another week, another show : SELWG

 It's been a rather unusual seven ( or eight )  days,  I've been to two wargame shows! Last Sunday the extravaganza the was The Other Partizan -   this Sunday, the slightly more low-key SELWG, at LeaValley Leisure Centre in London. Here is a view of the hall as I arrived, about 11:00am:

traditional 'games in the middle, traders round the edge' formation

Notice a small patrol of Imperial Stormtroopers moving among the punters - maybe picking up some model TIE fighters?   I like the venue, it is the very definition of a light-filled  and spacious area, albeit slightly unusual to have to walk across a running track to reach the central area! Plenty of room for all the games and traders, with the busy  'bring and buy' in the separate upper area - and I think, some further  (possibly competition) games going on in another higher-level area.  Plenty of games to look at, of course, and I photographed some of them, so I will show them in more or less the order I saw them:

First up a nice big ancients game - Hydaspes 326BC, Alexander vs Porus of course, put on by Newbury and Reading Wargames Society and using Warlord Advance Guard rules ( from Caliver Books ).   Alexander and his Macedonians on the left with nice big pike phalanx, Porus and his Indians on the right with an impressive array of elephants! Having just taken far too long to paint about 50 figures for Alexander's army in DBA, I somehow doubt I will ever reach this level.. though once the Persians are done, I think an Indian force has to be next? 

Hydaspes - early doors

 

Nice Macedonian Phalanx

..and those lovely Elephants

On a slightly less grandiose scale, the Society of Ancients ran a Roman Civil War game, Thapsus 46BC, using Impetus rules. I was interested in this, having recently taken part in one of Jon Frietag's remote games using his adaptation of  Basic Impetus  ( see his report - I was utterly destroyed in short order, but it was still great fun! ). The SoA guys were very friendly and happy to chat about the game, and some of the differences in the full version of the rules, so it was pretty interesting. I confess I didn't go into too much detail of my recent experience with Jon's game, in case they had seen his blog ( oh, you were that guy..! ). 

Society of Ancients: Thapsus 46BC  'Impetus'

 Milton Hundred Wargames Club brought a 'Third World War' 1980s game Endlich! Die Letzte Brucke!  ( Finally! The Last Bridge!' ), I think using Team Yankee rules.  I'm always impressed with the huge numbers of track-to-track tanks in such games, but have slight questions about how 'realistic' that would have been? Looked impressive, anyway!

Milton Hundred's 1980s Cold War

Another fine table from Shepway Wargames Club, Dornier Down  : 'September 1940, somewhere in Kent between Lydd, Ashford and Hythe' - with the German invasion of Britain under way, German paratroopers try to free a German high-ranking intelligence officer captured by the Home Guard when his Do17 crashed.  

Dornier Down..

 

at the other end, Germans advance to the rescue

Too Fat Lardies were out in force with three games, one of which was the Dave Brown Memorial Game, a nice-looking large scale Napoleonics game using General d’Armee 2. Simple but effective terrain, I liked that big central hill.

TooFat Lardies Napoleonics

SEEMS ( South East Essex ) usually do something interesting, this time it was a Franco-Prussian War 'large skirmish' type game 'Nach Paris' which used The Men Who Would Be Kings rules - which of course are designed for Colonial settings. But they are the right period, they were simply pitting two European regular forces against each other rather than Europeans vs indigenous forces. That seems quite a neat idea.  Also nice to see the scenario was essentially taken from Charles S. Grant's vintage Table Top Teaser  'Reserve Demolition' - I think I still have the edition of Battle For Wargamers where that scenario made its public debut! 

SEEMS Franco-Prussian 'Colonial' game - clever stuff!

The Retired Wargamers Reloaded group having wowed us all with their Carentan 1944 game at shows last year,  are now back with a new game 'Hold Until Relieved',  depicting Pegasus Bridge on D-Day. 

Retired Wargamers Reloaded : Pegasus Bridge 1944

 

Well, they have done it again, a really great layout - they told me all the buildings are 3D-printed and represent the real buildings at the actual scene. 15mm scale, and gamed with Rapid Fire Reloaded. They won a very well-deserved 'best in show' prize - watch out for this at future shows ( they will be at Salute 2024, I assume!).  Sadly I managed to miss meeting my old gaming friend Tony who is part of the 'RWR' group, I just happened to always be passing their table when he'd gone to lunch or whatever! We'll catch up at a future event, no doubt - I will certainly be interested to see how this ( not quite finished yet, I gather) excellent setup develops. I need no excuse to include a few more pictures of this game:

Gliders landed bang on the objective..

