Temporary Absence ...

Well apologies to my followers, but I've been absent from my blog for two weeks now, and probably won't have another substantive update in the near future ...

I'm still waiting for the exchange of contracts in my home move, and in anticipation of that, I have packed most of my possessions and put them into a storage unit I've hired (which has given me some insights into how I'm going to build my Stoelzel's Structures Storage Unit Buildings, but that's another thing to do at some point!).

So until then, although I might be able to post some pics of stuff I do manage to get done, the (ir)regular posting of this blog will have to be suspended.

Back from Holiday

Well, I'm back from my holiday in Scot-the-land and had a really good time.  Went to several places, including:

• Deep Sea World, Scotland's National Aquarium which has a spectacular 112m (IIRC) underwater tunnel - the highlight of which was when my daughter realised a shark was swimming over her head!
• Edinburgh Castle, a very splendid castle with some fascinating regimental museums as well
• Falkland Palace & Garden

But the best place - for me anyway - was Scotland's Secret Bunker. A real surprise as the first I knew about it was signs to it on the side of the motorway. Intrigued I looked it up on the net and we went there. Apparently it was built in the early 50s and eventually it became the destination for the Scottish government in the event of a nuclear war. As it had become obsolete - 30m of soil being not enough to protect it from modern bunker-busters - it was sold of in the mid-90s and the new owners have made it a museum.

The surface guardhouse was built to resemble a Scottish farmhouse and gives no clue to the extensive bunker beneath it:

And it certainly is extensive! This (blurry :( ) pic shows a plan of the top floor of the bunker (The orange parts are still restricted and cannot be accessed by the public), and there are another 3 below it!  (Although the bottom 2 were sealed off before the bunker was sold)

For anyone interested in modern warfare or post-apocalyptic gaming, I would heartily recommend a visit to this place. Along with seeing it, you also get a wealth of information about the capabilities of a place like this - e.g. the air-conditioning system can change ALL of the air in the bunker 14 times every 15 minutes!!, the 3m concrete shell surrounding the bunker has tungsten rods every 30cm to protect the structure from a nuclear blast's EMP, etc ...

If you get the chance - go there and be sure to get the audio guide if you do!

edited: for Mathyoo's benefit, here's a pic of a shark that I took while in the underwater tunnel at Deep Sea World:

no progress ...

Well I had a call from the estate agent late Friday. Apparently my move is getting closer - at last I'll be out of rented and into my own place! So I didn't get much done hobby-wise over the weekend. Instead I packed pictures, filled the holes and admired my Grekwood order that arrived Saturday morning, which, as I placed the order at about 3.30pm on the Friday, was amazingly quick!

But no photos of anything :(

And tomorrow I'm off on holiday to sunny scot-the-land for a week. I've yet to find my passport or get euros - I think I might have left it a bit late!

Anyway, I hope you all have a good week doing whatever you're doing, and I'll post again when I'm back