15/03/2009

West Country wanderings

Yes, i sneaked off again, this time to the the West Country , especially around Cornwall.

For Steve-the wargamer I found an excellent micro brewery at the Driftwood Spars and a pint of "Bawden Rocks", which are a couple of splendid rock stacks offshore nearby. Another day found a pint of Black Pearl from the Wooden Hand brewery together with a Sunday roast, just the job after being caught in a rainstorm. I also acquired a cheap copy of "Marlborough's Shadow", the life of Cadogan in a bookshop in Wells.

Wargaming and painting wise I did nothing, expect catching up on my reading with the Battle of Paoli and "Forrard" the history of the East Riding Yeomanry.

The former covered the AWI battle in 1777 where General Grey gained his "No flint" title. I found it a disappointing read there was plenty of detail but it wasn't pulled together in a coherent fashion. However the was enough to be able to create a game/scenario around the "massacre"

"Forrard" was very much a standard WW2 regimental history, its interest really lies in the actions of the 1st ERY in 1940 around Cassel, otherwise it's a history of a pretty ordinary armoured regiment, enlivened with a number of amusing anecdotes.

Over on the Wars of Louis XIV blog there was mention of a painting of the Duke on Monmouth at the seige of Maastrich,t so I made my way to the Victoria art gallery in Bath to have a look at the real thing,  however given its position over the stairs you get a better impression from the blog entry!

3 comments:

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Curses - it looks like both of those breweries are local only, with the Driftwood only available in the pub itself...! Will have to add them to list of "watch for"'s..

I'm also slightly jealous of the Cadogan find as I've had that on my list for some time, being a genuine admirer of the bloke... let us know how it reads??

Fire at Will said...

Steve, Cadogan came from Superbooks and I found that they have branches in Blandford, Gillingham, Lyndhurst and Trowbridge as well as Wells. I will have probably have finished the book by Salute so if you are going I'll let you have it in return for a pint (If the beer is any good there!)

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Hi Will - if you're coming down to Salute then a beer is a definite, Cadogan or not... I must owe you one by now, and DG as well I suspect... :o))

I suspect that it's London fizz but you never know....!

I'll drop an email to your hotmail id nearer the time with my mobile number so that we can find each other on the day...