In the lead-up to Christmas I placed an order for several books from the UK, the most anticipated being three of Charles Grant’s scenario books based on his Imagi-Nations campaign, one of which covered detailed mechanics for a siege. Needless to say, I was checking the letterbox on a daily basis about a week after the order went in.
Yesterday calamity struck!
We had a wet New Year with some unseasonal rain, and I had not checked the letterbox on New Year’s Eve – the one day I had missed. I discovered that the postman or courier had in fact delivered the parcel but left it near our front porch exposed to the weather – and yes, all books are very badly water damaged. The siege book is particularly bad as the pages stuck together and started tearing when I gently pried them apart!
To say I hit the roof would be an understatement. The poor dogs evacuated the house immediately wondering what the hell was going on!
I’ve calmed down now and am currently drying my books in our dehydrator hoping they’ll be usable once the pages are all dry and unstuck. That’s the great thing about books I suppose, as long as you can read the words, the information is usable.
One of the books, The Annexation of Chiraz, wasn’t as badly affected as the others and I read through that last night and enjoyed it very much. I am now inspired to have a crack at Imagi-Nations wargaming – even if it means painting new armies!
I hope the rest of you had a much more pleasant start to the year!
Keen to hear what projects or plans may be intended for the new year?
Cheers
G
What a mess! Is there any way of claiming back off the courier company, or would that be ‘not their problem’?
The year of 2026 will now improve, cos the only way is up….
Hope you have a better rest of the year, and that’s the bad luck out of the way.
(We nominate a ‘safe place’ for couriers, which would avoid the weather issue. They then studiously ignore this and leave EVERYTHING on the front step. Not good, when my books or herself’s photographic prints are involved).
G’day Martin,
A mess is an understatement! Unfortunately, I don’t know who actually delivered the parcel, although I was going to have a go at the postman the next time I saw him, but realised it may have been a courier, so I could have been giving an innocent person a serve while the real lazy culprit got away with it!
I see you have your own ‘special’ breed of postal workers over there too! Hopefully you don’t get any damage to your stuff in future either!
I’m over the worst of my anger now, although I still get a ‘twinge’ each time I see the wretched ‘new’ books in my collection!
As you say, the only way is up now (surely it can’t get any worse!!), so here’s to a great rest of 2026!
On a more pleasurable topic, I also bought Charles Grant’s ‘Programmed Wargame Scenarios’ – 2nd Edition, which came before Christmas on its own, so consequently is the only new book I bought that actually looks new! I’m keen to use the book to set up some solo wargames and get some long overdue tabletop action happening!
Will post pics and an AAR when I get my first game sorted – hopefully this month. Now there’s a New Year’s resolution I should aim for, trying to get at least one wargame in each month!
Cheers
G