An unusual birthday present from my wife, maybe, but most welcome. A day allocated exclusively to working on the garage layout - Highworth. No kids, no chores. Ploughmans lunch served at the layout. Excellent.

I set to working on the area behind Highworth Station. I've a fair number of the usual Metcalfe and Superquick shops left over from a previous layout. So, the bog-standard "High Street" seemed to be inevitable.

Nothing wrong with that approach - but I do tend to glaze over when looking at the model railway press and the only thing that changes is the order in which the shops have been placed on the backscene.

What to do?

Then a bit of inspiration triggered by a Happy Birthday text from my brother from his canal boat - fishing rod in one hand, texting gadget-thingy in the other, no doubt.

Why not put a canal scene with warehouses in as the backdrop for Highworth Station? A spare couple of Wills retaining wall pieces were found in the "Odds and Ends" box and this swung it. By the end of the weekend (with kids now in tow and eager to help) the canal started to take shape.

The photo shows an initial layout of the 3 Wills retaining wall kits (yep, 2 more kits acquired over the weekend and wallet £13 lighter). Artist's mounting board left over from last week's platform building project forms the bottom of the canal.

Back to work now.