..but bad news for this Dakota

I really liked the way the troops and vehicles subtly merge into the scenery ( just like their real-life equivalents would want to ) and then you come across interesting little scenes, like this column of German half-tracks moving up in response..   

All in all a really nice-looking game, do look out for it! 

Another nice-looking game was 'Escape from Distraction' by The League of Anti-Alchemist Cowboys (are these group names getting a bit out of hand, do you think?) - 'Distraction' being the Wild West town from which various ne'er-do-wells needed to escape, pursued by the forces of law and order and regulated by What a Cowboy rules.

A town called 'Distraction'

Now the next one doesn't look so much, but was a very interesting idea - Mr. John Kersey (1/72 Wargames) with his  Defence of Duffer's Drift 1900 , a game of the well-known book on Boer War tactics. Sadly his gaming buddy had gone sick, so John was not actually running the game, but happy to talk about it, and it seems to me an excellent idea - the book being after all, a sort of instructional manual, why not make it into a game and let readers or potential readers see how they might fair?  John mentioned that he had been invited to take the game to Salute in 2024, I look forward to seeing it there!

Duffers Drift - work in progress, but v. interesting!

Zulu Kraals are very 'in' this year

Central London Wargames Club were demonstrating their new edition Napoleonic rules Emperor of the Battlefield (by club member Ian Godwin)  and were most enthusiastic and engaging, even when I confessed ( to general mock-horror ) that I don't play Napoleonics!  

Central London Club's Rules

 

..and clever dual-purpose table setup

 

As you can see there was a central game table with a 28mm battle, but also two 'side-tables' with 15mm setups, which were used for ad-hoc demonstrations of rules mechanisms. I was immediately given a pair of dice to roll as a unit of cavalry proposed to charge an infantry unit in march column,  on the side table, and I have to say my dice-rolling caused the foot to fail to form square, and subsequently rout!  It was a nice way to involve viewers and show the ( gratifyingly simple ) mechanisms of the rules; full marks for engagement with the wargaming public!

Palestine 1938: Green Howards advance

 

.. and finally, another 'always interesting' group are Deal Wargames Associaton with their 'WW2 or thereabouts'  games - this time A Crown of Thorns, the Green Howards in Beit Faruk, Palestine 1938 depicting an incident in the Arab rebellion against the British mandate in Palestine in 1938, and inspired by the official history of the Green Howards regiment.  The excellent explanatory leaflet (another speciality of this group) says the game 'pits overwhelming firepower, mechanised forces and artillery against a lightly-armed but wily enemy fighting in his own back yard'.  All very sadly topical, I suppose.

Air power to the fore again - good!

  

view from the Arab side

As usual I was pleased to see some nice aircraft over the table - with 20th-Century scenarios you really can't not have air power involved, surely? The period setting just before WW2 made things interesting, with Gloster Gladiators and a Vickers Wellesley making up the RAF strike force, and the same pre-war and non-European environment made for a nicely unusual selection of troops and equipment - all good fun. The game was played with Rapid Fire ( 2nd Edition ) rules, which seemed to suit the relatively limited scale of the forces and should also allow brisk play. 

And that's all I photographed - of course there were quite a few more games! The program listed 37 games in all, so I have showed less than 1/3 of them.  I should probably apologise, I'm afraid I don't really 'get' Fantasy and Sci-Fi games, so I tend  not to feature those  unless espeically interesting or spectacular looking, admittedly I have thus ruled out another 1/3 of the games present.  There was perhaps a slightly  subdued feeling to the atmosphere at the show, but that maybe just my impression, formed by the tendency to compare with the Partizan extravaganza only seven days before.Actually I think the spacious hall made for a much lower 'population density' which was much more relaxing!  Always good to meet and chat with other gamers of course, and I was pleased to bump into David Crook of Wargaming Odyssey fame, we had a good talk and he introduced me to his friend Nick Huband, who showed us  pictures of his  fantastic collection of vintage Peter Laing 15mm WW1 figures - David and I urged him to show them to the wider world on a blog!  Nick's rules for 'Portable WW1'  gaming are included in Bob Cordery's recent  Second Portable Wargame Compendium .     

