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Nice home cooked Jambalaya for tea tonight accompanied by this rather nice bottle of St Austell Black IPA from my advent calendar stash…….followed by a feisty Sussex brew from the not long for this world Darkstar brewery…..bring on the weekend.

A bit more progress of St Mary Abbots Court. Couple of walls now have their main blocks of colour, down pipes etc fitted. Some windows added too. Once the shop windows are in I can start to fit the walls to the carcass and then add all the dormers to the roof prior to tiling it.

Early Wicks Models next to the Open Market in Brighton John Taylor models in Preston St, Brighton Fryers in Lewes…floor to ceiling 2nd hand. Southern Models, Preston Circus Brighton Later Kemp Models at various locations around Brighton and Hove Spring Models? In Spring St Brighton run by the manager at John Taylor who went on to be manager at Beatties in Brighton. Kings Cross Models Victors of Islington Hadley Hobbies at Liverpool St

Today I just managed to get the remaining two walls cut out. Back to work tomorrow……well I say work……. Mrs G and I are out out tonight, for a meal…..meeting Brighton MRC stalwart and ground zero….he’s member 001….Keith Carter. I’ve known Keith since I was 15 nearly 20, 30, 40, 48 years ago!

Hi Guy, yes I’ve had to shuffle things around a bit. The Radnor Arms as you spotted should be the other side of the road. The garage at the south end of the station has moved across the bridge. ……..and yes the Police car is doing exactly that. Pretty well everything that’s moved is due to the curve into the fiddle yard. The layout is one 4ft x 2ft baseboard smaller than originally planned. I had to compromise slightly on the room size when the extension was built. This didn’t leave me enough room to put a work desk in.

So I placed St Mary Abbots Court in its final location….you may spot a slight problem! Oops! So the entrance way has now been removed. The staircase will be discarded and the entrance doors set further back in the building. It is also too close to the pub, which I can move a bit, thankfully.

St Mary Abbots Court: I’ve added the brick headers to all of the window apertures that have been cut so far. Entrance porch has been built but won’t get added until after the building is painted…….and finally the first of the render trim has been added. Door ways into the shops have yet to be cut. Hopefully I should get the last two walls cut out tomorrow.

Two more walls cut out at todays meeting, whilst I watched a rather nice class 76 trundle round the layout.

NGS Yorkshire Group meeting today, so some progress likely to St Mary Abbots Court.

A bit more progress this afternoon with the first wall of St Mary Abbot,s Court. Shops on the ground floor of this side which faces Kensington High St. In real life there is a Leyland Decorators Centre, don’t know what was there in 1980.

Good progress with the roof although the angles went slightly awry somewhere. The error will get hidden under the tiles. The missing bit will go on once the wall below it is sorted out as there is a chimney stack right on the corner to work out.

Horrible day weather wise today, barely getting daylight and non stop rain. I did manage some work on the new building carcass. This has a slightly complicated roof style and shape so I’m going to try and get that done first before the walls.

French sausage and bean stew? Good swop!

The second Faller kit is well on its way to be being completed. The new front ground floor wall is all that needs to be completed other than the roof painted and chimneys added. Hopefully it should be finished tomorrow so that a major start can be made on the next building carcass which is based on St Mary Abbots Court which is on the junction of Kensington High Street and Warwick Rd.

All looking very good John. Do you mind popping over and tidy my room up too….still haven’t done it since September!

A bit more progress today. Some boundary walls built and a little bit more work done on the remaining Faller kit. I’ll post some pictures later this weekend. A nice takeaway from the village Chinese restaurant beckons for later this evening.

I didn’t know that until I was trawling the Internet earlier in the week.

The warehouse for Kensington Olympia ( N gauge) is pretty well complete, just chimney pots and a bit of weathering to add. I’ve painted a ghost sign on the end wall. J Lyons were headquartered nearby so this a bit of a homage. This corner of the layout is dare I say it ………almost finished!

The bright red brick walls have just been stood in position for fit, they will get coping stones and weathered before being fitted. Apart from the remaining Faller kit and some greenery this corner is very very nearly finished.

Well the warehouse is now largely finished, just the chimney pots to add and a bit more weathering. J Lyons & Co Ltd of tea rooms cakes and ice cream fame used to be headquartered in Hammersmith and Olympia was used to forward lots of goods from them. As a homage I’ve painted a ghost sign on the end of the building. I’ve no idea who was actually in the building. I’m rather pleased with the result. Who remembers Lyons fruit pies from the train buffet car? Many have passed my lips ( I was going to say passed through me!) over the years on multi day train trips. Two baseboards have been disconnected together and turned 90 degrees to make working on the scenery easier, which results in some nice picture angles.

A complementary review in Railways Illustrated. https://www.pressreader.com/similar/282548727337006

A lot of sale items at Monk Bar Modelshop, including n gauge. https://www.monkbarmodelshop.co.uk/sale-c235

Next spare day is Friday morning. The plan is to disconnect the two boards being worked on so that I can get to the bits I can’t normally reach. Then make a start on the next card carcass. This will leave me with three more buildings to build.

A quick trip round the York ring road this morning netted me my pile of windows and some individual lay roof slates from York Modelmaking……plus some MF templates to cut out the windows.. The weather has not been kind to modelling today with very poor lighting so I didn’t get as much done as I’d like. The warehouse building now has all its walls attached. Some filler to hide the small gap. The second modified Faller kit has had a bit more work including some opened windows.

With a little over 120 days to get Olympia finished enough for the NGS show at the Railway Museum I thought rather than eat drink and be merry I’d better get my finger out. So over the holidays whilst slowly supping beers from my St Austell brewery advent calendar and being intravenously fed mince pies I’ve finished, well nearly, another building . This was one of of a pair of Faller kits started months…maybe years ago! Both kits have been anglicised and decent progress ( not seen on these photos) has also been made on the second one too.