Mug Shot

 

Well how about that, the mugs have arrived. The above photo shows the mugs in the position where the photo was taken a few years ago and is also the header photo for this blog. The photo reproduction has come out quite clear, but that all depends on how well your sample photo is taken.
I have only one complaint that the yellow in the word "rail" on the mug is a little patchy, don't know why. Couldn't be bothered sending them back, will just live with it.
I got excited about their arrival when an email was sent on the 12th January saying they had been sent. They were coming from Melbourne (I hope) but they only arrived here today the 25th January.
I reckon I could have walked to Melbourne and back in that time and picked them up. Not sure if Australia Post has slow mail but this I reckon is definitely snail mail at its best.
So do yourself a favour and get yourself a mug to remember your railway by. A great novel idea.
Have been busy cleaning up the shed the last week and have quite a few more bags of rubbish to go out in the red bin.
I actually got to get a coat of paint on the ceiling as well. Not the best thing to do ceilings but it looks a lot nicer now.

Photo of recent painted ceiling

After much hole filling on the southern wall I finally got to put the first coat of paint on. The blue was slightly darker than the previous coat but looks a lot fresher. I don't normally hate painting and putting on the first coat is always good. You get to see it refresh right before your eyes, but I hate doing the second coat. Almost seems a waste of time. I reckon they should sell paint thicker and call it a one coat paint. It seems a great waste of time doing the second one.

Photo of recently painted wall

Again I thought I wouldn't have to mention the possum again. No he's not back but I had to remove a layer of his calling card (piss) from the very top of the roller door. You could not see it from the room but maybe that's where the smell was coming from on the hot days. I asked the wife if she could supply me with some old towels, very old towels I requested knowing full well their next assignment. So armed with the towels and a bucket of hot water I went down to attack the job. I took three towels to lay out across the door and after twenty minutes, took the external hand brush to the job. Boy did he lay it on thick. The brush was hardly making a dent in the job. So remembering the ballast removal exercise, I then entrusted the job to the wire brush and drill. Making sure the drill and brush was at a 90 degree angle to my face, I started on the job. It worked well, even going down to the bare metal.
So along with the wall the roller door was painted and looks so much better, fresher and smelling better.

Before

After

 

So the progress is slow but starting to look way much better. I can't believe some of the hidden thing I have been finding under the layout. Not sure what I was going to do with all those PMG lever keys, they are now in the bag waiting to go out. I was also able to try out our new vacuum cleaner, a bagless one this time. I was sick of keep having to buy all those bags for the old machine. They were treated as eternal and were never disposed of when full. Usual comment "I wondered why the machine wouldn't pick anything up!" The first to go were the daddylong leg spiders. They had no toilet manners, they just let it rip where ever they were. Usually over the top of the layout. I gave them a fighting chance by turning the suction down a bit but they were no match for the machine. Hopefully I got a few breeders amongst the lot.

The final shot shows the nice clean roller door and wall. It seems a shame to start putting the pictures and diagrams back up, but there is still a lot more cleaning and painting to go before I make a start on the new baseboards.