 As well as 37 games, the program listed 36 traders, and a little light shopping was duly undertaken: 

Persian painting inspiration

 

and what to do with those Persians

pure nostalgia

What a show looked like back then..

..and what the games looked like

As you can see, this ran to a vintage Osprey (very cheap indeed) from the assorted book box at Stonewall Figures, which will give some more inspiration for painting my Persian DBA army,  an expansion for Helion/Philip Garton's  Three Ages of Rome rules which covers Alexander and his successors with army lists and scenarios ( at a bargain price from Paul Meekins books ) and last but not least a lovely bit of pure nostalgia in the form of Shire Publications pocket-sized Discovering Wargames  by John Tunstill, in a 1970 edition. It's an interesting read - within the first couple of pages we are into a quite detailed discussion of ground and time scales for wargames! As you can see, some very 'period' pictures of games too, and a flashback to what wargames shows looked like 55 years ago.. 

Also bought, but not pictured ( just not photgenic )  was a 15cwt Truck, a Bedford QLT and a Bren Carrier (with Indian crew - very useful)  all resin models  from Grubby Tanks for my 20mm WW2 in Italy 'D-Day Dodgers' - I am going for a lorried Indian infantry battalion, so these are try-outs for that, and will hopefully appear on this blog when assembled and painted.  Finally my first 'Speed/Contrast' paint - in a suitable shade of brown as a trial for painting horses  with a bit of contrast, but quickly. To be tried out on the Persians - we'll see how it goes!

All in all a good day at the show, I'd always recommend SELWG if you can get there without too long a trip! I spent a good 4 hours there and could have spent longer, if I had gone for a participation game as well - something I must get round to at a future show. Can I book a place on Duffers Drift at Salute? Many thanks, of course, to everyone involved in running SELWG and its games and traders.  

*** UPDATE **** SELWG have posted their list of prize-winning games as follows: 

Best in Show - Retired Wargamers Reloaded - 'Hold Until Relieved'

Best Participation Game - Prince Rupert's Bluecoats - 'It's a Funny Old Game'

Best Demo Game - Deal Wargamers - 'Uprising in Palestine 1938'

Best Scenery - Milton Hundred Wargames Club - 'Endlich! Die Letzte Brücke!'

All except one of which I managed to include in my report - I seem to remember  Prince Rupert's Bluecoats were 'on a break' when I passed by, should have gone back.  I think it was a game depicting  one of those traditional  English 'football' matches where the whole village joins in and it turns into a drunken brawl - an ideal subject!  

Back to normal reading/painting/gaming now and in future posts, with inspiration somewhat boosted by two good shows in two weekends. Until then keep well, everyone. 

 

SELWG 2022 : A Good Day

The other Sunday I had the pleasure of attending SELWG 2022, at the Lea Valley Athletics Centre in Norrh-East London.

As you can see, it's rather a splendid venue, no shortage of space and quite an improvement on the old location at Crystal Palace.  I met up with my old buddy Dave ( St Cyr on Wheels ), and we followed our usual habit - toured the games first, then a spot of lunch, and finally a look at the trade stands, and a little retail therapy/essential purchasing.  I took a few photos of games that looked good, as follows :

SEEMS - Battle of Britain

South East Essex Military Society ( SEEMS ) put on a rather nice-looking Battle of Britain game entitled Attack of Eagles  - the aircraft were 1/144 scale ( Revell, I think they said ). Luftwaffe Ju-88s and Me109s crossed the British coast, as some of 'The Few' come to meet them.  

'Retired Wargamers Reloaded' had a splendid WW2 game Eagles and Lions at Carentan ( 15mm,  I think? ).  It looked lovely, and that church was quite something! The Germans were defending in depth, and as you surveyed the battlefield, more and more concealed A/T guns and other defensive positions became apparent - just as it should be!  

Carentan - allies advance on the splendid model town

German defenders: quite a few A/T guns lurking here  

Deal Wargames Society showed  Luxembourg 1940 - something of a walkover, one would imagine, Panzer Divisions vs. the 'home guard' of a medium-sized town, in effect!  

Deal wargamer's Luxembourg 1940

There was some help from the French Armee de l'Air, however.  I liked the bomber (below), but I am still  struggling to identify it, even  after spending far too long on Wikipedia looking at French bombers 1939-45..

