'You're a kite dancing in a hurricane....'

The blog post title was, ahem, borrowed from the film SPECTRE. I have yet to see No Time to Die but will probably binge watch the Daniel Craig sequence in order before doing so.

For the last six months I have certainly felt like the title of this post for sure! On Friday last week Laurel had a long conversation with her Neurologist following her latest set of scans. The good news is that the suspected AVM/AVF does not in fact exist - the bad news is that she has what appears to be a benign Ependymona or tumour growing on her spine. They wanted her in for surgery this week but she deferred until January for two reasons. Firstly, another few weeks would not make any difference to her condition and secondly, she wanted to get Christmas and the New Year out of the way first. The surgery will take around three hours with a four day stay in hospital and a six week recovery period. With this in mind the fact that my new job is fully remote is a godsend as obviously I will be on hand to help her during her recovery. Needless to say this latest diagnosis came as a bit of a shock so we have spent a relatively quiet weekend coming to terms with it and carrying out some routine domestic chores.

The film of the Battle of the Bulge was certainly not Hollywood's finest hour but for all that it was an entertaining romp in a Flames of War kind of way!

I managed to get a few gaming related bits and pieces attended to especially around packaging some long outstanding parcels (apologies again to Aly and tradgardmastare) and sorting out some books. I have been looking long and hard again at Operation Market Garden as well the Battle of the Bulge which also has a place in the list of campaigns I have studied on and off over the years. I remember completing a free choice school project when I was around 12 about the Bulge campaign and used as the basis a book on battles in Western Europe by, as I recall, David Chandler although I stand to be corrected. the film version starring Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw is probably best left unmentioned despite being pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, if only for sheer entertainment value! The Panzerlied was pretty stirring though despite now being banned for use by the modern German Army.

Aside from the above I managed to rearrange my ship modelling bits and pieces so once I can resume work the raw material I use will be far easier to get at.

I hope to get a few more posts in before the end of the year but depending on when Laurel's surgery is I expect then to be off grid for a while but hopefully not too long.

Onwards and upwards.