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Modelling mojo and state of mind


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I have a list of jobs including finding a leak underneath the bath that needed doing today but I sacked it off in favour of doing stuff to the railway...

I’ll deal with all of that stuff tomorrow now as I feel relaxed having done enjoyable things today on the spur of the moment.

I mean it’s been leaking for a while now and I have worked hard this week so having a day off to relax was a good plan.

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Today started well, I had a very stiff back & shoulders after gardening & cycling at the weekend. I was overdue a massage from my osteopath lady. She did a really good workout on the back and right arm I damaged 6 years ago. great.

 

On the way home I stopped to look at the condition of a river bridge I have some responsibility for (as trustee of a railway group). Stumbled on the river bank, fell backwards & put my left hand down. 6 hours later it feels like its in a bed of nettles, stinging & buzzing, I’ve injured the nerves. ! 

 

And signs of corrosion under the bridge, from road salt and flooding. 

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The sunnier weather hasn't improved my mojo, sad to say. A lot of smaller parts for the scratch building work continues to arrive, which is good. At least, I think it's good.... I determined right from the off that there will be NO modelling until the shed is completed. Sure, I'm collecting bits, but not putting them together. It does get me down, but the self-control is vital.

 

I'd show some pictures of the shed project, but I managed to smash the 'phone yesterday... AARgh! Still, another2 weeks, and the second jab takes place. I haven't been in a pub since granny was a lad.... Do they still accept Florins? 

 

Keep with it, folks,

Ian. 

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In general I am feeling Ok and the sun and walks are helping. Unfortunately not so as far as my railway activities are concerned, sadly my motivation has gone and I feel rather as a football manager must feel with their team bottom of the league by umpteen points, only two or three matches left in the season and the sack looming.

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I've finally started getting my mojo back as I've returned to finishing off my Revell Saturn V, painting over the mistakes I made and heaven forbid, gluing stuff on :jester:  I've noticed from watching tv programmes that the pandemic and lockdown has made a lot of people wary of going outside and meeting others, they feel they've lost the ability to interact with people.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If your modelling mojo has completely deserted you my advice is,.... buy Airfix kit. Choose something you did when you were a kid, even better. I remembered doing the Saturn V as an 11 year old, ( I see Jools has been similarly inspired) For me the Blower Bentley, a Shorts Sunderland, a Spitfire, Schools class loco and the SRN4 hovercraft would all work. All will take you back years and remind you why you like making models.

Cheers

David

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I must admit that my modelling has stalled, mainly due to health and family issues.  I think I’ll be getting back in the saddle once the doctors finally decide which painkillers to give me to reduce the crippling pain in my back.

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50 minutes ago, Eddie R v2.0 said:

Funny you should say that David. Around Christmas time I bought a handful of Revell kits and started building them. Spurred me on to do some wagon kits and before I knew it, had the old mojo back and Glencoe took flight properly. 
 

 

And you are making a great job of Glencoe. I follow it with interest.

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It turns out I am doing it the other way round. My Gauge 3 diorama of Embo will feature two plastic 1.24 kits. A Bedford truck and a little grey Ferguson tractor. I will likely do these last after i have made the diorama and the train that goes on it

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2 hours ago, David Bell said:

If your modelling mojo has completely deserted you my advice is,.... buy Airfix kit. Choose something you did when you were a kid, even better. I remembered doing the Saturn V as an 11 year old, ( I see Jools has been similarly inspired) For me the Blower Bentley, a Shorts Sunderland, a Spitfire, Schools class loco and the SRN4 hovercraft would all work. All will take you back years and remind you why you like making models.

Cheers

David

My mojo seems to have deserted me again, but I will second this advice as last year I dug out several part-made Airfix kits from well over 30 years ago and actually finished one, possibly for the first time ever......  Perhaps when the weather "stabilises", I'll set up outside.  I liked modelling outside.

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Doesn't take much to take mine away, but I think at the moment I an concerned about some professional matters which is spilling over.  I'm in the middle of an end of course assessment which is pushing all sorts of buttons and I have a change in role coming up which is frankly daunting for me though a massive opportunity too.

 

I've been doing my current role with a number of companies for 20 years now, but soon I will be joining the proper 'professional' coders and it's a bit scary for an old codger like myself who was self taught - this is impostor syndrome in full swing.  The assessment I am currently doing has already made me think hard about what I know, have had to learn very quickly about securing a web page for public use over the safety of intranet sites.

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My modelling mojo is at a low ebb, because I'm busy doing other jobs that will help it in the long run (converted the loft to store things safely, then bought a new shed so I can separate my tools, materials etc from the gardening stuff, and theoretically make it easier to get to).