I'm told it's a Potez 63-11...

The League of Gentlemen Anti-Alchemists - Ducrot's Day Out was a 'Sharpe Practise'  Napoleonic game with excellent figures and scenery 

Shepway Warganes Club's Cold War game   Hahausen 89 looked great too, I liked the typically Germanic wooded terrain ( we all need more trees, I reckon )  and a brilliant model of a Russian missile-launching AFV in action!

The Society of Ancients are always reliable, they had the Battle of Gaza 312BC, using Impetus rules. I must say I always liked those big pike blocks and elephants etc, if I ever venture into Ancients I think Alexander and his Successors would be my choice.  ( 'dipping a toe' into it with  DBA's small  armies is on the increasingly long wish-list ).  

Gaza 312 - phalanxes get stuck in

Prince Rupert's Bluecoats had The Storming of Bristol ( ECW ) using Donnybrook rules, they were very friendly and happy to chat and the layout  looked good. The players were in period costume ( I think perhaps they take their name from the Sealed Knot regiment that they are members of ? ) and I liked the 'old school' trope of leaving 'casualties' lying on the table, giving a sort of visual guide to how the fighting had ebbed and flowed. 

Storming Bristol  ( + player's hand, oops! )

 

Too Fat Lardies were out in force, running several games with their rules. One was Strength and Honour Spartacus revolt  in 2mm ( I'm sure that when recruiting players, they could not resist asking 'who is Spartacus...' )   

Now in principle the idea is great, the rules are very well-regarded, I think, and I did wonder about trying 2mm - but somehow, the look of it left me a bit cold, and I think it is due to the tiny figures. Of course it's great to represent whole Legions as units, but they are just a bit too minute for my taste. It may be a trivial thought, but I wondered if perhaps a bit more bright colours - flags, standards etc - would help, or if Napoleonics with their vibrant coloured uniforms might work better?  This is of course only personal taste. 

Close-up of 2mm Legions

Also from the 'Lardies, a 'Chain of Command' game - The Northern Perimeter at Oosterbeek 1944. Fantastic scenery and models! 

Too Fat Lardies 'Chain of Command'

 'And finally'..  Milton Hundred Wargames Club showed a Vietnam game, which had an interesting concept of fighting in 'The Delta' - US patrol boats on a search and destroy mission against the Vietnamese. It made for an intriguing combination of land and water-borne movement, and made it difficult for those on land to move around since they were forced to cross bridges to reach the next island, and were very vulnerable while doing so.  Sadly I forgot what the rules were...but it was really interesting. 

Milton Hundred - from the Swale 'Delta' to the Mekong

 

There were loads more games, of course, I just couldn't photograph them all ( I admit I have a blind spot with Fantasy/Sci Fi - sorry! ) . Of course other bloggers will have posted masses of pictures of the show - Tamsin at  Wargaming Girl especially has a comprehensive set, I think she managed to photograph every single game!   Special mention to one I forgot to photograph - Tunbridge Wells Wargames Club using 'Paperboys'  paper model Trafalgar-era ships for an 18th Century Naval Battle Spanish Gold.  A great alternative to what can be pretty expensive ship models in some proprietory rules systems/games. Dave has the Paperboys Trafalgar book and a taste for the age of sail, and it got him thinking.  

We broke for lunch - the one issue we had with the show was that I think  there were only three catering vans, one doing  Burgers, one Greek Souvlaki etc, one for teas and coffees. With a rumoured 700+ visitors, the queues for food got pretty long and slow-moving - although I'd concede that there might not have been much room for more caterers.  There was however, plenty of seating available, with the banks of spectator seats around the running track in the main hall as well as some tables outside.

After lunch, a selective  tour of the trade stands. My biggest purchase was not at all photogenic, being a pack of self-adhesive magnetic paper from Magnetic Displays. These should allow me to make unit bases for my Pike and Shot infantry, which are based in ones, twos and threes to allow flexibility of regiment/battalia/tercio size, but are a bit of a pain to move on the table with lots of small bases! The plan is to mount all the small groups of figures on magnetic paper, then use steel paper to make unit-size movement bases at whatever size is required. I could also line the storage boxes with steel paper, for safer storage. So, I was pleased with that purchase, saving the P&P.

