EPISODE FIVE: All Roads Lead To Doom

Atlantis

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: When we last saw our heroes their aircraft was just emerging from a supernatural storm and in front of them lay the lost island of Atlantis!

As Onyx (our currently NPC pilot) banked the seaplane towards the island, we heard, aft, a loud cracking sound in the air. Looking back we realised the zeppelin had been struck by lightning, but - even more terrifying - it was now in the grasp of indescribably large tentacles that had arisen from the water and were squeezing the life out of the German craft.

Piercing the 'energy shield' over the island, we inspected the ruined and abandoned Greco-Roman city as we came in to land in the calming sea on the far side of Atlantis, parking the plane up on the beach so we could go exploring.

Onyx stayed with the plane - just in case we needed to make a hasty exit.

It soon became clear that the city had been abandoned by its populace - suddenly - a long time ago. The houses were falling down, furniture turning to dust, nature slowly reclaiming it all with encroaching vines.

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was absorbed by the archaeology, while Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's former G-man) listened out for German survivors and any remaining natives.

Eventually we made our way up a main thoroughfare to the giant bronze gate barring the sturdy entrance to the central temple.

The door of four faces

As we approached, a poem was seen, carved into a wall, which Freya was able to translate:

"To face the sea, you must
catch the rising wind
follow the lesser stars
fear the darkened depths"

This sparked much discussion as to its meaning. We suspected it was a series of clues to solving any challenges we would have to face, But even the first four words took us a while to get our heads round - until Dick suggested it was "face" as in "confront" rather than "look at".

"Catch the rising wind" was clearly connected to the brass door, which was cast with four identical faces, their lips pursed in a blowing fashion (see picture above).

Using my lighter I detected a breeze from the left mouth and the bottom one, then Dick accidentally set off a pit trap when he probed one of the orifices with a rolled-up leaf. Thankfully, the only thing bruised was his dignity. 

After a lot of mental gymnastics, together with our vast selection of skills and feats, we eventually cracked the code and Freya had to suffer the minor embarrassment of putting her lips to one of the mouths and inhaling until there was an audible click and the door dropped down into the ground.

Beyond the vast bronze door was a flight of stairs heading down under the temple. As it was the only way we could go, we descended.

We quickly realised that the wall-mounted crystals were emitting light, some even set in small brass cages that we could lift off the wall and use as torches.

The further we went, we noticed a panorama of bas-reliefs on one side were telling a story: a boy finds a trident in the sea that grants him magical powers; he attracts a following, but as he older he gets corrupted by the enormous power; his followers rebel against him; the rebels kill the prophet and take the glowing trident to the temple; unfortunately calamity strikes and the temple is attacked by giant tentacles.

If this was a true record of the fate of Atlantis, we were very impressed that someone was so dedicated to their work that they stayed on to record the destruction of the city in stone as it fell down around them!

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, so that we were now at sea level, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern, bisected by a bottomless chasm, and crossed by a single stone bridge - that was adorned by three pairs of armed mermen statues.

The pathway across bridge itself (pictured right) was decorated with a panoply of star-shaped crystals, small, medium and large.

Buck thought he'd understood the "follow the lesser stars" clue, but treading on one of the small stars just woke the nearest merman statue. It swivelled round on its plinth to face Buck and tried to jab him.

Eventually, after another lengthy discussion, Buck and Freya were able to figure out what the patterns were (again drawing on their particular fields of knowledge).

Buck was then tasked with guiding his two companions across the cunning trap.

This was very tense [a LOT of dice rolling for me, with my colleagues' lives in my hands], but eventually everyone made it across - although I did stumble at the last moment and had to be pulled to safety by Dick and Freya.

On the far side of the bridge we realised there were no more crystals, but as we continued down the slope it actually began to get lighter.

Soon we entered a partially-flooded amphitheatre. We were just admiring the clear sparkling water when a massive explosion filled the room with dust and debris.

