As I sit here on a chilly and windy Saturday evening wondering where the day has gone and why on earth I have not got any modelling done yet again and my thoughts also turn to the fact that I have not blogged for the best part of 4 months so after hanging my head in shame and chastising myself knowing that I have once again allowed life to get in the way of my hobby and more importantly I have allowed work to dictate my life once more and this is something that I have tried without success to eradicate from my life for as long as I can remember. Work should just be work and when I walk out the door at the end of each shift be able to switch off and be ready to move onto whatever I want to do with the rest of my day/evening. In all honesty I am absolutely rubbish at switching off and this is possibly one of the reasons I spend far too much of my spare time dwelling on work and more of that time castigating myself  for not being motivated enough to switch off and to get my backside to the workbench (or keyboard in this instance).

At the start of each year I make a promise to myself not to allow work to take over my life and spend some decent time at both the workbench and keyboard with less time stressing about work and to start enjoying and getting the best out of my spare time. As you can guess it never works out like that and I spend more time stressing about things that I have no control over and allowing it to ruin my downtime to such an extent that by the time winter evolves into spring then into summer and the warm weather morphs into the autumn panic has set in and I am trying to balance the demands of work, home life and getting all those kits finished off that I promised myself I would get done for the club stand at SMW in Telford that November which in turn ends up with a severe case of burnout when we return something that in a weird way sours that most wonderful of weekends and leaves me in a modelling void that lasts up to Christmas and beyond. I do admire my fellow modellers that build paint and finish relentlessly throughout the year however it is not for me as I tend to get far too much enjoyment of sitting back and marvelling at my masterpiece and pondering how I managed to finish it without completely ruining it.

As I sit here in mid March feeling happy about my hobby and finally feeling the words flow which in turn is getting me closer to finishing the first blog post of the year, a model show to attend tomorrow in the guise of Southern Expo in Hornchurch Essex with a bit of money to spend, not on kits of course as I have enough of those however there are a few books I would like to add to my library plus there are always sundry items to add to the workbench or a new tool as an addition to the toolbox. Maybe as we approach the spring with the clocks going forward in 2 weeks time and with more natural light pouring through the windows I am finally ready to step out of the shackles from the winter and the burn out still lingering around from last year finally being able to put work in its place and prepare myself for some time at the workbench maybe even find some positive energy from the longer daylight hours and finally get round to gluing some plastic together perhaps even break out a paint brush or two and try my hand at something new or wherever any new found inspiration may take me. It is hard for me to break the old habit of do nothing until the summer holidays in July/August then spend September procrastinating over getting stuff finished only to struggle through the mad rush of getting kits over the line for Telford and then suffering the feeling of burnout that I spoke of earlier.

So with all that in mind and with a feeling of positivity and excitement I look forward to the week ahead with a model show to come tomorrow with the hope that it will kick start the creative juices enough to get them flowing again and knowing what I need to do when work ends Monday evening, leave it at the door have a peaceful evening and maybe just maybe a little bit of modelling time. I accept that getting your self in the right frame of mind to model after a tough and tiring day at work can be difficult however if I approach it in a positive way anything is possible and maybe that is the key to getting more done, a more positive and proactive approach and hey what do you know, I may have found the answer to my sad modellers tale after all.

The Average Modeller