My back has been playing up more and more and so I decided that I'd be best off trying to find a way to avoid getting down on the ground to plug the power cabling in. I drilled some holes in the rear-side of the baseboard when it was up against the bookcases one weekend, and then I spent a week looking on the internet for "extension" cables with plugs that would fit Kato Power and Turntable controllers. Grr. Arg.

Eventually found suitable cables and, with the help of a straightened-out coat hanger, fished them through the layout so that they poked out the back. Of course the cables are actually 3m long, so I've got coils of cable rolled around inside the base. I'll be able to resolve that - I've purchased suitable chocolate-blocks, wire cutters and even a set of wire-strippers; so when I get a spare pair of hands, I'll tackle that job. I may even solder the cut cable together and just use the chocolate-blocks as insulation. 

Working on the rear its time to deal with the road. Again a strip of plasticard along the edge and then I laid the road using "Flex Paste" which turns the wood-grain of the plywood into a smooth road-like surface. I explicitly bought a 4cm scraper, which seems a suitable width for an n-scale roadway, to do the scraping with.

I'll be edging one side with Metcalfe paving. Yes, again, I know what I said, but the paving doesn't look out of scale :)

The road goes all along the back from the gasworks to the level crossing.

and then round the church, school and down to the oasthouse too. The tarmac will peter out at the Oast House end and turn into gravel and dirt.

And Yes I'm wishing I didn't have a curve around the church. It'll be fine..

A small copse of trees has arrived between the oast house and the crossing-keeper's cottage. I've been on a Tree-Buying spree on eBay and I'm going to have a LOT of trees, especially behind the church.

One thing you'll note is that all these buildings have had their roofs painted the same colour. We know that the church and school and oast house will pre-date the coming of the railway and so they would have been built from local materials where ever possible, and having roofs that look the same colour goes a long way to making the buildings look as if they fit in nicely.