The Little World

I went to a new hobby shop – Hobby Mania. It was up a flight of stairs and shared premises with an accountant’s office. No-wonder – the accountant has the shop as a personal hobby venture. He must be doing well enough – he had an employee there to show me the room of stock and sell me a kit.

If you’re going to be a small trader in this business, you need a niche. This chap has found his in odd and unusual small-run kits. I can’t remember seeing that many new-to-me manufacturers in any one place and it was a bit overwhelming. The chap doing the sales was very helpful and asked me to narrow down my field of interest. I was wise enough to do so, without simpering or shilly shallying around. As a result, he went away and found me a completely unusual kit from a single-person factory in France.

It is a kit with problems – a damaged box and a few parts in the bag look to be broken – but the price was dropped and none of the mechanical faults are going to be a barrier to me. We both agreed to keep me away from resin or photo-etch and in the end I was delighted to get a model that will fall well within my buying criteria – the engine vs price equation you’ve read about.

The decals look wonderful/frightening/troublesome, so I will be dealing with them on a very careful basis indeed. It might be a case of not knowing I can’t do them until they have been done.

That operational approach has covered a lot of my professional and family life…

As it happens, this sort of thing is bringing back the wonder and enthusiasm of youth, inasfar as it makes each visit to a hobby shop a bit of a thrill. The goods may have changed but the excitement can be the same.