Emerging from the haze came a unit of Nazi soldiers (about 10 at a quick estimate), just as an altar rose up in the middle of the flooded stage - bearing on it a strangely familiar trident.

However, things escalated rapidly, for behind the soldiers came our nemesis, Professor Kasper Wieloch, no longer dressed in his military uniform but wearing arcane robes instead. 

Framing our vision of this vile man, the horrific tentacles from earlier were flailing around... presumably under his control!!!

It's not looking good for our heroes!

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC*

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

*Unfortunately it appears that Mark will be unable to join us for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and look forward to his return to out table as soon as possible.

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

The Plot That Got Away From Me

A tunnel of light carried Marigold away from her dying world... but where to?

When my friend Simon stumbled across his old copy of the Heroes & Other Worlds rulebook and posted online about how it brought back fond memories of the campaign I'd run for the Tuesday Knights back in 2014-2016, it got me thinking about that campaign again.

Rereading some of my old write-ups reminded me of the "great plan" I had hatched to tie the apocalyptic ending of that campaign into the next one I was kicking around at that time: a contemporary superhero campaign set in Knight City.

With that game faltering and my realisation that I'm not really a good "superhero" gamesmaster, I might as well share the "big idea" I had for linking our old fantasy game - The Chronicles of Cidri - to Knight City.

The HOW game ended... with the end of the world (the planet Cidri - an alternate Earth - was transformed into a Hellworld by the ancient god known as The Yellow King).

Only one member of Cobblethwaite's Companions (the player-character's party), Marigold Weaver (Clare's character), escaped Cidri's transformation, thanks to a mystical portal the heroes had opened during their final stand.

Marigold Weaver

But that was not the end of the character. I'd decided that she had materialised out the other side of the portal on the world of Knight City, and had taken a job as a fortune teller in the city.

In my write-ups of the HOW campaign, I had "cast" the various player-characters using pictures from TV shows, films etc and trainee sorceress Marigold was represented by Renée O'Connor aka Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess.

Posing as Madame Gold, in Knight City, she set up business in the middle-class to low upper-class residential borough of Fairlight.

Her write-up on the Knight City campaign guide/blog at the time was:

"Psychic to the stars - by appointment only. Generally considered a fraud by most people, Mary Gold is still treated with a great degree of respect by the residents of this borough. She is also one of the few people known to associate with Salem Saberhagen, the mysterious resident of the nearby Saberhagen Mansion."

Madame Gold

There was even a picture (left) to go with the entry, of Renée O'Connor put through a "fortune teller" filter on the Photofunia picture editor.

The "great plan" was then, at some point in the campaign, the new characters the Tuesday Knights would have been playing (ie. superheroes) would contact, or be contacted by, Madame Gold.

She would then warn them of the impending arrival of an apocalyptic Hellplanet (ie. the transformed Cidri, being 'piloted' by the Yellow King) in our solar system.

Part of her prophecy to avert disaster would involve tracking down a collection of "sleeping" heroes and "awakening" them.

These "sleeping heroes" would be the reincarnations of the Tuesday Knights' characters that had died at the end of The Chronicles of Cidri campaign (still with me?)

I had recast all the actors who had been used to represent the fantasy characters in the first campaign as random people in the world of Knight City, totally unaware of their "previous lives".

I'd thought it might have been quite cool if the player's superheroes had somehow come into - innocent, casual - contact with one or two of these people prior to their pivotal meeting with Madame Gold.

Anyway, that was about as far as I had gotten, as I'd planned to firm up details to fit the Knight City campaign as it developed... only it never did.

And my "great plan" never saw the light of day.

But I'm still rather pleased with it.

NB. Some of this multiversal mayhem did, eventually, manifest itself at our table, during Simon's epic 5e Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft campaign (2018 - 2021).

