After a week of illness and then a return to work where the gods be praised we had the whole team bar one in for a day! The bar one has not been able to work face to face for over a year and they are leaving the team soon. The good news is that we have another nurse joining the team although we will still have vacancies to fill. Work is busy as ever and the less said about that, the better especially since I also acquired a parking ticket!

Yesterday the car had some much needed work completed and it is now MOT'd for another year. I have given up looking for a replacement car as better the devil you know in these bizarre and economically challenging times...and this is just the beginning! I will keep the Mazda going for a few years and I have perfected a method of 'falling' into the car to reduce any extra strain on my knee, back and now elbow, all on my right side. It works and I just take a slow approach to it. I have fitted in modelling and today I managed to tidy up the raised bed, remove a lot of the evidence of the cats visits and added some fresh compost. I also seeded a variety of chillies into some pots which are on the window sill for now in little propagators (recycled plastic mushroom containers) with bubble wrap around them. We have a lot of flower seeds to go out for the bees plus Marigolds and I plan just the one tomato plant and I would like one cucumber plant. It was blowy but we had some weak sunshine and it remained dry, perfect for getting out in the garden and fresh air. I managed an hour before my back reminded me to not overdo it.

Progress so far on the Thunderbolt build and I went down the rabbit hole of research but happily this was all on that one page which I discovered and immediately dived into. I am modelling that specific aircraft and coincidently I accidentally ordered the same kit and will build a second but in a different livery. It was the 'rainbow' on the tail fin and the fuselage art that attracted me plus I have long wanted to build a silver P-47. The silver paint is in fact a wax that you pain on with a brush, leave for half an hour and polish up with a cloth. The difficulty I have is that I needed to find a varnish to protect it as the wax continues to rub off.

I conducted an experiment using an oft broken old build, the metal wax (aluminium and they make various metals including gold, brass, etc...) and I opted for Pledge floor polish as a clear coat following some research on line.

The next picture shows the result...

Where the 722 decal is, the right side of the first 2 is Pledge, to the left is a mix of Pledge and Tamiya clear coat both applied a full twelve hours after the paint. The Pledge alone worked well; the wing to the right had Pledge applied soon after putting the paint on and that didn't work. I will use the Pledge sparingly on the build and fingers crossed. I shan't comment on the current issues afflicting the world as it is all a horrible mess and to be honest I have no idea what is going on anymore. I also don't need the stress of work added to the stress of wondering what the fuck will happen next. 

Stay safe folks.

TTFN.