Taking it easier

This week has been far less fraught and overwhelming than the previous and so, possibly, this’ll be a shorter blog post. We shall see, though.

The week began back in the office well enough; it was nice to see my colleagues again after the Christmas break and it has been a good week in that regard, work wise, from beginning to end. The team is starting to gel a bit better and I am enjoying working closer with Lorenzo as well. There was a nasty moment on Monday when I heard that a bailiff had turned up at my accountants, way down south, claiming my business was massively in debt but after a lot of panic, and quite a bit of head scratching, I have worked out what the issue is and this is now in hand. I’m annoyed at a couple of people about it, and it does just show again just what crooks Debt Collection Agencies are, but at least I’m now on top of the situation.

 

Lots of deliveries

The other theme for the week has been deliveries and not just of model railway kit. S and S had asked if we would kindly bring some items back for them in Harrison, which obviously we agreed to without question. This was delivered on Wednesday, along with the two sunbathing recliner rocker chair things that we had picked out for the balcony and roof terrace. A was complaining that the front room looked a bit like a sorting office and you can see her point. We moved all the boxes out into Harrison to clear space for us to continue using the sofa.

It is now less than eight weeks til we drive back to Bulgaria (not that either of us are getting overly excited… honest) and so I’ve been turning my thoughts towards getting completely ready for the journey, and gathering together the items we will need. I do still have to order the second Belfast sink for my part of the kitchen however there was good news that my parents’ offer of the entirety of their kitchen will be able to go ahead. It’ll be a challenge to fit everything in I’m sure but that is such a generous offer and makes a huge difference to us. A has even come round to my thinking that there’ll be plenty of storage in the units we get from my parents and so we may as well just use it as our kitchen and not as random storage around the house.

 

Painting the parts on the sprue

As for my evenings I have been able to spend a few minutes at least every day during the week putting the finishing touches on the paint for my model Red Arrow. I have learned so much from doing this and I am really pleased that I didn’t rush ahead with the Concorde model. I have also ordered almost all the model train equipment that I want to take back and that has been arriving through the week; it has got so the delivery people now know A by sight and don’t have to ask the name for deliveries. I’m obviously loving that it is like Christmas every day I get back with parcels to unwrap. If only I wasn’t having to pay for it all

 

A modelling her wellies

Talking of which I had the great pleasure of buying A a pair of wellies that she has been wanting for ages and getting them shipped to her. When they arrived I was talking to her on skype and hinted that she should go and open the latest parcel. She bounced away and returned to reply fully in capitals and she has been wearing them excitedly ever since. They will do her really well over in Bulgaria during snow and the colder months.

The internet dongle stopped working on Thursday which was a pain as it meant A couldn’t do any work but it did mean that rather than the plan which was to go to Blackpool together on Saturday, she went on her own on Friday so she could work at the studio while Thomas was at the garage getting the clonks and rubbing sounds checked out. This worked out very well as the clonking was just the spare tyre that was once again loose, and the rubbing wasn’t anything major but Chris’ll be able to fix it next week when the replacement bearings arrive. I woke really early on Friday morning and could not get back to sleep so was up checking the internet out and found that it had recovered over night. To be fair to Three they were excellent on the phone, really helpful, and have given me 7 days credit as an apology for the outage which I didn’t even ask for. At the moment, I remain impressed with them.

 

This was such a lovely meal

When A got back from Blackpool we were neither in the mood for cooking so decided to walk up to the pub round the corner for dinner and to check out our local. This ended up being a really good decision as the food was outstanding (the gammon joint underneath that egg was a good two inches thick and fantastically well cooked) as well as being reasonably priced, and the pub is a really lovely one. It is right next to the canal and has two open fireplaces and loads of interesting items displayed around the walls. The other locals are also really nice and welcoming; I can see myself going down there a bit once I am on my own here.

