Castle Fraser

The wife and I had a great day out today, Castle Fraser near Inverurie, was having a medieval exhibition event, and as we had nothing else to do we thought we would pop along. The show was really very good, £10 each to get in (I believe there were concessions for the elderly and families) which wasn't to bad.

There was a great jousting display by a group called the Knights of the Dammed who are a professional stunt team, the four riders can be seen above in Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English colours (the black knight was English, on the far right). They put on a really good show with Jousting and single combat involving flaming maces! It was very enjoyable and funny.

We then watched some a small Re-enactment group (who's name I didn't catch) displaying the fighting style of un-armoured Fraser Clan troops from the period. This was again very good, and quite funny. After a slightly expensive lunch from the burger van, and a coffee under a tree while we hid from a seriously heavy rain downpour, we watched a great falconry exhibition.

This was put on by Birds of Prey Displays, and was a very good demonstration, so good in fact I forgot to take pictures of the actual display, it was really good though. When we stopped by the chap who did the displays stand afterwards my wife snapped this picture of one of the birds (which is looking slightly hacked off at having been soaked by the rain!).

There were also some interesting displays of medieval weaponry etc, and an archery display, in addition to some small stalls and a bouncy castle for kids. Although most of the kids seemed to be too busy hitting each other with toy swords to get on the castle!

We really enjoyed this event, which I understand is running again tomorrow (22nd July 2012) from 1100 to 1600 at Fraser Castle, I recommend it as a fun day out for families.

Back in Blighty

Well I'm back from working in Thailand, a little earlier than expected but I am bloody happy to be back. I never thought I would be so happy to step off the plane at Aberdeen and be hit with rain and a chilly breeze!

Anyway I wanted to get back into the swing of painting after 2 months off so picked up these two figures from the lead pile pretty much at random. The first is a WW1 Ottoman Turk officer from Gripping Beasts range, lovely figure like the others from the range which I have painted. I am trying to avoid using inks for shadow,s (which has been my way in the past) and I am very pleased with how this chap turned out. My only annoyance is that the skin tone on the face isn't quite right, and I didn't water the paint down enough so if you look closely you can see its a little rough.

The other figure is one of Eurekas 1980's US soldiers in noddy suits. I've painted some of these before but wanted to try something different after such a break from painting. I opted to paint the jacket as a winter camo and I quite like how it turned out, not sure If ill paint more in this pattern but who knows.

Anyway I'm pleased to be home and back to painting, should be more to follow over the next few days.

Dinosaurs both big and small

Well it's Sunday, my one day off a week. I had lunch at a local bar then went for a walk around lumpini park which is 10 mins or so from the hotel. I think I've mentioned before that the Paris home to some pretty impressive wild lizards.

The first is a picture of a huge 4 to 5 foot long monster that swam past the bench I was sitting on in the park. The second picture is of a little lizard that came and sat in the sun a few feet from where I was sitting.

There's something really exciting about seeing these cool lizards up close in the wild, especially as at home the closest you would get would be in the zoo.

Wayland Yutani Thailand?

Well only a few weeks now and I'll be home, noticed this on the side of the building near work, presumably this is the Thailand office of Weyland Yutani!