I still haven’t got those French grenadiers finished although the last three figures are sat on my work table in black undercoat looking a bit sorry for themselves – I will get them finished before Christmas. In the meantime I thought I would take the opportunity to post some more pictures of the splendid work Matt did on my Swiss infantry.
The 4th Swiss in line.
Advancing in column.
Here they are from the rear – not running away, this is the view their supports would have.
A close up showing the grenadier company (actually composed of FN23 Old Guard grenadier, firing).
One of the reasons I’ve not been painting recently is that we took a trip north of the border last weekend to visit our daughter in Perth (that’s the original one in Scotland not the one in Oz). Whilst up there we were taken to Killiecrankie ‘gateway to the highlands’ where we walked to soldiers leap. This is a rock in the middle of the river Garry where a government soldier made a huge leap to safety on the opposite shore pursued by Jacobite forces in the aftermath of the battle.
Soldier’s leap sign.
Another sign told us that Queen Victoria visited the place once and proclaimed the jump ‘impossible’ – I’m not sure how she came to this conclusion as I am guessing she was never chased by a bunch of claymore wielding highlanders.
It’s a bloody long way up.
We also went to see the Wallace monument near Stirling which to be honest I’d never heard of before but turned out to be a wacky gothic tower erected in the 19th century to honour William Wallace. It’s a long way to the top (and I didn’t make it all the way) but one of the chambers contains Wallace’s actual sword, which was impressive – he must have been a big bloke. As you may detect there was a bit of a theme running through the weekend namely the Scots thrashing the English, next time I hope to make it up to Culloden for a bit of balance.
