Hidden treasures and a trip down memory lane.

[Desertfish]

So, a few years into their retirement, mum and dad decided to reorganize their life a little. First thing that went was the second car (my youngest sister is now the proud owner of a mini. Oooo how she smiled when she came to collect it a few month ago). Next up was the front garden. Neither my parents haven’t got any particularly green fingers so dad and I recently finished converting it into a small driveway. That’s one less garden to worry about, and since they now have a decent parking space for their remaining car, it was time to start with the third and final step of their grand design: converting the garage into a downstairs bedroom with on-suite bathroom.

While we’re having a long bank holiday weekend (at least here in Belgium), mum decided yesterday was the perfect opportunity to enlist the help of both myself and my two sisters to start cleaning out the garage… during which I made some interesting discoveries:

Item #1: a 1/24 scale Bugatti T50 by Heller. I was told it was a present from my grandmother for my 14th birthday (just before she passed away), yet I couldn’t remember ever owning this kit. Until I opened the box and noticed the assembled and painted engine block… and then the memories all came back. I’m unsure why I stopped building this kit but to be quite frank, I’m glad I did. At least now I stand a chance to finish it properly. Back in the days I probably would have screwed it up completely anyway. It’s not the type of car I would normally build, but since it was a gift from my grandmother who passed away some 25 years ago, I think one day I might try and do it justice (fingers crossed).

Item #2: Apparently as a young lad, I was every bit as organised as I am nowadays, because we also found an inconspicuous box containing the instructions of every model I ever build as a young teenager. Again memories started coming back once I went through the contents. Sadly most of those memories are from screwing things up and models ending up in the bin. With the help of the instructions I’ve spend some time on scalemates.com trying to build a visual picture of my modelling past. It’s sad to realise I managed to destroy most of this stuff. Having said that though, I do remember finishing the Italeri trucks and both of the Audi Quatto’s. For some time, they were proudly being displayed inside a display cabinet in our living room… but no one knows what happened to those models.

Anyways, I’ve decided to try and track down some old boxes of the Quattro’s and trucks (ebay here I come…). I wonder how it would feel like, building and finishing a model I once made some 30 odd years ago when I was too young to shave and still had to swap my pampers for a con... OK, that's enough...