Of trains and guinea pigs

A weekend away from blogging! I've been in sunny Southend, attending the Shoeburyness MRC exhibition and staying with my sister and family in Southend. First time I've seen my nephew and niece's newly-acquired pet guinea pigs - takes me back a few years to when I was their age, and had a large colony of the creatures. Note to Michele - Guinea pigs are much cuter than hamsters, and aren't into wife-beating or infanticide.

The Shoeburyness show, held that the Cliffs Pavilion at Leigh-on-Sea is one of the smaller shows, but quite high-quality. Although it pains me to say so, two of the best layouts were American, the HO-scale "Pueblo Falls" and the convoluted N-scale "Bethany Wells", both based on the Union Pacific, which seems to be the US railroad most favoured by British modellers. Good British layouts included the very simple but effective "Ascott-under-Wychwood", just three points in a 20-foot length representing the Cotswold village station in the early 1980s, and the highly-detailed "Walker Marine", a small shunting layout set in the mid-1960s with diesel power on the main line and an assortment of steam locomotives on the industrial sidings.

My nephew is now compiling a long list of train-set wants for Christmas...