Sunday, February 28, 2021

 Yet another long  hiatus on this very infrequent blog. Ah, how I planned things to be different and then life interferes with my plans....

Anyway, during these strange times of coronapandemic I'm having relatively few problems. I hear people complain about their (and especially kids mental health) but I'm okay. Had all those problems a decade ago and nothing change for me. Am busy with taking care of my elderly parents since I'm the only one of three children living in the same country (same continent even).

I did manage to buy some Kato Unitrack and was able to run trains at my parents. My mother was quite interested. It seems she found it more interesting than hanging in front of the tv.

Back in late september / early october 2019 I manage to build a small concept module using foamboard in combination with plywood. Apart from glueing the track down wrong on one side the venture was reasnably succesful so I will continue using foamboard with plywood. After all, it did not just survive a couple of train trips to and in Germany going to a Fremo americaN meeting in Bardowick in northern Germany and then to Mammendorf near Munich in the south but it came back to the Netherlands in the hold of a plane and survived that experience remarkably well being transported in a trolley that doesn't have a hard shell. Only damage was a red smudge on the side (made of foamboard) that came from the red plastic bag it resided in (to keep the foamboard lid in place as it wasn't fastened to the module) during its stay in the trolley.

My sister ran into problems with her work permit in the country she lives in and that has a knock on effect for her residence permit so she will be coming back to the Netherlands for a while to get that mess untangled and start again. 

It will give me the opportunity to go back to my regular volunteer work in a museum as well as cleaning up the mess in my house after2 years of barely living here. And I want to get back to building something related to US railroads. Many things going through my mind about that, from a short M&StL freight spur (ex CBQ) in Oskaloosa to the freighthouse area in Ft Dodge or Des Moines Iowa to something different, PRR or B&O in Wheeling West Virginia. Something build in the British exhibition layout style but for home use.

And otherwise I'm working on proposals for the upcoming 20th anniversary of Fremo's americaN. I feel something special should be done. I'm looking at a theme we haven't done yet so I'm gathering information. Always a fun thing to do and at least i can do that from the couch at my parents. Would rather have build some kits etc. but my mother has sensitive lungs and my parents appartment isn't very large. So that is unfortunately a nono. By time I'm home again I need to destress and that doesn't involve building things for my modelrailroading activities as I don't have the energy for that. I would need more time to recuperate than what I usually have. Though with my sister coming back for a while that time might just be there. At least I'm getting excited again about modelrailroading.

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