During Lockdown, Meredith, our occasional Antipodean player, returned for a spell (thanks to the magic of Zoom), playing her rogue, Imogen, from the HOW game, who'd stepped out of the legendary mists of Ravenloft to aid our party. 

I seem to recall there was mutterings that she might be a trans-dimensional agent of one of the facets of Baba Yaga, who also appeared (in some guise) in both the worlds of Cidri and Ravenloft.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: #TimFest 2025

A year ago (late April, 2025) we threw a party to mark the 20th anniversary of my life-changing aortic aneurysm, or more accurately to celebrate the extra 20 years (so far) that I have had since the National Health Service (NHS) saved my life.

Here's the pictures - and text - I used to mark the occasion on the blog: 

Much to Rachel's surprise, it was actually my idea to host this event (I am, if you didn't already know, notoriously anti-social). I'd seen that 'new' Doctor Who was 20 years old this year and I realised that my brush with death had come several episodes into the regenerated show's first season.

Up until this year, I have been very nervous - almost superstitious - about even knowing we'd reached another anniversary and I never wanted to know the exact date or too many details of the circumstances (beyond the obvious facts that I had suffered a dissecting aortic aneurysm and then a stroke on the operating table).

But, this year, I finally accepted that two decades was far enough removed from the original, awful, event that maybe it was time to invite friends and family round to share a few drinks, have some nice food, and - at Rachel's suggestion - even raise a bit of money for the Aortic Dissection Awareness charity.

While Rachel - who actually organised the whole shindig, invited the guests, prepared the food, decorated the house etc - called the event "20 Years of Tim", others were calling it "Tim Day" and even "TimFest". 

I'll confess while it was immensely flattering to have all these people turn up to celebrate "me", it was also incredibly overwhelming and every so often I had to find a few calming minutes of quiet solitude with Alice and Obi (my two favouritest dogs in the whole, wide world).

Poor Alice, who is dealing with her own medical issues, seemed rather out of sorts as well, with so many people in "her space", that she didn't even engage in her usual rough and tumble with Obi (she's renowned for bullying him mercilessly, despite being a fraction of his size!).

I was quite gobsmacked by how much Acrobatic Flea (my signature character from our old games of Villains & Vigilantes) branding there was for the day - from the lovely T-shirt that Rachel's parents had made for me to the cup cakes created by the wonderful baker over the road from us.

Just before the group photograph was taken, Rachel gave a short, tearful, speech about how brilliant everyone had been in the wake of my sudden hospitalisation - from the amazing doctors and nurses of the NHS to all our friends who had pitched in to help us get through this. It even got to me, despite having already heard a dry run the night before, and a good number of other attendees. 

On the food table was a small framed poster with a QR code that people could scan, if they wished to, to make a charitable donation to Aortic Dissection Awareness.  

There was light-hearted talk about making Tim Day an annual event, which I did relay to Rachel, but I think one social event in 20 years is probably quite enough.

Top Dogs: Obi, the visitor (front), and our beloved Alice.

FAMILY PORTRAIT: Me, Rachel (holding Alice) and Rachel's parents

There were even garden games available for the young - and young-at-heart

EX-CUPCAKE! We're lucky to have a gifted cake maker live across the road from us

Excuse me, there's a Flea on my cupcake!

A mere fraction of the food and drink Rachel provided on the day

While the event was never intended as a "gift giving" day I was stunned
by the unexpected gifts I did receive.

And Now We Wait A Year-And-A-Half For More Frieren

Macht of the Golden Land, season three's big bad,
the most powerful member of the Demon King's Seven Sages of Destruction

It's been two weeks since Crunchyroll aired the final episode of season two of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, and I'm still thinking about it all the time.

An incredibly intelligent and nuanced anime, it blends long tracts of cosy, lyrical, slice-of-life storytelling with sudden bursts of - usually magical - fantasy violence.

