As you can see, the vegetation is crowding in on the loading gauge, entropy has taken hold and soon nature will reclaim the trackbed, leaving only a melancholy set of rusting rails somewhere amidst the foliage.

...Excellent!

...My least favourite phrase in any list of kit-building instructions. At six hours per coat, with two or three top coats, this stage isn't going to be over by teatime. I feel a pang of regret every time I walk past this unfinished guards van, because it's a lovely model with some nice markings and I just want to see it running.

Some lovely detail on Cwmcoediog, seen here in atmospheric monochrome, including that great slate fencing. I really, really like slate pillar fencing. Not sure I'd have the patience to make such a fence myself, although if it could be as simple as sticking a few shards of slate in the soil then possibly...

"Hey Ade, whatever happened to that railway you were building?" Yeah, yeah, I know. It's still there and services have even been known to run on the odd occasion (I like to have a train pottering around the garden at the same time I do). But there has been no progress of which to speak lately. At a recent kids birthday party, the subject of an opening ceremony (and BBQ) was broached, which I hastily quashed - the opening of what exactly?

By fortuitous coincidence, the Welsh Highland Railway will also be completed this coming weekend. A brave attempt there, guys, but you're just a week too late.

Well, the railway per se isn't finished - there still remains fettling and tidying and stations and borders and rolling stock, oh my - but the track is. The last yard fitted into the last gaps with nary a millimetre to spare, which you could see as a tribute to my Brunellian engineering but which is actually more luck than judgement. We screwed down the last plate, checked the line for debris, pushed the test wagon round once (probably the most back-breaking part) and then ran the green diesel round for a few circuits. And then we all went inside, because the wind was a bit chilly.

"Evie, guess what?!"
"What?!"
"We've finished the railway!"
"I want to go on the swing, Daddy!"
"sigh... OK, Evie."

Amazing, it's just past mid-February and spring is here already. (But then, winter was a month early.) Perfect weather for getting back into the garden with some track and a few bricks. Just for once, the DIY indoors can go hang.

As you can tell, it's been fairly quiet round here for the past month. No construction, either of track or rolling stock. The two disconnected sections of line outside are doing a good impression of one abandoned in mid-construction; keeping that Welsh Highland theme alive/dead. It's also covered in frost, which is the chief reason for the lack of activity - a strong desire to crouch under a duvet and conserve all heat and energy, apart from occasional forays in search of hot drinks and cholesterol. This is our first winter in Wales and f**k me, it's a cold one.

This curve represents the sum total of progress in the past two weeks, all of which occurred in the last hour of daylight yesterday and despite several squalls of rain. The weekend before, of course, was ideal weather for tracklaying outside - mild and not too wet. Needless to say, I was inside fixing light fittings when I wasn't out shopping. Even Saturday's weather was better than yesterday, and indeed I was out in the garden - filling eight bags with fallen leaves.