A Much Needed Update

I have been incredibly quiet on the hobby front of late and the reason is simply a combination of the summer and a massive career change. The summer is nothing new, I have always expressed the belief on this blog that the fine weather of the summer is meant to be enjoyed, and so I do. 

Scotland

However, a glorious summer is now very much behind us. The cold, rainy, windy nights have set in, and nothing has really happened here on the blog. This is because in September I became a student once more. The change was rather abrupt and I was the last one onto the course, so much so that I only sorted out accommodation three days before my enrolment and arrival.

Conisburgh Castle

You see, once upon a time, when I was a young man, I made the somewhat "interesting" decision to read a degree in Latin and Classical Greek, which was made in those heady days when university was affordable and learning for the sake of learning was still something people did. Graduating with a first, I tried my hand at postgraduate study, but the financial side of it proved ruinous, for by this time the fee structures had changed, and so I headed into the real world of work. More recently I was working in engineering and thinking hard about my future, when it occurred to me that what I really wanted was to use my degree daily. My Latin and Greek were fading and I yearned for the joy I got from constantly engaging with the Classical world. And so, I decided to become a teacher. 

Back to University this autumn, a leafy Homerton College, Cambridge, awaited me.

And so I have embarked upon that career and am currently engaged in a PGCE in Latin and Classics at the University of Cambridge. The course is, by all accounts, intense and thus far I found this to be the case. My days are long and my downtime divided between planning lessons and studying for essays. Naturally, painting has fallen by the wayside, more so because I don't have a dedicated workspace. I had to move to Cambridge for the Christmas term and won't return to Oxfordshire and my painting desk until January. So in the meantime, I am very much dissuaded from putting paint to model by the lack of decent light and my familiar painting desk. 

Homerton College, Cambridge.

That said, everything is not lost! I am reading voraciously, mainly around the Polish campaign of 1939. And that naturally informs the continuing project, even if there isn't any movement on the miniature front. My most recent addition is Polish Armour of the Blitzkrieg, a lovely gift from Lady K, who seems to indulge my historical researches with alacrity. So I am working on it all, promise. Hopefully as the days grow even more miserable and cold I will be driven indoors and huddle around my bedside lamp to paint.

A good read with loads of pictoral information.