A MODELMAKER’S LIFE: WARM AFTERNOONS, DANCE SHOWS AND HELPING OUT BEHIND THE BAR…

Though I enjoy trips to model shows to speak to like-minded individuals, spending time doing something that is completely different with people that I don’t know is a lot of fun and often, I enjoy the distraction from work that these chances offer me.

13th July 2025

A few weeks back Liz and I were asked if we would be able to help out with a friend’s dance show. She runs a dance school for the local kids and they were all putting on a summer show at one of the schools near to us. Liz was happy to help with the kids (she is after all a now-retired reception teacher) but my mate still needed someone to help with the bar which they use to raise much-needed funds. Thinking that would be a fun way of spending a few hours I volunteered, so this afternoon we trundled over to the venue to help out.

Though this is hardly something I have much experience of (at least, not on the taking the cash side of the bar: I have plenty of experience on the other side where coins are swapped for flagons of frothy ale…) I found the whole thing a lot of fun. Obviously I’m not new to standing on trade stands.  Over the years I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with the public, especially in the old Traplet Publication days. Today, I simply swapped magazines for drinks and got on with it, working alongside my mate both before the show and during the interval.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to enjoy this type of afternoon more and more. Though I enjoy trips to model shows to speak to like-minded individuals, spending time doing something that is completely different with people that I don’t know is a lot of fun and often, I enjoy the distraction from work that these chances offer me. We got to meet plenty of the parents, chatting to them about their day and the upcoming show. It was also a lot of fun talking to the kids. Children, especially really young ones, have an unfiltered view on the world that I find refreshing. When the world is riven with negativity and angst, chin-wagging with a four year old who was fascinated by what you are doing and then later wants to know why you are in a different place to where he’d seen you earlier (and seemingly won’t accept that you were on a break…) is a moment of brevity that I can get behind. I can see why Liz always found her pupils so entertaining.

Tomorrow I return to a full week of work, likely punctuated at times by my brother’s visit to the UK from Brisbane, Australia. I have the Jaguar book to finish tomorrow and then the Spitfire (which I managed to gloss coat this morning…) and finally the F-35C. With the weather cooling down, it looks like it will be a more agreeable week temperature-wise, so that may mean I will get more done without the less than intermittent bouts of sweating, irritation and heat-induced drowsiness. Well, at least that’s the hope!

See you tomorrow.