Madly modelling

No, I'm not going down the route of becoming a model, that would be hilarious.  

For Christmas C. got a model railway from Santa.  Hubby made a table for it and got it all set up, Grandad gave a couple more engines and trucks, a colleague of Hubby gave some more truck and another engine and carriages and C adores it.  He shunts trucks and hauls coaches and will happily play with it all afternoon.  Rewards for getting 20 stars on the chart have included some people, a signal and a level crossing... so now all we need is some model to go with the railway.

This is where I confess that I got quite excited by the old copies of "Railway Modeller" magazine that Grandad passes on to C.  I love making things, and the idea of making scenery thrilled me.  Who cares about the railway!  What I want to make are market stalls, hillsides, gates, trees, waterfalls and the like.  So the scenery is my department.

To start with I thought that we'd do two corners to fit outside the oval track.  Who knows how long the layout will stay as it is, or how well we manage at our first attempt, so I decided to make them on their own bases, so that they will sit on the railway baseboard, but we can model them well away from the railway, take our time, add to them and so on, and then if we decide a year down the line that we can do a better job, we'll be able to remove them and start again.

I bought some thin plywood and squarish sticks (I don't think that's a technical term) and carefully measured and drew on my plans.  Then I needed Hubby to supervise me using his Jigsaw - apparently I'm too much of a liability to trust with a dangerous power-tool by myself.  Once I'd cut all the pieces came the job of gluing them together.  

Then it was time for C to get involved.  At the moment I don't think he really gets the modelling potential of his railway, so this is the bit that needs to inspire him.  He has a corner, and I have a corner.  I tried to explain to him that scenery is lumpy and bumpy, not flat like plywood, and then we got going with papier mache to create some rolling hills.  I know exactly what I want my corner to look like, but I think C's image is still evolving - it definitely is going to involve sheep, and may now include a fox, but he also mentioned a swimming pool in the process of doing the papier mache!

Here's what they look like at the moment:  

From this point on, I'll do my bit first, to try out the process, and then I'll be able to guide C and work with him on his the next day, when he'll be able to see from mine what it should look like.  Watch this space to see how we get on.