I'd only really heard the name of the series late last year when I was talking to Clare about what manga Alec (her son, my godson) would like for Christmas. She gave me a list of titles and asked me to "report" back on which I thought would be appropriate. Top of the list was Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

At the time, the first volume of the manga was out of stock, but it looked suitably fantasy-orientated that when I saw the anime was on Netflix I decided to check it out... and the rest, as they say, is history.

I didn't really know what I was getting into when I started season one, but I was in love with the show by the end of the first episode.

Like Delicious in Dungeon and the classic Record of Lodoss War, Frieren's approach to swords-and-sorcery is clearly influenced by Dungeons & Dragons (our inquisitive heroine's passion for collecting magical tomes often sees her accidentally diving headfirst into treasure chests that are actually mimics!).

Frieren in mimic, Fern - her apprentice - being all judgy

In fact, the anime is pretty much a template for a dream character-driven campaign, interspersing dungeon crawls into an epic overland quest.

One of the aspects that really spoke to me was the story's main theme, a fascinating meditation on the different approaches to life between immortals and mortals, different perceptions of the passage of time and so on.

For those not au fait with this incredible Japanese animation, here's my - off the top of my head - summation of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End's general story (I might have some bits wrong and this certainly doesn't cover everything... not by a long chalk):

Immortal elf mage Frieren was part of a small adventuring party that undertook a 10-year mission to slay the Demon King. Then they all went their own way.

Fifty years later, Frieren discovers her former colleagues - including human fighter Himmel The Hero, who she was possibly in love with - are all dead or on the brink of death.

She wants to commune with the ghost of Himmel but the only place she would be able to do this is at the northernmost tip of the continent.

So, she sets out on this new adventure, on the way picking up a pair of young companions, former wards of one of her old party members, including Fern, a stoic mage, and Stark, a cowardly fighter.

On their journey they undertake a number of side quests that earn Frieren magical Grimoires containing seemingly useless spells... which will surely have some pay-off down the line.

The first - 28 episode - season of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is available on Netflix, while season two, which is only 10 episodes, is - currently - only on Crunchyroll.

Season three is slated for October 2027 and was announced at the end of season two. Production has begun and a teaser visual (at top) of the powerful demon Macht of the Golden Land was released on the day the final episode of the current season dropped on Crunchyroll.

Such a layered and beautiful work, understandably, provokes a lot of discussion and analysis online and below are just some of the short videos examining aspects of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: When We Got A Games Table!

At last, my chance to go full Eddie!

Thanks to my amazing, hard-working and supportive wife, Rachel, we acquired a games table in December, 2022.

It's something I'd yearned for ever since learning they were a real 'thing; and finally it was mine... er... ours.

Rachel has long said we needed a new dining table and I managed to persuade her that she should spend her bonus on a games table, which would then double as both dining table and venue for the Tuesday Knights and I to sling dice.

I did a ton of research, we measured a lot, drew up plans, found a UK company that specialised in games tables (Geeknson), asked a lot of questions, and finally pulled the trigger on a bespoke design back in late July/early August of that year.

The table arrived, and was unwrapped, just before Christmas, but I'd kept shtum on my "secret weapon" so that the Tuesday Knights would be the first to see it, in person, at that January's session of Pete's Hollow Earth  Expedition campaign (see below).

However, that didn't stop me 'playing' with it beforehand, for an Eddie Munson-esque "photoshoot" of an imaginary game of Dungeons & Dragons featuring the characters from the '80s cartoon as the protagonists, caught between a demonic flying creature and a warband of orcs.

I have such dreams for this new addition to the house that will justify the expenditure of Rachel's hard-earned cash on my geeky dream.

Presto the magician blasts the demon, as the evil gnome sorcerer cackles

Eddie does it much better than me, but you get what I was going for!

Gamesmaster Pete goes high-tech, flipping his tablet screen over the wooden GM screen
attachment to present us with a slideshow introduction to the adventure

A lot happened as always in that night's episode of Pete's pulp Hollow Earth Expedition campaign (which, by 2026, has morphed into an OUTGUNNED game), but here's a "picture special" of The Tuesday Knights enjoying their first meeting around the new games table.

