There's more than one way to skin a rabbit. (Easter)

The Easter weekend, so much to do, so little time. As with everyone else at this time of year, there is a requirement to catch up with friends and family.

 

Victoria Street gets a visit from the Easter guinea pig.

It started on Good Friday, drive east across town with the bride and kids to visit friends, while doing this, gladly chip in a few coins for the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal at every intersection we stop at, then south to the outlaws to drop the kids off. Then back home so the bride can do her graduate diploma assignment, with a sly trip to the local pub for a counter meal.

Easter Saturday, I wake early to a quiet house, prepare myself for a trip to the Hobson's Bay Exhibition, the bride surfaces, a quick dash down the road for real coffee and croissants, then the bride settles down for study as I head off to the exhibition.

At the Union Hall at La Trobe University, I roll up just before opening, a quick chat with a bloke from work, then it's show time. With the renovations going on at the university, the exhibition is spread across three different levels of the building, with some layouts and traders hidden in rooms the size of broom cupboards, as there was not any published floor plan of the show, it's was somewhat reminiscent of a  M C Escher's drawing of forever climbing stairs.

Given the space constraints, there were some great layouts from far a field as Adelaide and Canberra, all being of Australian prototype. This time the wallet relented and I obtained some infrastructure.

- a foam servicing cradle,

 as I am fed up of knocking off the route number boxes

 off my W's every time they need a look over.

 

 

W5 800 having a lounge on the cradle.

Bachmann Mech with NCE D13SRJ decoder.

- a rerailer, for feeding rolling stock on/off the layout.

 

 

The rerailer in rest mode acting as a buffer at the

end of road three at the depot.

 

 

- and some tram related books.

On returning home, I was inspired to give some of my fleet the once over in the new cradle and shuffle them from the racecourse to the Ammo factory and back, again and again, much to the annoyance of the bride who at the time was having writers block down stairs.  After a directive to cease and desist, I thought it would be wise to suspend services, thus weather and detail the track at the Ammo factory.

With some die cut autumn leaves, water colour paints and a flock covered foam rabbit, details were added to the module. The foam rabbit (AKA future landfill) is one of those trendy items that is covered in a faux grass like flocking, unfortunately the ears were broken off, reattached, then broken off again. Now the rabbit resembles a guinea pig. The skin has been removed from the ears and clumps of weeds now flourish along the open ballasted tracks of the module, with more foliage along the rarely used siding.

 

The ears of the Easter guinea pig.

 

 

The Ammo factory, now featuring bunny fluff.

 

 

W5 800, doing some 'daisy cutting' on the siding.

 

 

Weeds with a dash of autumn leaves.

 

 

Now for the fence and the overhead.

 

Finally the bride had enough, so back to the outlaws late on the Saturday night, for the Sunday Easter egg hunt.

On the layout front, Sunday was a write off, and Monday morning was spent at a nephew's birthday party. Eventaully we make it back home, Monday afternoon, sans bride, who stayed the night her parents to finish off her assignment minus interrupting kids, myself as 'Mr. Mum' was kept from layout duties.

So much for a holiday long weekend.

From under the thumb,
Glenn.