Current Campaign : Bayreuth Campaign Day 2
I seem to have
lost my focus over the past few months, at least as far as wargaming is
concerned.
My long running
1813 campaign has been my sole wargame project for nine years. Throughout that period there has been a game
from the campaign on our wargames table.
It started as a
solo campaign, but turned PBEM within a year, and continued as such until
2015. Throughout that period there were
5 campaign phases running at the same time, resulting in a constant backlog of
wargames to be fought. We had a target
of one game every five days. For the
past three years it has been a solo campaign, and I have found that to be just
as enjoyable.
During the
summer months we tend to play more wargames.
Our two weekly hill walking groups are suspended from June to
October. It is difficult to find the
energy to do anything physical during the long summer days, so we spend most
afternoon’s at the wargame table.
However even
daily wargames are not sufficient to fill the whole day, so I am always on the lookout
for a summer project. In previous years
it has been scratch building buildings and scenery for the campaign. But we completed our last building last
summer.
After our
summer visitors departed in mid-August I found myself with a lot of time on my
hands. I decided to make a slide show of
our walking photographs. Since we moved
to Spain in 2006 we have walked in the local hills twice a week with two local
groups. From the start I published a
weekly blog to record the walks, and to keep friends and family updated on what
we were doing here. I usually take
about 20-30 photos on each walk, and they were all neatly filed on the computer
by year, month and walk.
My project was
to make a slide show of each year, with one or two photos from each walk. I had never tackled anything like this
before, but I thought that PowerPoint would be a good vehicle for it.
I mentioned
this to a good friends, who is also a very keen photographer. In the past he has made some really good
videos of our walking group summer and Christmas meals, which I had always
admired. So I did not take a lot of
convincing when he suggested that he teach me how to make something similar.
I was very keen
until he explained that there was very little available for a PC, as most of
the new innovation was for IPad.
Apparently my desktop is becoming very old hat.
He offered to
lend me his second IPad, which had all of the apps already installed, so that I
could try it out. I was very reluctant,
but he was very insistent. I was soon
hooked.
The problem is
that I had to learn a whole new technology, and that is not easy when you are a
senior citizen. I was soon caught up in
the process and had no time or energy left for wargaming.
Worse still it
was soon 1 October, and I had to start organising the twice a week hill walking
which is our second hobby. This
involves two whole days in the hills, and a further two days preparing for the
walk and then sorting photos and typing up the blog. However I now also had to make a video of
each walk.
Boredom is no
longer a problem. Finding enough hours
in each day is. And that is without
finding time for wargaming.
However
wargaming has been a central part of our lives for far too long, and I feel
guilty at having abandoned my first love for so long. The current game on the table has been there
for almost three weeks, the longest for many years. Every time I pass I feel a pang of guilt and
promise that I will get back to it tomorrow.
I have finally
mastered the video production, at least to the degree that I want to use it for
our walking blog. Now I really must get
back to wargaming again.