Afterwards, Clare wrote the following about the table in her daily blog (now a Substack) of positive moments, Three Beautiful Things:

"I am so astonished by Tim's new gaming table -- which he has been keeping a secret since it was ordered in the summer -- that I gasp at each new revelation. First the top lifts off; next there's a green baize playing surface... that could be lifted off to reveal a map table... and then there are extra little tables to attach for your drink and your notebook; and a special desk for the GM, too. The whole smells pleasantly of new wood and polish."

Me using the "player's side table attachment" feature for my dice and notebook

Pete, at the head of the table, liked having a wooden screen and his own tray for dice, notes etc

An impromptu shoot-out in the back streets of 1930's Rio puts Oynx (Mark's character)
and Freya (Clare's character) in the firing line.

Here's me making full use of the "cup holder" feature

The morning after and the table had transformed back into a dining table

EPISODE FOUR: Plane Sailing

Our heroes in their seaplane

[Unfortunately, Mark was unable to attend last night's game; his one request was that his character, our pilot Onyx, stay with our plane. However, what we couldn't have known was that almost the entire episode took place within the seaplane... and Onyx - run by committee - turned out to be our MVP!]

Picking up from the end of the previous episode, our heroes - Buck (my explorer), Freya (Clare's photojournalist), Dick (Kevin's ex-G-man), and Onyx (Mark's pilot) - launched our seaplane in pursuit of the giant Nazi zeppelin.

The Hindenburg-sized airship was heading towards the co-ordinates we had discovered that we believed revealed the location of the mythical island-state of Atlantis!

Our foes didn't know that we had the location as well - thanks to some clever thinking by Freya - and so I advised veering off to refuel at an airbase of Oynx's choosing, then beating the enemy to the secret location.

However, that option was quickly taken off the board when two Luftwaffe planes (launched from under the airship) came diving towards us, intent on shooting us down.

As our plane was unarmed, Buck leaned out of one of the rear doors - secured by a seat belt  and with Dick helping him steady his aim - and started to open fire with his hunting rifle.

Our plane took some hits in the attack, but I managed to take out one of the pilots so that he crashed his plane into the ground. 

The zeppelin

Evading the other, Oynx - assisted by eagle-eyed Freya - then spectacularly flew our plane up and into the aircraft hanger underneath the zeppelin... surprising the two mechanics working in there.

Still secured at the back door of our plane, Buck shot one of the technicians in the knee, taking him out of action, while Dick and Freya rushed out and assaulted the other. Dick delivered an impressive uppercut, K.O.ing the man instantly.

Pete's hasty map of the hangar underneath the zeppelin

Convinced the Nazis were unaware of our presence, we secured the hangar, tying up the two unconscious men and hiding them behind some crates. Dick barricaded the portals at either end of the large room, so no one could get in, then we set to work manoeuvring our plane so that it was ready to eject when the moment was right.

Several hours passed and we saw that the zeppelin was now sailing over the Mediterranean at night, heading towards a mysterious bank of clouds.

At this point, we could hear people banging on the doors - trying to get in - and so it was clearly time, as the airship entered the fog bank, to drop out of the hanger and see where we were.

I'm not sure we really expected to see the ancient city of Atlantis floating on the stormy sea in front of us!

ATLANTIS! ATLANTIS! ATLANTIS! (it's only a model)

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark (absent)

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

EPISODE THREE: "Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!"

Pete modelling this year's bold shirt choice for turning the tables on our player-characters

After their successful treasure hunt last time, our heroes - Buck (my explorer), Freya (Clare's photojournalist), Dick (Kevin's former G-man), and Onyx (Mark's aviatrix) - are gathered in the ornate office of their paymaster, Professor Kasper Wieloch.