 

Striations in the sky

Saturday morning I was again up early; it had been so windy in the night that neither of us slept particularly well. The most exciting part of the night was about an hour in when I was woken by a loud bang and then the sound of hail. I got up to look out of the window as it was really very loud but the weather wasn’t that bad. When I turned round I saw the front door swinging. My first thought was “break in!” but when I got downstairs I found that the TV and laptop was still lying on the floor so I guess the wind must have blown it open. I checked around the house and found nothing untoward so relocked the door and went back to bed. I was asleep pretty quickly again and slept well. I mainly got out of bed as I had seen a glimmer in the sky through the landing window and was rewarded by a gorgeous “herring bone” pattern in the sky from the sun, still below the horizon. It cleared quite quickly, as I sat in the dining area modelling again and waiting for A to wake up. She was off for her run, which she has managed every single day this week, and when she got back she joined me in toast with some of the plum, raisin and walnut jam that I opened that morning. Wow I’m good at jam making.

 

Delicate work sliding the transfer off the backing

I had reached the point on my model where I would have to start putting transfers on so I sat down with a bowl of warm water and very carefully reminded myself of the technique. All of them went on very well apart from one which I had to secure (later in the day, after leaving it for a good while) with a tiny dab of glue where it was lifting a bit. These transfers are all for the cockpit and so will be enclosed in the final model but I still want them to be good.

 

The cockpit is starting to take shape

A bit later I succumbed to A’s encouragement and also began the gluing, putting the cockpit pieces all together and even managing to squeeze the little pilot figure in with the joystick between his knees. It is very detailed but reveals my lack of skill with a fine paintbrush however that will only get better with time and with practice. My plan is for this Red Arrow to eventually be joined by a second and to have them hanging, flying in formation, from the roof above the train set. I’m even considering getting some cotton wool to trail behind as their smoke. Putting this model together has given me some more ideas about the Concorde including finding out there are no pilot figures included with the kit so I’m going to track some down for it. I’m also really thinking seriously about putting some small lights in the cabin and cockpit so, if I wish to have the train set in a “night time” mode, then the Concorde can have its lights turned on. As you can tell, this is a good hobby for me and will entertain me for hours.

 

The lucky charms for the journey

The final thing I did on Saturday was to mount the two micro machine planes that I had bought for Harrison onto his dashboard. I got a Sopwith Camel and a Red Baron (both had to be shipped from the States and arrived to the studio for A to collect on Friday) and have stuck them down as picture in front of the steering wheel using little glue patches. They will do us proud on the journey over, and when I’m moving Cjc in a couple of weeks too. It’s good to have them there.

 

Chilling on the sun lounger

And so to today. I was up and modelling again relatively early, while A went for her run, then I cooked what ended up being a fantastic breakfast with butter mushrooms, bacon, fried egg and toast and we ate this sat together in the office. It has been a relaxing day in the main, since then, though I’ve been up and down to the table to keep doing bits and pieces of painting and gluing – I found a few mistakes today which really reinforces my determination to be cautious while doing the Concorde. Firstly though I pulled one of the boxed up recliners in from Harrison to put together and found that it went together really easily and once it was built and I sat on it, found that it is really comfortable as well. This will pack down nicely so I’ll keep this one here for the garden come nicer weather, and the still flat packed one can go back with A.

 

Rail bridge

One of the items I bought for the train set, and not one that is immediately in my plans for the layout, is this bridge. It is a lifting bridge over a river and was sold advertised as a project for repair. They weren’t wrong; it has teeth missing from where it lifts up and the whole lifting mechanism is gone. I also found that one of the uprights was broken so this picture is taken just after I fixed that. I really like it though and once it is back working I can imagine it looking really good in the layout. The challenge of wiring it so a locomotive can carry on while going over the bridge is another question, however.

 

Red Arrow Hawk T1 slowly taking shape

As I have mentioned I have been on and off at the modelling all day today as well and this is the state of the plane as of sitting and typing this up. It is by no means perfect and there are a number of things I did wrong right at the beginning which will impact on how well it is finished however it is also a lot better than I expected to be able to achieve so I’m happy enough. The real key is one I knew already which is “be patient” and “be cautious” but my patience and caution, as prepared as I was, was not enough. My basic skills are improving to the extent that today I was able to pare off paint with the scalpel really accurately before gluing some pieces together.

So there you have it; not THAT short a post, but a far less hectic one and now I’m going to save this for upload tomorrow and go and find a snack – big as breakfast was it hasn’t quite been enough to keep me through til dinner.