The Little World

We are just starting a 5-day covid lockdown and fortunately our house has toilet paper, food, and books to read. The family has the goggle box and I have a stash.

There are three kits a’building at present – one for the Tuesday Soviet Mens Shed meeting, one for the fortnightly glue and talk session, and one for my own amusement here at home. That one will be rolled out the hangar door today and then I have to either break routine on the other two or reach up to the stash shelf.

Many modellers are fortunate in these sorts of situations – they will have sequestered away many things that they intend to build one day. Well, this last year seems to have been composed of 365 of those days and tomorrow is another one. So what will it be? 2-engine bomber? 4-engine bomber? Fighter plane? Trainer? Light plane? The choice doesn’t really matter – they all deliver the same unit of engagement and amusement per hour spent.

This is very odd – because some of the stash kits are far more expensive than others – some moulded far better. Some are vanilla-plain and some liquorice-exotic. But graphed out over their time of construction, they all yield the same pleasure.

I may even make headway in spraying some of the old acrylics onto them. Now that thinner tricks have been learned, the half-used bottles are actually a resource again. A few of their colours suggest I was shopping drunk, but I can take some comfort from the fact that they’ll all make Porch Grey or Porch Salmon when mixed in a big jar.

If I ever want to paint a ’56 Studebaker I’m all set.