We are in Austria, in a very stately home on the banks of Lake Wolfgang (which is a real lake).

The professor was delighted that we'd found the cypher and shares with us a copy of the document he believes is the necessary element to crack it and find the co-ordinates of the lost island of Atlantis.

It's a word puzzle that eventually Onyx and Freya solve, allowing Kasper to correctly jiggle the dials on the ancient cypher we'd brought back from Greenland, revealing to him just what he wanted to know.

[Of course, we - as players - had seen massive red flags, since the start of this session, about this gathering, This started with Pete setting up miniatures on the table to show where we all were for what should have been a simple debriefing. Secondly, he dropped in that we'd all been made to surrender our weapons - by the professor's staff - on the way in, much to Mark/Onyx's chagrin].

Wieloch's lakeside mansion

Wieloch's understated office

With a manic grin on his face, Wieloch shrugged off his lab coat to reveal a Nazi uniform underneath as he spoke into a microphone on the desk - dictating the co-ordinates.

Behind us, his butler, Hans (who Onyx had failed to seduce to persuade him to fetch her weapon back) drew a pistol, as doors on both sides of the room swung open and eight Nazi thugs burst into the room, pointing guns at us.

Buck charged the nearest thug to him, barrelling him over and subsequently hoisting him up and using his body as a shield to absorb the bullets fired in his direction. He then threw the corpse at two of the others, bringing them down and dived at the final minion on his side of the room and engaged him in a drawn-out slugfest.

Professor Kasper Wieloch (left) and Hans The Butler

Onyx dived over Wieloch's desk and proceeded to stick her fingers in his eyes, in an attempt to blind him and bring him to heel. Unfortunately their bloody tussle ended with the Nazi scientist staggering blindly out of one of the doors and clattering down stairs to find the rest of his men.

Freya and Dick took on the other four Nazis - as well as Hans the nefarious butler - in a surprisingly one-sided fight, as the thugs seemed as accurate in their shooting as Star Wars stormtroopers. 

Once we were victorious, we saw out the window that the wounded Wieloch was being helped into a small zeppelin that had docked in his garden; his escape being covered by a number of rifle-bearing soldiers who kept us pinned down as they got away.

Freya was able to get an impression of the co-ordinates off of Wieloch's desktop notepad, then we bolted down to our seaplane... only to discover it had (unsurprisingly) been sabotaged by the villains.

Onyx was quite confident her aircraft would be quicker than that of the bad guys, but we had to trust that her legendary repair skills were up to the task of undoing whatever damage the Nazis had done.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - Mark 

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

MY NOTES: While it was great to have Mark back at the table again, the first time we'd all been together for the better part of nine months, Outgunned Adventures is currently reinforcing my long-held dislike of dice pool systems.

I know we're still getting to grips with a new system, and trying to grasp all its nuances, but for what - at first glance - appears to be a simple system (much like Hollow Earth Expedition's Ubiquity mechanics before it), seems almost randomly fiddly.

Dice pools also make everything slow - as was demonstrated by the fact that almost the entirety of this session was our fight against the bad guys.

Conversely, I would point out that I appreciated the fact that the thugs we were fighting were incredibly lousy shots. It's not exactly cinematic (and that's the style the game is seeking to emulate) for a larger-than-life pulp hero to be offed by a random goon!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Before The Tuesday Knights

After my aneurysm and stroke, I was looking for ways to keep myself entertained and so Nick, Pete and I started our Formula Dé League, playing monthly motor races and eating a lot of very hot curry.

As the Tunbridge Wells Formula De League we would race little plastic cars around boards representing a variety of Grand Prix circuits from across the globe.

The game uses the very clever mechanic of having the vehicle's different gears represented by different polyhedral dice. 

A moment of high drama during the Chinese Grand Prix

As with our current gaming we didn't always stick to the monthly schedule that we had drawn up in advance, but we still managed to rack up enough races for a couple of years (2006/2007) to give our league a sense of verisimilitude.

