"We'll come in low out of the rising sun, and about a mile out we'll put on the music."

When Daniel and Mitchell stayed overnight with us, while the other Truepeople went to the ballet, they were very interested in my helicopter models. They were even more interested when I pulled open the drawer under the spare bed in my office to show them the boxes and boxes of unmade helicopter models. Why hadn't I made any of them? Mitchell (or Daniel) wanted to know. In vain did I explain the concept of Adult Lack Of Time which kids never seem to grasp (full-time work, a garden and house to maintain, books to be read and Serious Cult Material to watch on television, etc. etc.) -- although I was slightly startled to hear myself say that I hadn't made a model since we'd bought our house, getting on for seventeen years ago. (Seventeen years!) This didn't stop Daniel (or Mitchell) suggesting that I extract a box at random and start making a new model right there and then, despite the imminence of dinner. (Perhaps they wanted to watch how a professional goes about it. Making models as a spectator sport? It would -- literally -- have meant watching paint dry.)

(Mitchell (or Daniel) also wanted to know why, since we weren't interested in and didn't participate in sport, we didn't use the time they thought we would notionally have devoted to same to play MurderDeathKill VII on the X-Box or Warhammer 40,000 AD instead. I once again attempted to explain that adults simply do not have the non-school free time which kids take for granted -- as they will discover for themselves ten years from now.)

Looking through the unmade models, I did notice a couple of duplicates -- the result (I theorise) of not having a list to hand on the occasions that I venture into the branch of Model Zone near my workplace. (I have now constructed such a list.) I was in the shop a couple of days ago, needing some polystyrene cement to resituate the pods on the starboard winglet of the Mil 24, which I noticed (when the boys were looking at it) had obviously been broken off at some point but Not Glued Back Properly. While in the shop, my eyes strayed towards a display of Revell Mini Kits, a range of teeny-tiny snap-together models (so teeny-tiny that no scale is given) which included an Apache Gunship. Something to put on my desk at work, I thought, and -- on impulse -- bought one.

Except that it's clearly too delicate to leave at work (for the cleaners to -- doubtless inadvertently -- break), so I brought it home instead. And -- having fixed the Mil 24's starboard winglet -- have duly snapped it together (with some careful dabs of polystyrene cement to keep it together). My first new helicopter model in getting on for seventeen years. What a hero I are!

Here are some photographs -- one of the box (with a pen for scale); one of the parts before assembly; one during assembly; and two of the completed model, sitting on the palm of the Wugster*.







*Note the spelling there, Daniel (or Mitchell). This being our made-up word, it will be spelled how we require. So there!