A Matter of Priorities

To a serious wargamer this must be the saddest of sights – an empty wargames table.   We finished our last wargame on 10 December 2016, and I cleared the scenery and figures off the following day.   36 days have passed and it remains empty.   Every time I pass it I feel a twinge of conscience, but try to assure myself that “I just haven’t had time” to set up a new game.   But I know it is not true.  As my mum used to say “if you want to do something bad enough, you will always find time to do it”.

This is the real reason my model soldiers and wargames table have been neglected.   For Christmas I was given a hand held satnav.  For both Jan and I our second favourite hobby is mountain walking.   We have done so regularly since we moved to Spain almost eleven years ago.   For some time I have wanted to record the 40 plus walks that we do in the surrounding hills, but the local maps are pretty useless.   The suggestion of a hand held satnav offered the solution.

We belong to two walking groups, and consequently we spent two days each week walking in the surrounding area.   Since we returned to Spain 12 days ago we have spent four days in the mountains, two of them to recce future walks.   In addition I have spent many hours trying to master how to use the satnav and more important how to record it all on the computer.   So wargaming has taken a back seat.

We spent Christmas and New Year in the UK with our children and grandchildren.   After our annual two week visit we often have problems getting back into our wargame routine.    When we ran the PBEM campaign we had to do it quickly in order to maintain the momentum of the campaign.   Now that it has been converted to a solo campaign there is no such pressure.

However we have determined to set up the next campaign game this afternoon and try to get back into our regular routing of one wargame per week.