Some times being a Grown Up means that life isn't all fun and games. I had to take a day off work today as my father had a hospital appointment for an exploratory procedure. As he's less mobile than he would like, - we use a wheelchair if he has to go out - this means relying on hospital transport or me doing the duty. The hospital transport system means he has to go in at the crack of dawn and is then returned home late afternoon. So I volunteer and it gives us time to sit and chat and catch up on pretty much anything and everything - especially at the moment as to why Arsenal keep blowing opportunities to win the Premier League.
This isn't a blog knocking the NHS as my experience of it throughout my life has been generally good. However what I do not understand is why they gave a dozen people appointments at 9am and then see them one at a time starting at 10 (actually I know the answer to this question as I work with someone whose mother is a hospital administrator and whilst I accept the logic I still don't like it). We eventually got out of the hospital by 12:30, following a procedure and consultation that took 30 minutes in total.
Of course the side effect of having everyone turn up at once is that the waiting room overflows and there aren't enough chairs as all the patients are of a "certain age" and have all taken someone with them so 12 patients doesn't mean 12 chairs, it means 24. At least we took one with us, even if it does have wheels on it.
We endure an hours day time TV (if I didn't know better I'd have thought it was someone doing a really clever sketch on a housing programmes but it went on for an hour) before it gets turned off and then the Blitz spirit clicks in and everyone is chatting away happily. Nearly had a rousing chorus of "We'll Meet Again".
Luckily I had my PC notebook with me and inspiration struck. Inside 30 minutes or so I'd written up pretty much all of the rules for my 1/32 elephant game and solved most of the design issues. I couldn't get a signal on my mobile broadband however so I had to wait to get home to blog about it!
When I got home I found that the first packet of 1/32 figures had arrived. Alas it's the velites. I really hope the company actually has the elephants in stock as the game is going to be sort of dull without them. I've e-mailed them and they assure me their Cardiff branch is on the case.
I then got another shock when I realised that it's less than 3 weeks until Milton Keynes Campaign where this game is to be the centre piece of the Society of Ancients stand.
I hope the playtest this Friday goes well, - and then I've got a lot of painting and building to do in quite short order.
This isn't a blog knocking the NHS as my experience of it throughout my life has been generally good. However what I do not understand is why they gave a dozen people appointments at 9am and then see them one at a time starting at 10 (actually I know the answer to this question as I work with someone whose mother is a hospital administrator and whilst I accept the logic I still don't like it). We eventually got out of the hospital by 12:30, following a procedure and consultation that took 30 minutes in total.
Of course the side effect of having everyone turn up at once is that the waiting room overflows and there aren't enough chairs as all the patients are of a "certain age" and have all taken someone with them so 12 patients doesn't mean 12 chairs, it means 24. At least we took one with us, even if it does have wheels on it.
We endure an hours day time TV (if I didn't know better I'd have thought it was someone doing a really clever sketch on a housing programmes but it went on for an hour) before it gets turned off and then the Blitz spirit clicks in and everyone is chatting away happily. Nearly had a rousing chorus of "We'll Meet Again".
Luckily I had my PC notebook with me and inspiration struck. Inside 30 minutes or so I'd written up pretty much all of the rules for my 1/32 elephant game and solved most of the design issues. I couldn't get a signal on my mobile broadband however so I had to wait to get home to blog about it!
When I got home I found that the first packet of 1/32 figures had arrived. Alas it's the velites. I really hope the company actually has the elephants in stock as the game is going to be sort of dull without them. I've e-mailed them and they assure me their Cardiff branch is on the case.
I then got another shock when I realised that it's less than 3 weeks until Milton Keynes Campaign where this game is to be the centre piece of the Society of Ancients stand.
I hope the playtest this Friday goes well, - and then I've got a lot of painting and building to do in quite short order.
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