact on my enjoyment of the job. Hopefully moving forward this is something I can overcome.

Unfortunately we ended the year with a new house but without Joshua. This made last nights 'first foot' tradition particularly emotional.

At the same time, seeing what a difference a year can make, I am hopeful that in another years time things will have changed significantly again.

Looking back over my hobby productivity, I know I had a bumpy year. There was a gap from August till November where I did very little. Not something that can be helped, but there was a resultant impact on blog activity as well.

The first half of the year was driven in part by the planned June D-Day game and in part by my traditional 'Gunuary' which saw me focus on my British Normandy artillery vehicles. This led to a few side projects which included reworking decals on one of my 25-pdr batteries, painting landing craft, passengers and crew as well as revisiting deployed 6-pdrs and completing limbered versions.

Converted crew for my LCT

6 x LCA's plus passengers. 

SP Bofors, from  '1 Pulk Artylerii Przeciwlotniczej', the AA regiment of 1st Polish Armoured Division.

I painted two lots of 4 of these tractors. 

Re-worked 25-pdr unit, 28th (Highland) Field Regiment, 51st Highland Division. 

Re-visited gun battery of 25-pdrs, marked for 4th Field Regiment, RCA

Morris CDSW tractors for my 51st Highland Division 40mm Bofors. 

Towed 6-pdr guns, just cos they look cool on the table. 

Highlights added, re-based and re-worked 6-pdrs. Bringing one of my oldest units up to a better standard. 

I also put some effort into completing my Polish 24th Lancer force - which failed in part due to poor research on my behalf. As a result, my first Canadian armoured contingent was painted:

Polish Crusader AA tanks for my 24th Polish Lancers, 1st Polish Armoured Division. 

M3A3 Stuarts - from HQ Squadron, 10th Canadian Armoured Regiment (The Fort Garry Horse), 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. 

D-Day 'swimming' Shermans - probably from 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade

Landed Sherman DD's - as above. These will be rebased onto 60mm by 40mm bases. 

Morris CDSW recovery conversion - marked up as being from the LAD attached to 7th ASH of 154 Brigade, 51st Highland Division. 

D7 armoured dozer, marked up as being from the Royal Engineers 239 Field Park Company, part of 51st Highland Division

Another of my more whimsical projects... a NAAFI truck. 

Some German troops also saw the painting table, mainly to help with the big D-Day game:

And I completed upgrading my Sherman Crabs and adding another three to the unit:

Aside from the WW2 stuff, I painted a couple of 3mm Titans:

As well as some 600 Cold War Brits:

As mentioned, I had a bit of a gap in painting at the end of the year, but did manage to paint some units for my charity project for Joshua:

Much more is on the table for this project, but progress has been slow as I'm ashamed to admit I have been distracted by a poorly timed computer game purchase. Something which has helped me take a bit of a mental break over the holidays.

In amongst all of this, I managed to get along to several shows as well as visit Paris to help with Dave's figures being used to film a documentary. I also had an article published on the Battlefront website and have seen some comments from people on Facebook who had been directed to this by other people and found it useful, which is nice.

Thanks to everyone who has commented or visited the blog or Facebook page in the last year, and all those who have and are helping with the Joshua project.

All the best for 2020,

James