The Little World

I can build model airplanes at home.

I can do a lot of things at home…yet I go to a club every week, if possible, drink coffee, and build model airplanes. When I do the coffee is nothing special, and the work on the model airplanes can be very minor; a bit of painting or cementation. It is a long journey for little actual work.

But that is not what one goes for. It is the companionship of the other modellers that makes the morning. Jokes and banter, questions and advice, showing off and talking gossip. We could do it in a coffee shop and get cake as well, but we choose to do it round workbenches.

I did not realise how much use community would be for mental well-being until my Father died and I was reduced to work or home life in pretty much exclusively female company. I loved female company and still do, but there was a hole in the psyche that needed filling. That time I joined a model rail club, then a muzzle loading shooting club, and was able to enjoy my spare time for decades.

Now it is scale models, and the benefit is still there. I spread my time between two hobby clubs and meet people at three premises. Every week has at least one communal modelling session and the kits are churning out well.