Sandy Shores returns!

9 months on

Yes it really has been that long... I've always said that railway modelling is very much a seasonal affair for me, but quite where the last 9 months have gone, I've no idea! I do know that 6 months can be attributed to a complete creative block over all of my interests; music, photography and model-making. That was probably the worst 6 months I've experienced in my life thus far; not least because I lost both grandparents.

But, there is always a silver lining; and thankfully I can now move forward, and have also gotten past my creative block.

Anyway, small steps to ease me back in were the order of the day. First up was to set-up the layout in a more convenient place than it has been since May. Things didn't start off well when the plastic trunking (that holds the LED lighting) fell off and smashed the trestle handrail to pieces. To be honest, my nephew had already broken some of it last week, so I can't say I was too bothered. Anyway, I found (most of) the pieces and put it to one side whilst I set the layout up again.

From there, it was a case of working out what was left to do on Sandy Shores, and what I felt would be a comparatively small job that I could easily complete. In the end (after a bit of de-cobwebbing and dusting) I decided todays job should be forming the pathways that cross the sand dunes. During the exhibition, I had "planted" some Marram grass and I quickly realised that the informal paths could do with some texture to make them stand out better.

Having tidied all my model-making stuff, I knew I had an annoyingly small amount of powdered plaster left in a box. Finally; I can use it up! (As it turns out, there's still a tiny bit left, but shh...)

In a first for me, here's an animated GIF of me applying the plaster with a dentist's tool to the sand dunes. Pretty self-explanatory really:

Copying this technique across the layout, there are now a few such informal  pathways across the dunes. Of course, these will need to be painted when dry, but even in their raw white state, they've done a surprising amount to improve the look of this area.