Saturday Ramble

As we come to the end of the three week lock-down, and with no real end in sight, I've noted a couple of things. At the start there were a lot of Facebook posts mostly saying 'we've stored kits for this moment!!!'. Has this happened? Some people have made inroads, but equally as many have done even less than normal; getting out into the garden and starting a little decorating. A few have actually retreated further back and done nothing. This suggests that time, or the availability of it, is nothing to do with modelling although lack of it is often the quoted excuse. I think what we really mean is that we prioritise other things with the time and use the perceived lack of it to excuse this.

Aside from a couple of supply problems, I'm quietly enjoying it all. No one is pushing me to go out, Mrs F. doesn't require accompanying on family trips to darkest Hampshire and I don't have to load the car up and work. Quite frankly, things could be worse. the supply issues are the greatest possible problem. I'll soon be at the stage with Tiley Road that I will need full sheets of artists mounting board for platform areas - no shops open and tricky to mail order undamaged. Looking ahead there is a sniff of future layouts coming up, but if you scoot around the normal sellers such as Rails or Hattons, the popular sizes of RTR pointwork have vanished. The cause of this is probably an upswing of 'getting some track down' in the lock-down, which is all well and good except Peco et al are also in WFH mode so the root supply chain has slowed. I'd seen this coming, but my concerns were batted away with the idea that all the mail order companies will still function. Yes they have, but they can't sell me what they can't buy.

What we are doing is adapting. I'm very anti the current trend of invoking war analogies  - we're queuing at Tescos, not heading for the bomb shelters as the government and the right-leaning press would have us believe. However if you gaze upon the social media platforms, what you notice is that people are quickly changing the way they do things: club meeting are now taking place on Skype/Zoom, there are more round-robin emails in my inbox and the rise of the 'use up what is in stock' mentality for modellers is to the fore. This is a good thing. we are thinking and changing and I'm positive about the way that the hobby will emerge from this.