Further tales from the river bank

Despite the cold yesterday I ventured out to my man cave AKA the Room of Gloom or perhaps more aptly The Ice Cave! The heater soon bought up the temperature to something more hospitable and allowed me to do a little more on the river banks of the narrow gauge layout. Despite having shaped and built up the landscape of most of the river banks I still needed to fill in around the bridge abutments and add a bit more strength to the rest of the landscaping. Because anything to do with a sloppy DIY filler like substance in my hands is going to cause a mess I needed to protect the brickwork on the abutments. Indeed I still need to colour the brickwork. In one of my rare more thinking ahead moments, I had made the abutments removable at this stage so I was able to lift them out and then put sellotape around them. The shiny surface would stop the the filler sticking to the abutments and also it would protect the brick work surface. 

Next I mixed up my usually sloppy mix of DIY filler but this time adding some brown acrylic paint to tint the mix to look like earth. The idea of this is that if the surface is chipped in the future it is going to look less glaring as a brown surface than the white of the normal mix. Say no more! Further kitchen roll was at hand from the roll I still needed to put back in place before Mrs. W misses it! An hour or so saw the area around the abutments done and a layer of the mix laid over the previous days work. It all looks very rough at the moment but it should get better from now on - famous last words! Whether there be any progress today relies upon if the mix has dried or not and if I have managed to wrap Mrs. W's Christmas presents! If I don't manage that wrapping job by Saturday it could well be an interesting next Tales from the River Bank!