A very welcome surprise from the Kitchen!

The Old Fellow himself

I received a wonderful surprise in the post the other day.  I had been fortunate and while doing some cleaning out I found a few things that I thought might be of use to Mr. AW Kitchen of Tin Soldiering On.  He warned me several days later that there would be a "little something" winging its way back to me. It was of course totally unnecessary, but having seen it arrive I'm very glad I didn't try to talk him out of it. 

This is a semi-flat Frederick the Great painted in a high gloss style, about 42mm I think, and he is just charming. He guards my important books (Henty, Doyle and Stephenson) in the front room now and I must say, he's doing a fine job of it. 

Thank you very much to Mr. Kitchen for such a delightful gift. Which frankly deserves a better photograph, I shall attend to it. 

The fleeing Barbarian Horde, Flashman in pursuit.

In other news, Sir Harry Flashman VC has been stoutly defending the borders of the Empire from a large furry intruder.  A large black cat*  has been sneaking in through the cat flap and trying to make away with Flashman and Sissi's food. I have been woken in the night several times now to hear crashing, banging and breaking glass from the kitchen. Casualties thus far have been limited to a vase and a couple of scratcheson Sir Harry's ears, but he has emerged victorious on each occasion thus far. 

Unfortunately, BBC has sprayed on several occasions generally just before taking to his heels. Sir Harry has never done so and I had forgotten the eye stinging ammonia scent of cat pee and marking fluid. It smells of Satan's arm pit and the sooner Sir Harry organises some kind of punitive expedition to put a stop to this, the better. 

Otto

One of the small pleasures of working in uniform is that it gives you an almost limitless reason to speak to people on the street, something this atomised modern world seems to be against. I had the pleasure of running into Otto (pictured above) the other day while he was out with his mistress. And what a wonderful, friendly chap he was. 

And a handsome fellow too. 

*Mrs. Kinch has named him BBC.