Hanging around

Guests last weekend brought the boy child a rather impressive-looking Airfix kit of a Spitfire. Not the tiny kind of model that you can stick on a bookshelf when it's done, but the kind where the child in question asks if he can move into a bigger bedroom because it's him or the plane, but not both at the same time.

Anyway, he's had a bit of a deprived childhood, so somehow hasn't done any Airfix kits before. He's been determinedly painting small pieces while they're still attached the frame, breaking pieces off and carefully removing the extra plastic lugs, and gently gluing everything together. Only to wonder why none of it fits and the 'glued' bits just fall apart 20 minutes later. It's like he's getting a whole lifetime's worth of Airfix frustration in one concentrated kit.

The question is whether he'll complete the entire kit or not. My guess is that he'll have to speed up and not obsess on each painted part if he's going to get through it. He's been doing it for a week, and he's still only on step 4 of 34. 

And then, of course, there's what to do with the model when it's finally done. In my day, we'd stuff it with toilet paper, set fire to it and throw it out of an upstairs window. Ah, nostalgia...