A little more progress on the layout, despite the distractions of fine weather and gardening.  I’ve started the ballasting, and the tram depot has taken shape.  Also on its way are the first two buildings on one end of the layout.  These low-relief buildings seemed a good way to use some of the background buildings from the original Kuritu.

One of the original features of Kuritu was the temple on the rural side of the layout.  I wanted to keep something of this if I could, so I thought that I would upgrade the buildings to keep with the rather nice Japanese garden from the original layout.  I haven’t spent much on this layout – it’s all recycled really – so I ordered these buildings from PlazaJapan.  Excellent service, just a week to get them here.  But then some fun with the Post Office.  They were due for delivery on Thursday – and nothing arrived all day.  I then get a notification on Friday morning – Good Friday – that they tried to deliver at 7am and there was no reply.  Well, I would have been asleep by then, but I suspect this was just a holding message, to make me rebook the delivery.  So I rebooked it – Tuesday!  But mid-morning Saturday, there was a knock at the door, and the parcel had arrived.  I’m not sure what was going on – blame Bank Holidays and covid, I guess.  But these three look very nice, pre-painted, and just needed a little weathering of the roofs and some matt varnish to tone down the plastic look.  A nice simple modelling task for next week, as the UK temperatures plummet!

I will continue with the ballast, pavements, buildings, and get some ground cover in place.