Bells and more trains

I have finally installed my Christmas present -- a duck doorbell.






I went to another railway exhibition with a friend last Saturday. These were large models for garden railways at a scale of 16mm to 1 foot or about 1:19 of full size. The exhibition was nearby at Stonleigh Park near Coventry. It was a very pleasant day out. There were many very detailed locomotives and rolling stock with many models of Irish narrow-gauge railways. It seemed strange to me, however, that the models of buildings and people were more like caricatures in contrast to the fine detail in the train models. In particular the stonework on many buildings was much too deeply grooved. When you look at a real stone or brick building, including those that are a couple of hundred years old (there are plenty of examples around here) the surface is almost smooth between the stones or bricks, and if you reduced everything to 1/19th of its size it would be perfectly well modelled by a flat printed surface. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos to illustrate the point.

Trains and Wales

I went to the London Festival of Railway Modelling last Saturday at Alexandra Palace. What a treat. As well as the place being spectacular there were so many wonderful models.




My favourite was a very small 00 gauge layout called Wansbeck Road. The landscaping was so very natural with a lot of trees giving a very rural look. The picture is a little blurry due to camera shake as I was not using the flash. The flash made the trees look very flat and unrealistic.






On the train on the way to London we passed a building with two vertical axis wind turbines, one of which was stationary. I must say I like the look of it and the simplicity of the concept - it does not matter which direction the wind is blowing from.




When I got home Saturday evening I discovered someone is interested in buying my catamaran so I set off for Holyhead on Sunday to see how it had survived the winter. This is the first winter that I was not living on it so I was a bit apprehensive about its condition. However I was delighted to find that the interior was perfectly clean and dry and the engines started without any trouble. Hopefully the buyer will like it when he sees it.





Sunday was a lovely fine day so I decided to go to Holyhead on the A5 over the Welsh mountains. The last time I tried that route it poured rain so it was hard to appreciate the scenery. Anyway on Sunday I made a short detour to see the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct which I hope to cross in Leopard at some stage.







Then towards the top of the mountain pass I came across a recue helicopter flying in the valley well below the leve of the hills. Of course it always takes so long to get the camera ready that you miss the shot you were aiming for.