It has been sometime since my last entry on Skaleby, and things have rather ground to a halt, hit the buffers or any other phrase you can think of which means tools have been well and truely downed! Other things have rather taken over. Our first child, Amber, was born on the morning of the 13th December 2011. Therefore I have had rather more urgent priorities of late such as feeding, nappy changing, sleep and finding enough time for work as well. At times like this I rather wish the myth that teachers only work from 9am - 3.30pm was true!

There has been no scenic progress on Skaleby to report. But rather like many others at the end of 2011, it has been a good time to reflect on the progress so far. It was only in April 2011 that the baseboards were installed in the spare bedroom so progress has been quite rapid. The track layout was finalised and track around the station area was pinned down. I have since built three embankments, added scenery to one of these and started the scenics around the rear of the main station building. I have started the scenery around the small engine shed and laid out track for the fiddle yard. I do now have one area where I can photograph trains and the scenery looks finished (see photos in the earlier posts). Not bad for just a few weeks work, spread over the last 8 months!

Of course I have managed to run trains. Even in the last few weeks I have stolen a few minutes to keep trains running. It does help that the layout shares the spare room with the family's house rabbit, who just happens to need his exercise each day. As supervising the rabbit comes down to me, I do manage to sneak a few train movements each day whilst also catching up with work on my laptop. Who says men can't multi-task!!!

The down side of this room sharing arrangement is that the rabbit fur seems to have a nasty habit of flying up and settling in all areas of the layout. I seem to be forever tackling the cleaning of stock with small tweasers and a paint brush! At present it is keeping the trains running and the trusty SDJR "Jinty" has made many return trips with the Standard 3 82020 substituting when the Jinty is "in the works" for de-furring!!!!

With half term approaching I have received "permission" from the transport minister (aka the wife!!) to resume scenic work. At present I am not quite sure what I am going to do next as there are so many half finished areas. At present my mind is drifting towards working on the rear of the rear platform with the idea of working on the scenery from the back of the layout to the front. I will need some stone walled sections in order to do this though as I know that at Goathland dry stone walls stand at the rear of this platform. I do not have any yet so I will have to keep my eyes open over the next few weeks.

I do have a busy few weeks of shows to visit. This weekend sees the new Derby "trains only" swapmeet which has moved from West Bridgford. Much better for me!! Who wants to go over to Nottingham (except to see the Rams pick up three points with only ten men!!). Then I have Stafford Model Railway show before half term. With the Leicester show at Syston also falling around half term I have three chances to get what I need. Mind you the last two events will probably also serve to re-ignite my dreams of building a layout for displaying at a show - Skaleby is strictly a home only layout!! I think that dream may have to remain on hold for a few more years...unless those 6 lotto balls drop for me of course!!

I will post pictures and updates as and when!