Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the last blog from Ty-nant. From Friday your's truly will be taking up residence in Pentrecagal. Only ten miles away, so it is not a great move, but it is a foray into another Welsh county - this time into Carmarthenshire.

Next blog will hopefully be from the new house.

Last week we met in a bubble at Colin's. I picked up Pat on the way through, and before heading on to Colin Pat invited me in to see his Christmas set-up. Hornby three rail going around a Christmas tree!

I took a video of the train running, but unfortunately the software wont allow 'portrait' movie, only 'landscape' which is bit of a bummer. I'll try and get a better video next week. In the meantime, here are a couple of stills:

 

 

Colin had set up his N gauge layout to show us some additions he had made, and also to provided an hour or so of operating.

The station has changed dramatically from when we last saw it, a year or so ago. It has an extra platform, with added canopies, the long one still work in progress:

 

 

 

Another addition is the gantry crane that you saw in it's very early stages of construction in the last blog. It has since been completed, and is now in place to do duty outside the engine shed in the middle of the layout.

Yet more exquisite work from the master scratch builder is a GWR pattern watering point. Fashioned from brass, plastic and bits of assorted wire and pins - it actually swivels...

The power was plugged in and Patrick took control, bringing a loco out of siding on to the main line to pick up a passenger train.

Two videos, because I wasn't sure how much memory they took.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sorry about the quality, but I'm breaking in a new camera, and still getting to grips with the settings. On to show-and-tell' Pat brought along some figures that his son Daniel had created using his 3D printer. These figures are 7mm scale, and computer generated and manipulated by Daniel from what were originally Wargaming figures.

The gentleman on the right is in scale, he's just closer to the lens... reading a tablet, and getting a bit cross about it!

Two lady hikers, and a workman. All beautifully painted by Pat, showing nail varnish, pendant, and o the workman, tattooed arms.

The only thing I had to contribute was a picture of the bookshop in Carmarthen, where I volunteer my services two or three times a week. Known as 'Freebooks' it is an education based charity where you can have three books completely free - extra books for £2 each. Donations go to the charity, and periodically books are packaged up and sent overseas.

Currently we have in excess of 10,000 books, fiction and non-fiction, and no duplicates, apart from classic titles. This is just a small corner of the floor:

We finished the evening with a couple of DVDs, after a welcome bowl of Mariannes home-made soup, garlic bread, sausage rolls, and an interesting Australian red wine from 'The Jam Factory'... Well worth trying - available in B&M stores.

Cherrio!

Shaun.