A Mercifully Quiet Christmas Week. . .

Another seasonal image for Christmas Week.  I wish we had some of the white stuff locally, but it seems to be heading north, or south of us.

A quiet Christmas Week here at Stollen Central thus far.  We've been enjoying the remaining Christmas treats and drinks without doing too much else, including painting, or setting up Neu Sittangbad once again.  Oh, sure.  The thought to do both is there, but it has simply been too nice having my feet mentally up for the last several days after all of the grading and administrative stuff earlier in the month along with Christmas preparations.  Know what I mean? Sadly, there is a syllabus for a new course and a small translation that need my attention, starting today, before the new academic term begins on January 9th.  Back to the salt mines!

However, I have placed an order with Amazon, thanks to a very generous gift card from Mom and Step-Dad, for Digby Smith's title on Seven Years War armies and uniforms.  I especially eager to see what the book has to say about the smaller contingents to had anything to do with the conflict since I have become a real fan of the smaller states involved in the conflict as well as the various elements that made up the Reichsarmee at one time or another.  I've also given some more to the planned scratch-built wagon and pontoon train that I'd hoped to tackle in 2012.  Looks like that will need to wait until (possibly) 2013 now, but I've got a much firmer idea of how I'll go about constructing the wagons, etc..

Of course, there are lots of wagons and equipment available in 25-28mm on the market, but some of them are kind of on the expensive side, and I don't necessarily care for the style of others, which strike me as kind of chunky and heavy, to say nothing of the accompanying horse tems, which seem kind of on the small side for what would have been, presumably, teams of draft horses (or oxen) in real life.  And, like many wargamers, I simply like making things myself.  So, scratch-built it will be, using RSM95 horses and spare wheels with, very probably, some Minden drivers.  The plan is for eight wagons and carts of various types, made from basswood and/balsa, along with, eventually, four pontoon wagons to carry pontoons and bridging sections.  More on this later next year when the painting table is cleared of the current projects in progress.

This image looks particularly cheerful and reminds me, in a way, of when my sister and I used to toboggan down the hill in the meadow at my maternal grandparents' house in Berks Country, Pennsylvania during the mid-1970s, back when Winter was WINTER.