A day of sadness, a day to be proud!

I am not going to be the only person making reference to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. I was sad, even the odd tear at times as I watched the proceedings on TV but also proud of the way in which it went. Being from a military family I know that the UK military are some of the best in the World. Today they showed that mixture of professionalism and tradition in the proceedings and made me and most of the Country proud of our traditions and history. 

RIP Queen Elizabeth, God Save The King! 

On a more minor note Mrs. Woody and myself are now testing negative for Covid! 

Having spent much of the day watching the ceremony I did have a little time this evening to see if I could sort the tracks out on the T34/122 model. Having had both sides come apart yesterday as the fit around the wheels was very tight I tried again having glued them back together last night. The one I tried came apart again so I cut my loses and went straight to Plan B thus avoiding contributions the swear jar! Plan B involved inserting a pair of spare links from the kit into both sides which I did.

You can see them in the picture above. Once the glue had hardened I painted them to match the rest of the tracks and fitted them with the wheels to the tank. As I outlined yesterday I was fearful that they might look loose with the additional links and yes they do but I am living with that! In the overall composition of things and looking from a distance it looks OK which is all I need. I build these kits for my pleasure not a museum or competition - I leave that to modellers who actually know what they are doing!

So the tank is just about there. I just need to fit the tow cable and spray it with matt varnish and make a base similar to those made for the other T34's I have built. In the mean time here are a few staged photos.

RIP Queen Elizabeth, God Save The KIng!

A strange time for the UK. Most of the population, including me, have only known The Queen as the Monarch and now she has gone. What ever your thoughts on the Royal Family are, The Queen has always been that stable factor in many of our lives. Always a calming voice in times of troubles, always carrying out her duties with dignity but with an ability, from what people say, to put individuals at ease. As part of a military family I saw The Queen several times but both my parents did meet her briefly but long enough to be in their memories for all time. 

I did go out on my daily bike ride this morning and saw the Union Jack at half mast in all the villages I past through just like the one in my village pictured above. Even in this age of the internet and 24 hour news channels people were buying newspapers in numbers probably not seen for years. Possibly not so much for the news but for the information of The Queen's past life and her achievements and experiences. I always say that you find out so much more about someone when they die which is a shame as on many occasions I wish I had known that someone had certain interests or experiences as I would have loved to have talked with them about them. I suppose the moral is talk with people more! 

No talk of model making today. I did not do any work on my Last Great Project - I just felt operating electric saws and similar was not the thing to do especially as the village church bells rang for an hour today and I was not going to ruin that for my neighbours.

Things will change as we move on. Everything from coins, bank notes, stamps, passports through to the names on buildings will change to reflect the new King. In the meantime we all need to get used to singing God Save The King and hope that King Charles III will, whilst putting his own mark on the Monarchy, reign in a manner similar to his Mother.

God Save The King.