A Pensive New Year

 Hopefully, not an expensive one.

The Black Dog is snapping at my heels.

My diary is already filling up with speaking engagements, but TBH I just hope 2026 isn't as bad as the last two years have been. The portents aren't good, just before Xmas one of my long-standing collaborators died unexpectedly, and my biggest client is being as unorganised as ever, leading to endless delays in commissions and payments.

And then there is the modelling...

...well it would help if I could get rid of all the Xmas decoration storage boxes that are filling up my office, so I could get to a worktop.

On the plus side, I suppose, I've been reappraising Dark Hall in the light of some really useful photographs that I've not seen before. They have changed a lot of my plans for what was meant to be a quick and dirty intro to modern N gauge. But I'm struggling to convert them into concrete models. 

One of the delights of Apa was building the road bridge. It almost designed and built itself. But the one at Park Hall Halt just seems to throw up issue after issue. The same is true of the "simple" CI station building and even the lamposts. Yes, I could just substitute commercial items, given it is a "based on" layout, but it has evolved as I've got back to grips with the scale, which I suppose was always the intended purpose. I could have finished it in a weekend, but if I had, I would have scrapped it and started again.

At the back of my mind is a question about whether I will stay with N gauge once Gerralt Rd is finished. There is only one other UK based idea that I'm tempted by, and I can't think of anywhere it would physically fit in the house. If anything, the American dockside cameo seems more promising, with a footprint that would fit in a shelf unit that is sat empty in a corner of the office.

But if N does turn out to be a bit of a dead end for me, I don't think it has been a waste of time. It has given me another visual language that willl be useful in other scales. Especially when it comes to composition and integrating the vertical dimension. I think I'm going to be a lot braver in building height into projects and also using more forced viewpoints.

On top of everything else, it feels like the house has been full of people for days on end, and my social battery is running close to zero charge.