Neil

It is and I will. The 'to the continent ...' concept is a suite of layouts rather than just one and represents more of a mindset than one easily defined set of things. At the moment as well as London in the sixties I'm also building components of Belgium in the seventies and Lisbon at an undecided point in time. Lisbon exists as a pair of trams based on the diecast models sold in tourist shops which have been motored with Kato mechanisms. The ultimate layout is a bit more nebulous but will have to capture the hills, curves and happy memories of one of Europe's more gorgeous, if run down, cities. Belgium has a good amount of stock already stashed away, though the motive power is as yet more generic than specific. If there's a coherent theme it's about capturing the anticipation and excitement at the prospect of expanding our experiences of the world we inhabit, of travel beyond our normal borders and an appreciation of the differences.

For the past year I've been without a permanent layout, my last project Morfa having been dismantled in January. It went because we planned to move and while there was some sadness the overriding emotion was excitement at the prospect of a blank canvass. With the move likely to happen early in the new year it's time to start marshalling all the pleasant possibilities into a coherent-ish concept. Given that model railways are essentially escapism thoughts have crystallised around escaping from the dreadful head up 'arris, little Englander, inward looking stance which seems to have infested our country the latter half of this year. These days I find St Pancras to be the most exciting station in the UK, not because of its architecture or the trains but because of what it represents, travel to the rest of Europe. There's something magical about setting off from the familiar by train and ending up somewhere like this. Now I'm not really a modeller of the current scene, but London has always been a gateway to Europe with trains like the Golden Arrow and the Night Ferry. The setting of the next layout, London, has almost chosen itself. The era will be the sixties, a time when the continent was generally held to embody glamour and mystique, though it's likely that my enthusiasms for stuff earlier and later will burst out of the straitjacket of true fidelity. However we've yet to move so to keep my hand in and to get a bit of a head start, I've started putting a few pieces of stock together. In keeping with the European theme I've taken a couple of the old Triang Hornby ferry vans and given them a bit of a make over. My pair came at a bargain price being liveried in white and marked up for Transfesa and Fyfes. To cut a long story short I fixed the doors closed, got rid of the lower runners, filed off the circular thing at the centre of the roof, fixed and lowered the swivelling axles, arranged the couplings to pivot, swapped the Triang tension locks for Bachmann, dropped in new Hornby metal wheels and fabricated the missing anchor points on the underframes. The bodies were resprayed with rattle cans before applying transfers by Railtec. Note that the van above is missing the right hand anchor point, the yellow painted projections on the solebar. At first I thought I'd boobed and carved them off in mistake when I was removing the door runners. However on checking photos of pristine, unmolested vans it seems that Triang never moulded them in the first place. The lower van shows my fabricated remedy, the upper van also now sports a full set of anchor points.

Good evening; interesting day here in mid Wales. Good weather and in preparation for a move next year we loaded the car up with a dead fridge freezer, dehumidifier and telly for the recycling centre at Dolgellau. As it stayed nice we decided to head on to the coast at Barmouth. Must have had our shopping heads on as we came back with a Persian rug, samovar and an art deco glass lampshade. Quite how this prepares us for downsizing is a bit of a mystery, but they are rather lovely.

Good afternoon/evening. Wellies; currently use cheapo green Dunlop jobbies from Charlies (for those who hail from the East Riding Charlies is like Boyes), brilliantly comfy and hard wearing. Washing machines; had a spell mending these for a living. Then I'd recommend Hotpoint as reliable and easy to work on. These days I run a fleet of base model Beko machines, one for us and two in our holiday cottages. At the risk of tempting fate I think they're brilliantly reliable, our oldest machine has clocked up nine years of hard use with no attention needed. Our newer pair are six and seven years old, again they've needed no attention.

Pertinent and interesting initiative reported on by the BBC.