I am still picking up odds and ends ( in a completely unplanned way ) for the 'D-Day Dodgers' ( WW2 in Italy ),  and I noticed that a couple of traders did 20mm Indian Army, so I bought a few samples - Sikh, Gurkha and Rajputan command groups ( 4 figures per pack ) from SHQ, and a pack of  6 Gurkha riflemen from the Combat Miniatures range sold by Stonewall Figures, whose proprietor had come all the way from Cornwall. Both traders very pleasant to deal with, and the figures look nice. More for the painting backlog.. 

Test-purchases: Indian Army from SHQ ( left ) and Stonewall

On the same theme, the 1:72 Model Figures stand usually produces something, and this time it was Italians - a must for an Italian campaign, and they can fight on both sides!  This set from Strelets are probably more suited to the North African campaign, I admit ( those with sun helmets and feathers might not be so useful to me ! )  but I'm glad to have them, they will fit in somewhere. The box art is interesting - I wonder if the makers have pasted-in the faces of friends/colleagues onto the picture?  

 

Last but not least, a visit to Helion's stall and a nice chat with the guys there, who I had spoken to before at their 'Festschrift' for Christopher Duffy, and I came away with a copy of Barry Hilton's new book about wargaming the late 17th Century,  Every Bullet Has Its Billet.   Not sure I will ever actually game this period, but having seen some reviews it just looked to be a good read! The author pays tribute to Charles S Grant's From Pike to Shot which covered a similar period,  and which I have a treasured copy of - but I think Barry covers a wider range of armies, and gives quite a lot of space to Naval affairs too, of which he is an afficianado.  Lots of really nice pictures of figures and ships etc, and it looks to be a good introduction to a lot of different armies and conflicts. It feels like a similar concept to George Gush's lovely old Renaissance Armies from the 1970s, and I think it will be a worthwhile piece of reading. I will try not to get tempted by figures for the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth just yet, though..

 

And that was about that.  having arrived about 10:30 am, I said my goodbyes to Dave as we left at about 3:30 pm - the time had positively flown. Having arrived quite early, I had wondered if I might give a participation game a go, but there just wasn't time ( probably too much time on shopping! ) . So that will have to wait for another time. Having got the show 'bug' again, I am wondering about 'Warfare' at Farnborough next month...

I hope you've enjoyed reading about SELWG 2022, I certainly enjoyed visiting it, and many thanks to all involved with the organisation of the day.  Next time,  some thoughts on In Deo Veritas rules, and a look at Twilight of the Divine Right, which cover a similar period and format of game, so comparisons will be interesting. Meanwhile keep well, everyone.

SELWG ( or NELWG? )

I was at the SELWG show on Sunday. Normality returns? Not quite, but it's a start. 

 

Like many others, my last show attendance had been SELWG 2019 at Crystal Palace. The venue was changed this year, surprisingly to North London,  at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre.  This turned out to be pretty decent, I thought -  the main space is an indoor running track arena with a high arched glass roof,and lots of spectator seating, which came in handy.  The games and trade stands easily fitted inside the area of the track. The program listed about 30 games and 50 traders - though there may have been one or two no-shows (most notably it was announced that one of the two catering vans due to attend had been stolen the night before!).  I don't know what the official attendance numbers were, but maybe it felt a bit quieter than previous years, and I suppose that's not surprising.  I felt almost no concern about social distancing, the space felt so - well, spacious (I'll admit I walked into the main hall and immediately discarded my face covering ).  

Night manoeuvres, 1685 style

 

 There were some fun games, the most unusual being 'Moon Over Sedgemoor' by the Prince Rupert's Bluecoats group,  This simulated Monmouth's night-march to attack the Royal army, by the device of covering up the terrain that the rebels needed to cross.Thus they wouldn't know if they were about to run into a wall, or a dyke, or other obstacle until they hit it - and then perhaps made enough noise to alert the Royal sentries.   Note how the scenery is all painted in dark 'night-time' tones - nice touch.  A worthy 'Best in Show' winner, I think ( see 'Iron Mitten' blog for more ).

 

In old ( 1930s ) Siam

I also liked 'Shall We Dance? The Boworadet Rebellion, Siam 1933'  by Deal Wargames - and they win 'best explanatory leaflet' with a really nicely-produced 8-page illustrated booklet. They used 'Rapid Fire' rules, about which more later.  There were special rules for units being charged by elephants or buffalo!