 

I've also found that doing a project that's a bit different and 'out there' is helping; having done the Cakebox and the Seaside miniature railway for competitions, and with a load of half-made garden railway projects on the boil, I was getting a bit stalled with railway modelling.  But me and my Eldest are doing a joint project based on "The Iron Giant" by Ted Hughes (just for the fun of it really), so I'm doing a model of said metal man which equates to about 2ft tall in 1/32nd; different, a bit wierd, and it turns out very fun for being a break from the norm, more like the sort of model-making I used to do at Uni :)

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First time tonight I have sat at my worktable for a good few weeks.. just not had the chance and to a degree the inclination to do any modelling.

 

In mid-April I quite quickly came into possession of a large quantity of slide transparency boxes, mostly the twin 50 slide boxes that Jessops used to make x120, along with 3 of the 80 slide carousels plus 10 stack boxes that each hold 500 slides I think. To cut a long-story short it was either rescue them and cart them home or potentially they would have been disposed of. Still got load more to collect at some point soon. Plus I arranged to purchase 20 of my favourite ever wagons from my friends widow too. So that side-tracked me somewhat especially finding room for the stack of slide boxes yikes.

 

So tonight I tidied up my work table so that has made things a lot better. The MEA to SJA conversions of the Bachmann wagons are pretty much complete, the Accurascale PCA is in process of changing from STS version to Blue Circle version, POA to PSAs in hand just need to restart those but need to strip the paint off the now shortened height bodies, so they will need dunking in jar of superstrip if it is still potent enough.

 

So all in all feel better in a way just tidying up. Oh and a nice OO twin van model on its way from Cornwall using some birthday money.

 

My blog on here way out of date too oh well.

 

Cheers Paul

20210514_233648.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

So to follow up on losing my job a couple of weeks back, it looks like I'm going to be getting my previous job back. Pay isn't as good but its enough to see me through. Gives me space to think about my next step at least. Anyone got a decent paying job going that involves paying me to drink beer and watch trains?

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On 27/05/2021 at 20:31, Coldgunner said:

So to follow up on losing my job a couple of weeks back, it looks like I'm going to be getting my previous job back. Pay isn't as good but its enough to see me through. Gives me space to think about my next step at least. Anyone got a decent paying job going that involves paying me to drink beer and watch trains?


Sign me up for that :P.  I’d love to have my old job back as a bus driver but that’s not going to happen after my stroke in 2018 and diagnosis of MS last year.

Edited by jools1959
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  • 2 months later...

Not touched the layout in a couple of months, locos all off track ready for me to install point motors but I cannot bring myself to begin to install them.   Each time I think about it, I end up finding something that is a complete time waste to avoid it, like today, sitting on my laptop typing this.

 

It's like the railway has turned into Kryptonite

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Do one point, then leave it and go and reward yourself (cake is useful here, as are pubs).  This will positively reinforce your modelling mojo and desire for nice things as rewards.  Small, bite size jobs, full credit taken for successful completion, and large, big bite size cake.  Worry about the weight you've put on when you've finished the point motors and got your modelling mojo back...

 

In the meantime, don't beat yourself up.  Modelling is a hobby, and you don't let anyone down or fail to fulfil any obligation if you don't do it; only do it when you want to and when you are going to enjoy it!

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@The Johnster Can't even bring myself to do one, that was the target I set myself, it's ridiculous.

 

Today - gym, Sunday Roast at the pub, walk by the Mersey, chased a tree trunk racing down said Mersey as it is in flood, came home.

 

Still had time to do the point, but no, cuppa tea, cake, watch a bit of youtube, surf the web, prevaricate some more - went to the railway room, picked up the laptop instead and came back downstairs.

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I sometimes lose momentum when working on one of my paintings, which isn't great if you're doing it as a part of your income.

 

What I have found helpful is to set your phone alarm for twenty minutes. Go and get on with the job and don't stop until the alarm goes. Set it for another twenty minutes and have a cup of tea or whatever. When the alarm sounds, reset it and go back to the task in hand.

 

You find after a while that the alarm isn't necessary and the job is done.

 

It took me ages to fit the point motors on my layout, mostly because I was thinking that they wouldn't work. It turned out that I was wrong about that.

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For my work (Monks Gate Models professional model maker etc etc) I have recently started using Timeular which is an app on my phone. You can pay a subscription but I use the free version and it does everything I need it to, ie keeps track of how much time I spend on the many and various projects I have on the go at any one time. You can add as many different projects as you want and can archive them when they’re done. I have no connection with Timeular other than being a happy chappy user. 
The thing that I have found using it though is that once I set the timer on it to record time spent against a particular project, it focusses my mind to only work on that project alone and not get side-tracked or distracted. This is obviously a good thing when it’s my income but it also occurs to me that it could be useful in all manner of contexts within getting round to doing stuff, especially the stuff we may have been putting off, whether getting paid for it or not. Even the act of creating a new project and naming it something like Point Control or even break it down some more and categorise individual points on the layout. I find the satisfaction of completing even the smallest task and archiving it is quite delicious and is a pat on my back! 

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