Good afternoon all; slightly under par today with a mild tummy bug (no flowers fruit or chocolate please, just send cash or Hattons vouchers) but otherwise I've had a reasonable enough day pottering about. Cheered by sorting out a hard to track down intermittent short with my Patriot's tender and adjusting the back to back of my 9F's pony truck. Also cheered and a little surprised, to tell the truth, by the 'referendum on third runway' by election turning out to be a 'referendum on brexit' by election. Further events of the day have also had a who'd have thought it quality to to them, in particular Nico Rosberg quitting Formula One. Got to admire the man for stopping at the pinnacle of his career. On the subject of knowing when to stop, I'll sign off now. Have a pleasant evening.

Conwy would be my choice over Caernarfon, perhaps not so much for the castle but for the rest of the town offers. Though smaller it boasts medieval town walls which are well worth a walk round, pleasant cafes and a lovely location. While bits of Caernarfon are as lovely, bits of it let it down. I like both but my recommendation to tourists wanting to choose just one would be Conwy. Not far away are Bodnant Gardens and Gwydir Castle both well worth a visit. Nearby too at Llanberis is the fabulous National Slate Museum, one of my favourite days out, even better the footpath through the quarries accessed from the road which winds up through Dieniolen and Dinorwig. Oh and then there are the railways of course ...

Paul Delvaux for me; I love the other worldly quality of his paintings. This is a favourite, just look at the weathering on the van. Here's an overview of his work with railway content.

Wet, wet, wet her in mid Wales this morning. Notice on the news that residents of Trump branded apartment blocks have voted to remove the Trump branding from their buildings. Can't help but wonder if the follically bizarre egotist isn't already eyeing up replacement opportunities for self publicity; The Trump House or Trump Force One perhaps? In other news, since when did we think ennobling tw*ts was a good idea? Away from the trauma of the real world I've spent a pleasant half hour this morning talking about 50's Austin van handbrake linkages with a mate who popped round to pick up a lawnmower and potentially a spare log burning stove.

I don't know which country you hale from OTBL but I suspect that it may be somewhere with big distances between places, the US, Canada or Australia spring to mind. The relatively short distances encountered in the UK can deceive as the very compact nature of the country means that a lot of people will be sharing your part of the road network and the average point to point speed will be low. Your itinerary seems wildly ambitious and even if pruned down such a rigid structure leaves no slack to explore other unplanned things which may come your way as the trip unfolds. Rather than a tick list of sights to see could I suggest that you plan in terms of centres where you might base yourselves for a few days. I used to live in York, where there are days worth of attractions to be had, some like the railway museum are not weather dependant but some like the bar walls are best done in the dry. Similarly if you look at Wales where I now live, Snowdon really deserves a clear day, the narrow gauge railways can be all weather and some sights like Dolgoch Falls on the Talyllyn are best after a spell of heavy rain. In your shoes I'd be tempted to spend some days in London, journey through Bath to Hay for a few more days in S Wales and the marches, up to Conwy for some time in Snowdonia, across to York for a few more days followed by a return to London and your flight home. You may not get to see as many individual sights, but you'll have a more relaxing holiday and those things you do get to experience will be all the richer for not being in a rush to the next place.

Oh dear, but we should have seen it coming. In recent years we've experienced the rise of lowest common denominator populism exploited by venal psychopaths intent solely on furthering their own position; the most obvious example would be Putin but we're quite capable of producing our home grown equivalents or wannabes. Psycopath:- from Psycology Today "Psychopathy is among the most difficult disorders to spot. The psychopath can appear normal, even charming. Underneath, he lacks conscience and empathy, making him manipulative, volatile and often (but by no means always) criminal."

Good afternoon all. There has been a notable increase in traffic over the last couple of days in normally sleepy mid Wales, almost all of which comprises either 'performance cars' or over equipped 4 wheel drives of the sort which appeal to the gentleman disappointed with their genitals. They hurry about in an inconsiderate manner attaching themselves as close as possible to the rear bumper of any vehicle they perceive as not being driven briskly enough (viz. lower than the speed limit) as though their self importance was somehow time critical. In a couple of hours time barriers will be erected across the road leading home; passage will only be permitted on presentation of papers to the cro-magnon, jobsworth, rent a thug staffing said checkpoint. Yes deep joy, for the Wales Rally GB returns in its full magnificence to blight the valley for the weekend. I've been Angry of Aberllefenni, thank you for staying with me through the rant, I feel much better now.

