A summer wasting..

So it's not really the weather for model railways, traditionally it's a winter hobby, cooped up in a shed/loft/club room pouring over the intricate details which other people seem to be overly concerned with. This means progress is understandably slow down in Gravesend (as evident in lack of updates) the lure of my mums back garden and her cooking and sitting in the sun is just too much. Thats not to say progress has stopped completely, it's just carrying on a much more leisurely pace. I've almost finished all the track laying, but i need to extend the board out to finish the station area, which calls for a trip to B&Q to buy some wood.. Ballasting has been started, it's looking nice, but needs to be painted and weathered really, and i now have some nice green areas taking shape. I saw a couple of big trees in the model shop the other day, i think it might be a pay day treat. Oh, i also spent a pleasant couple of evenings in my flat building these little beauties -

It's good to get back on the kit bandwagon, i'll be picking up some more of these as time goes on.

Of course, theres plenty of oppurtunites in the summer to take a look at the real thing. We were 'supposed' to go to San Francisco on holiday this year, but ended up in Scotland, best of all, we ended up in Scotland riding the trains. If it wasn't for the Pains of Being Pure at Heart we'd have travelled up to Inverness by train too, but due to a visit from New York's finest we had to fly. To be honest, it was a strange flight, it didn't feel like the plane was actually moving, and i was glad to get off. Inverness is a lovely town (city?) and even though it was slightly overrun with kids there for the Rockness festival it didn't feel as crowded as Reading, for expample, ever did over festival weekend. The trains had to take a back seat on the first day though as we took a really relaxing boat ride across Loch Ness, for some reason i thought this would be a pretty barren place, quite dark and depressing, i mean, Nessie isn't going to live somewhere warm and tranquil, and with hills stretching either side of the wide loch and the sunshine reflecting off the water, and not to mention how beautiful the ruins of Urquhart castle are, is she?

We got back into the Inverness early afternoon, to be honest, there wasn't that much else going on, we shopped, we drank, we went to a ridiculously overpriced second hand bookshop, we had dinner overlooking the castle, all very nice, but i was looking forward to the train ride the following day...