We each controlled a stable of two racers, competing for both individual and team glory.

Pete was Team Clover (Paddy O'Doors & Muhat Mecoate), I was Team Zerro (Damien Dash & Brian 'Whitey' Whitehouse) and Nick was Team Flamer (Antonio Wasp & Nick Nastily). Nick's Nick Nastily retired during the '06 season and was replaced by Jock Saway.

Press coverage of Nastily's retirement

During 2007, Steve joined us as Team Classic Rock for one race.

As well as creating newspaper clippings of key race-related stories, we even held "prize giving" ceremonies at the end of each year in local restaurants, handing out trophies and wooden spoons to the winners and losers.

A third year's racing was scheduled for 2008, but a resurgence of interest in roleplaying games led to the creation of the Tuesday Knights and that overtook our toy car racing exploits.

The TWFDL: Pete, Nick & I

The release of the Hollow Earth Expedition pulp adventure system had reignited Nick's enthusiasm for roleplaying games and he ran a short and sadly unfinished Edwardian campaign for Clare and I.

But it was the publicity around the publication of the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons that got me thinking about starting our own broader gaming group, replacing our board game nights (we also played the collaborative Lord Of The Rings games) with regular roleplaying sessions.

And so was born The Tuesday Knights. In the end we didn't play Fourth Edition, opting for the more old school Castles & Crusades, which was then replaced by Labyrinth Lord, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Regular board game meet-ups resumed in 2023, with the launch of Monopoly Club, where Pete gets to show off his ever-expanding collection of themed Monopoly boards for Clare, Rachel, and I.

HEALTH UPDATE: When Faced With A Rocky Situation, Just Climb It!

One of the latest additions to my portfolio of trees

Following the depressing turn of events the other week - in relation to my health - I promptly booked a number of appointments at my local GP's to tackle the problems head on. 

The first of these involved a series of examinations and tests with a practice nurse, who managed to extract enough blood (at the second attempt) from my tiny, evasive veins, that could be sent off for blood sugar analysis (and, I guess, other things). Height and weight were also measured and my feet were checked to ensure they had a healthy pulse (they did).

My pasty arm bearing the bruises of a difficult blood withdrawal

Next week, I've my second appointment - with a different nurse - who will give me the results of the blood tests and talk me through the options for reducing my blood sugar.

I, in turn, can tell her about my new (currently going strong) "snack free" diet and increased exercise regime (on top of my regular Biscuit Club exercise class... which is, sadly, coming to an end in a few weeks).

After last weekend's jaunt to Ashdown Forest, this week Rachel took Alice and I somewhere a bit closer to home for our walk.

At Clare's suggestion, we drove to Tunbridge Wells and took a short ramble over the rain-soaked Common. This included my first return visit to Wellington Rocks for over two decades.

Not only were there many other dog walkers there (which excited Rachel and I more than it did Alice), but Alice also seemed to really enjoy scrambling up the sandstone rocks (with me, carefully, following her) and it was another opportunity for me to snap some pictures of interesting trees to add to my portfolio (my latest hobby).

We managed to squeeze in this visit during a break in the near-constant torrential rain of recently weeks, but the Wellington Rocks and Tunbridge Wells Common are definitely somewhere we'll come back to when the weather isn't quite so grim.

While I only managed about 20 minutes at Ashdown Forest, this week I almost clocked up half-an-hour.

It's baby steps, of course, because I haven't really walked outside like this for around seven months (thanks to the osteoarthritis in my back causing my legs to fail), but every great journey starts with a single step. Or something similarly motivational.

I certainly won't be joining The Cult of Parkrun anytime soon (or ever), but going for a walk with a purpose (e.g. photographing interesting tress and landscapes) is definitely motivating me to pursue this avenue for supplementary exercise.

Rock Climbing: Alice and I on Wellington Rocks, Tunbridge Wells