Orcs in the Webbe

“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter, long ago.”

From In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina G. Rossetti

“In The Bleak Midwinter” is one of the UK’s favourite carols, according to the BBC. I have to say it’s one of my favourites too. “The earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone” is incredibly evocative, and conjures up images of the 17^th Century Flemish landscapes of Pieter Brueghel the Younger . Check out Brueghel’s "'Adoration of the Magi'" or “Hunters in the snow” and you’ll see what I mean. I also like “The Holly and the Ivy”, particularly the lines “O the rising of the sun, And the running of the deer”, for the same reason.

Christmas has now passed, and my CD of favourite Christmas carols has gone away for another year. Yet, for those in northern climes at least, the bleak midwinter is still upon us, indeed with some one-to-one scale snowdrifts forecast over the coming days,  I’m rather hoping for some school closures and some extended time at home for lesson preparation.  Oh, and I might get just a bit of time to paint that F15e Strike Eagle my wife bought me for Christmas.

As readers of this column may recall, I had planned to get myself a ECW sword for Christmas, and I do indeed now have a fine blade residing in my wardrobe just about out of the hands of my easily-impressed 5 year old son. As my wife put it, as mid-life crisis go a sword is cheaper than a sports car and less divisive than a mistress.

My son got the best present – a Playmobil Roman Trireme with extra Romans. The Playmobil range offers some really fantastic stuff for children interested in the more physical aspects of history. For more go see their site here. The Romans haven’t really got much in the way of opponents, just a handful of Gauls, but ultimately I plan for him to have two DBA armies, Romans vs Gauls, in Playmobil figures  to introduce him to the finer points of the hobby, or rather to teach him about numbers and measuring…

My own writing output has been pretty bleak over the last few weeks with little new emerging since I penned “May Contain Nuts” for this very site’s advert calendar. Fortunately others have taken up the burden and Paul O’Grady and David Crook have co-authored an Aeronef campaign pack, ‘Wrath of the Syren’. This will shortly be available at the credit crunch friendly price of FREE as a download from Wargame Vault. I was fortunate to playtest this set, and have to say it is a well-balanced campaign and an excellent addition to the Aeronef universe. Watch out at Wargames Vault (and TMP) for a notice of its launch.

So as I prepare to gathering some winter fuel for my fire (Though the frost is cruel), I bid you farewell until the next Tankard Tales in fag-end-of-winter in February.