Old Fritz Is Really Old Today

Fritz Himself.
He might be 65 years old, but he still loves to play with his toy soldiers.

Well, today is my 65th birthday and that kind of takes me aback when I think about it. I guess that I am now officially a Senior Citizen. As my father always used to say about getting older is that "it sure beats the alternative."

OMG! Old Fritz is really old, old Fritz. Sheesh.

I don't feel any different today than I did yesterday, when I was a young pup all of 64, or for that matter, ages 60, 50, 40... 10. I still enjoy playtime and goofing off every now and then. The only difference is that now I know when it is time to act responsibly. Sigh.

Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe

Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe and I spent Sunday afternoon doing daughter-dad activities, first and foremost of which was building a gingerbread house. One would imagine that a skilled modeler and craftsman (ahem, me?) would be able to decipher instructions and build a professional looking gingerbread house. Then again, maybe not.

I was having trouble manipulating the icing cone, from which one draws a bead of icing onto the gingerbread parts with the icing acting sort of like glue. The application should be as easy as using a caulking gun (can't recall the last time that I actually used one), but I was having problems getting a nice straight bead of icing on the walls of the house.

We have framed the house and put the walls up. So far, so good.

Needless to say, I shant be competing in the National Bake Off Competition anytime soon. Once the walls and roof were assembled, I turned the job over to Lady Emma Cuddleston-Smythe forthe decorating part of the task.

We had a little bit of difficulty with the windows and doors, but hey, look at that roof!

Always put a Golden Retreiver or a beautiful model in the picture
 and nobody is going to notice the gingerbread house.

The obligatory Golden Retriever:

The Royal Hound: Tiberius

Mrs. Fritz decided that since it was my birthday on the morrow, that I had earned some painting time in the Man Cave. For that I was most appreciative and so I put my time to good use. I painted and based a Russian officer stand vignette and did the same with a Prussian munitions wagon.

Lt. General Saltykov, one of the Russian commanders at the Battle of Zorndorf.

Another view of the vignette - note how holes have been drilled through the snout of the horse so that wire reins could be leading to the hands of the horse holder manservant.

The manservant is one of the Minden horse holders, the horse is from Crann Tara, and the two gentlemen perusing the instruction book for building a gingerbread house are from the Minden Duke of Brunswick and staff set.

Prussian munitions wagon for the infantry. The wagon model is from Berliner Zinnfiguren
and the  horse and rider are Minden Miniatures.

The view from the front.

Next on my Russian to do list, paint limber horses and riders to lead the Russian 2-wheel and 4-wheel wagons that Ed Phillips made for me.