...it was a "wizard" weekend...!

..and so it was, despite the weather...

Anyway - I bought Harry Potter 7 on Saturday and to date I am up to page 150 - it would have been a lot further but I'm taking this one slowly as I don't really want to finish it. There are no more, and this is the last of the story.... but what a story - absolutely fantastic, I was reading it yesterday and was so engrossed that my beloved other half was talking to me for a whole 10 minutes before I heard her! Always a good sign... no hints or tips from me, I can't think of anything that would spoilt it more for everyone, but one of the quite major characters has already died, and I can't wait to get home to carry on reading...!

I was also a bit trepidous about the new Harry Potter movie which as per the previous post we saw on Sunday in a lovely empty('ish) cinema (we chose to go quite early... I'm very, very, picky about going to the cinema and I can't stand it when people rustle and whisper to each other...). Anyway, as I say I was a bit cagey as some of my in-laws had been to see it and said it wasn't very good - now normally they're spot on but in this instance I'm delighted to say they were 180' out... it's a brilliant film - absolutely amazing graphics (the inside of the ministry of magic was excellent - lots and lots of dark green glazed tiles), and the story is beginning to develop the adult themes that the books do, as Harry Potter matures... so, having seen all of them I would say this is easily as good as any of the others, a bit darker, but it is high on our list of DVD "wants"....

Other than that, it was fairly quiet - biggest little'un is off on guide camp this week so there was lots of digging out of sleeping bags, blankets, mugs, cups, tarpaulins, and all the other paraphernalia - and a rush visit to Millets (outdoor clothing shop) for a pair of plastic trousers, which unfortunately, I think she's going to be wearing quite a lot this week... such a shame about the rain, they've been looking forward to it for ages, and you would have thought that in the middle of July they would be safe!

I did manage to get the recent painted miniatures output finished and based however, and for your delectation may I present the following..

• First off these are the dismounted British Camel Corps, pictured in front of the dismounted camels painted previously... as mentioned these are 15mm Peter Pig... the Camel Corps are now complete and comprise 6 bases of dismounted, mounted, and dismounted firing - enough basically to show the unit in all it's tactical organisations..
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Next up - and this is one for Bluebear Jeff - these are the 1st IR von Donop - a Hessian regiment destined for the American colonies as part of the British contingent in the War of Independence. I may paint a second unit of this regiment (dependant on their actual strength), but in tricorn, as my reading indicates that only a part of the regiment would have worn the brass mitre, most would have worn the normal headgear...
  
• Lastly, some pictures of the new buildings that I picked up on eBay. Despite a fairly tortuous buying process (it took weeks..) and a slow delivery, I'm absolutely delighted with these - it brings to five the buildings I've bought from this guy... very clean mouldings, nicely priced (about £5/$10 each painted), and vaguely European/a-historical enough to be re-used in all of the theatres I currently have figures for in this period.... very nice.. the figures are British cavalry to show scale (they're 15mm Dixon representing Schomberg's Regiment)