So on to that great British tradition, unintelligible to the rest of the world, Boxing Day!

This may of course be the day when you pick a fight with the family….

Or take all your newly acquired trains out of their boxes?  But not in the Bartlett household!

We had a very pleasant Christmas day, with 7.5 persons to Christmas lunch.  The 0.5 was a 21 month old, who coped very well.  And all as covid-safe as we could manage – our youngest daughter has just recovered from the virus, and there were two nurses and a prison warder who are testing very regularly.  Then on to our traditional Christmas visit to Maxine eldest brother and family, where Maxine (traditionally) went to sleep in an armchair after a glass of mulled wine.  It was so nice to meet with people again at Christmas (no guarantees for the new year.)

But what about the presents?  No railway stuff as such – the family are sensible enough to know that it would probably be the wrong thing (GWR for instance.)  But Chris had mentioned that tipped me off that Rails were selling Southern ‘N’ class 2-6-0’s at a good price.  I have several, but this one in black with sunshine lettering was irresistible.  I prefer this livery to the full malachite green passenger livery, as the yellow, shaded green, lettering looks very smart.

As for the real presents, there were some socks (!!)  One joy of retirement is that I can now wear all those silly Christmas socks accumulated over the years.  And a pre-Christmas visit to Hobbycraft, so that Maxine could buy some odds and ends, resulted in me buying a Kangaroo.  No, not a new pet, but a WW2 Canadian Ram with its turret removed to make an armoured personnel carrier.  I like these tank oddities, and I thought that a little non-railway modelling could be good for the mojo!  But being the fussy modeller that I am, I have just ordered a set of plastic tracks to replace the rubber, Airfix-style, ones that were included.

I have another tank kit coming from China too, but more of this anon….