 

2mm scale? hmmm...

A bit of a first for me was  a battle in  ( I think ) 2mm scale - Mark Backhouse's 'Bibracte 58BC' participation game  using his 'Strength and Honour' rules.  Judging by the vocal hubbub from the players, it was going down well -  but I'll admit that the armies looked a bit 'brown blob' for my taste. I really like the idea of playing large battles with small figures, but maybe my limit is going to be 6mm. 

 

GLC Gamers SCW: note 'decisive moment' of die roll

I failed to take many pictures, to be honest, but another quite nice-looking table  was this Spanish Civil War game put on by the GLC Games Club - who have lasted much longer than the GLC, it seems!  This one wasn't listed in the program ( there were a few changes, perhaps unsurprisingly ), and I'm not sure of the rules they were using - was it maybe  Osprey's  'A World Aflame'?  Other honourable mentions must go to The Society of Ancients'  'Battle of Trebbia 218BC' using Impetus;   Cheshunt Wargames Club 'Battle for Hoa Binh, Indochina 1951' in 6mm; and South London Warlords good old reliable 'Stingray' game - do they make the naval peaked caps larger for every outing? 

( Other bloggers have of course taken loads more pictures, in particular see Ray Roussel's 'Don't Throw a 1' and  'Big Lee's Miniature Adventures' which has a 10 minute video, no less. ) 

Obviously, after 2 years with no such events, one of the best aspects of the day was a bit of social contact, and the ability to chat to fellow gamers.  It was a pleasure to  meet my old buddy Dave (aka St Cyr on Wheels )  for the first time since February 2020 , and to  renew our customary  'Stadtler and Waldorf go to the SELWG show'  routine.  Apart from chatting to some of the game hosts, we had a nice chinwag with the chap from Mili-Art, who did a great job of painting  Dave's Napoleonic armies a couple of years ago.  Better still, we also met up with that most excellent blogger and generous commenter  Nundanket, and had a good yarn over coffee/tea. The other two live fairly close to each other, so there could perhaps be scope for gaming..  Nundanket  ( can I call you Chris? )  also made me a most generous gift of some metal Spencer-Smith figures , which will fit in nicely to my 'Portable 7YW' forces.

These were apparently the remnants of a failed  attempt by another friend to tempt him away from 6mm scale a few years ago! Anyway they are great, and will make at least one 'Portable Wargame' Infantry unit ( complete with Grenadier company ); the horsemen may become officers.  A very kind gesture, thank you very much!

Of course no show visit would be complete without a little shopping. Usually any purchases I make at shows are happy accidents/mad impulse buys,  but this time  I had managed to compile a short list, and even managed to score most of it, with only one spur-of-the-moment extra. 

First a couple of additions to the 'D-Day Dodgers' collection for Italy 1943-1945: 

 Next, rules: 

 

 

I've been meaning to pick up 'In Deo Veritas': I like the idea of doing 'Big Battles' in the Pike and Shot period, and it should be a good excuse to get my 15mm 30YW forces on the table. 'Rapid Fire Reloaded' is intriguing,  with only 16 pages of A5 - so it must be simple! Another possibility for the D-Day Dodgers, I hope. 

And there's always books:

Christopher Duffy's 'Instrument of War' has been on the wish-list for a  long time, and became a must-have once I got involved in 7YW gaming: I'm sure it will live up to expectations, and it's only fair to have as good a reference about the Austrian Army as Duffy's earlier work on the Prussians. Frederick gets all the glory, and the balance needs redressing.   Finally the impulse buy:

 

Charles Grant's last book, published after he passed away in 1979 - I'm hoping it will have the same mix of charm and erudition as 'Battle!',  'The War Game', 'The Ancient War Game' and 'Napoleonic Wargames'.  Does that complete the set? In the introduction he says 'I can conceive of no more lively pleasure than that of seeing unfold upon the wargame table a tactical situation which is a true reflection of a historical event', which seems eminently appropriate. 

So, now I have far too much reading, rule-learning  and modelling than I can possibly keep up with, but absolutely no buyer's remorse; and I enjoyed the day, felt entirely safe and was lucky to meet friends both old and new.  Next 'Salute', in a month's time?  We shall see - sadly Covid infeciton rates here are on the rise again. Meanwhile I'd better get reading/modelling/gaming... keep safe, and well, all !