Went back to visit family in York over the weekend, whilst there I spotted a couple of vehicles which interested me being a bit out of the ordinary. First up this classic piece of fifties Americana, the Ford F100 pick up. Spotted just round the corner from my daughters, I liked the relatively stock look. Though obviously a work in progress my daughter tells me its owner is going down the retro route with it rather than flames, metalflake and inappropriate alloys. Next up a classic fifties design but a home grown one, the Routemaster. This was waiting by the station on the tour bus stand was this gorgeous gothed out black beauty. The inside (such as I could see) appered to be as splendid as the outside. A spot of googling tells me that the company running the bus are called Ghost Bus Tours; almost as good a pun as 'the winter of our discount tents'.

Hello Rich, nothing concrete as yet I'm afraid. Though it means that I can't make plans for anything big and permanent it doesn't stop me tinkering with a few projects; at the moment I'm in the planning phase for something portable in nature.

Good afternoon, just been sorting through holiday snaps and I thought that this one might amuse. Sunday in Ghent is book market and flower market day, and having done both we wandered to Vrijdagmarkt in search of lunch. Approaching the square we saw lines of motorbikes half filling it. After a couple of minutes, one by one they fired up and lined up on the road encircling the market square. There were a huge variety of machines, new and old British bikes, a number of BMWs, Italian jobs, Japanese machines, odd balls from the eastern bloc and a smattering of scooters. All the participants appeared to be having huge fun, but I think what struck me the most was their attire. The most common garb seemed to be suit and tie accessorised with shade and black p!ss pot helmet. Several riders sported bow ties and there were a small number of impractical, yet rather spiffy pastel suits to be seen. All a far cry from what I usually see on the roads here in mid Wales where it's all a bit more tribal, the power rangers atop Fireblades seem to head en mass to Barmouth while the pensioners on Leadwings appear at Aberystwyth prom and scooter boys and girls are only rarely spotted further north at Llandudno.

In general terms I think it's a good thing that people are politically aware and engaged, though in an ideal world it would be good if such concerns didn't impinge on the escapism that our hobby can bring. However we're not in ideal times, we're in a turbulent period which looks as though it will become more volatile next year. There's a prediction about that the best case scenario (access to tariff free single European market) will see the country about 4% worse off, not just for the short term but as an enduring fact of economic life, other less favourable trading terms come with a higher cost to the country. I would imagine that any business in the hobby sector would disproportionally feel the pinch as households focus their spending on the necessities of life rather than the luxuries. For model making in its purist form this may not be a bad thing, cornflake boxes and plastic packaging are raw materials and a by-product of the need to eat but the plonk and play sector may well suffer.

Good morning everyone, this time last week I was in Belgium enjoying blue skies, sunshine and temperature in the mid twenties. We were based in Ghent, a fantastic and friendly city. Though Ghent is in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, English is widely spoken, in fact it seems to be a requirement of some jobs. Wandering around the city I spotted a recruiting notice in the window of a Subway sandwich shop (yes the same as the UK chain) in English saying that they had vacancies for assistants both full and part time, and that candidates would have to be fluent in both Dutch and English. A bit of a contrast I thought to here in the UK where I can't imagine that speaking two languages would be a requirement for a similar job.

On a warm September's day the early morning mist burns back to reveal Little Point, rising Brigadoon like, from the sandy horizons of the east coast. The air smells of change, raising goose bumps of anticipation that have nothing to do with the eventual departure of the train. Despite the rising temperature it's clear that autumn lies not far over the horizon and that these last days of summer represent a last chance to soak up light and heat. But these days are to be welcomed rather than regretted as they bring calm after raucous high summer.

Really? Motor. Gearbox.

Report from the BBC here

Utterly gorgeous photo, just clicking on the 'like' button doesn't do it justice.

Here's one from Amazon; eye watering or what?

Not just e-bay, but [stage whisper] here too. [/stage whisper] Compare this RMweb buy and sell, with this from Hattons.