That's a good idea!

Blippers often ask where I get my ideas for the Port Appin scenes from. Well apart from taking hundreds of photos when I'm up there I'm taking them all the time 'just in case'. Today for example I visited a coal yard with a friend and it had some great cameos for a future Port Appin diorama.

Just look around… An old van body on bricks and being used as an office. A tyre lying by a wall. A redundant Muirhill (JCB) loader shovel and a glimpse of an abandoned small dumper. There's a security lamp crudely attached to an old telegraph pole. A dumped caravan, a container. Pallets, scales, oil drum, engine, traffic cone, cuddly toy….

The brickwork is NE Railway and is the remains of a bank of old coal cells. The trucks ran along the top where the blue tarpaulin is and the side door was opened and the coal fell into the appropriate cell - roundies - slack and all sizes in between.

This small area is crammed with detail. You just have to keep your eyes and your mind open!