Max Stafford's Kennel

At last, with the last fence panel installed and the raised bed at the rear of the garden built and filled, the final pieces of the puzzle have been put in place and the big project is complete.

My garden has been transformed over the last three months and it’s the sort of place I just want to spend my time in as much as possible. Even tonight, I spent a couple of hours redding our the soil to get rid of the stones and debris left over from the backfill and the contents of the composter which I just dumped in with another big bag of compost and another of topsoil.

I’ll spend the winter improving the soil in the bed and hopefully get some good stuff growing in it next year.

After I finished tonight’s task, I just sat out for ages with a tea, enjoying the place. I feel like I’m on holiday whenever I sit out there now!

So. What now?

Well, there’s the impending rebuild of Shed One at the side which I’ll shortly commence the groundwork for.

And also, as summer starts to fade, attention starts to turn to the inside of the house; as usual, my hand has been slightly forced by the failure of my old washing machine last week which caused a minor flood in the kitchen!

Previously, the floor had been tiled but these had their limitations as a result of being laid on a wooden floor. I’ve decided to use a different floor covering once the floor is fully dry and the old grout/ cement removed.

I’m slowly working round the whole house, improving and upgrading, room by room but I had intended leaving the kitchen until last. This incident has allowed it to jump the queue!

In spite of this, there have been stirrings of my modelling interests again, particularly after a visit to Railex NE at Blyth two weeks ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show which had a very strong local flavour and featured a whole host of excellent layouts including a superb recreation of South Pelaw Junction. Having had a long standing interest in operations based around the Tyne Dock-Consett ore operations, this layout fair grabbed my attention as these photos will prove.

Having also just gone back to DCC control again with the acquisition of an NCE Powercab controller, it looks like modelling is going to head off in a new direction this autumn too!

I think that’s probably worth a post of its own though. Until then; that’s yer lot! 😉