Day 340 - Unfinished

 UNFINISHED

Prompt - Unfinished : Write about a project you started but never completed

Unfinished project?  Sadly I am one of those people who has so many to choose from.  Not least in terms of stories I have begun as part of this 3675 Challenge, and failed to complete.  There are at least three of those, plus a dozen empty posts where I failed to meet the challenge (although I hope to complete them all next year...).  But I need only look over my shoulder, to the messy pile on the floor behind me, to be reminded of a project I began with such hopes, and enjoyed for a time, but which has now spent months in abeyance.  With no real plan to revive it, to my shame.

When the first lockdown came it was inevitable that a great deal of my, our, time was going to be spent in our flat.  Which meant looking for ways to occupy my time that would be a bit different from my usual activities.  Although I do my writing every day, a lot of my time at home is essentially passive.  TV, internet, books.  There's cooking of course, but that can be more chore than creative exercise at times.  I do very little of a practical or manual nature, other than chopping veg, or the odd DIY repair.

So I decided to return to my childhood and ordered a couple of plastic model kits, the sort of thing I hadn't attempted for around fifty years.  Then the subjects would have been aircraft, in 1/72 scale.  Interests change over half a century, and now the desire is to make something that has your own imprint, rather than copy an original.  I ordered two kits in 1/24 scale.  The models were of a 2CV, which I wanted to paint in  blue and white with a saltire on the boot lid (the colour scheme I'd love to have a car in were we to ever get another 2CV in our garage); and another old Citroen model, an H Van, to paint in Edinburgh Rugby colours.  Along with paints, brushes, glue, masking tape, and some small files.

I was excited when the boxes, and sundry other items, arrived.  And soon set to on the Deux Chevaux.  I'd clear a space on my desk, spread an old tee shirt across it (to catch small items that might other wise skid off, and to save the desk from paint and glue), and get to work.  Firstly checking all the parts were there, then going through each individually and listing each one with the colour(s) it was to be painted.  A methodical, planned approach.  Then working steadily through the provided instruction booklet, painting ahead of use where that looked the best course.  

That worked well for several weeks, even months.  I didn't turn to it every day, but probably four or five out of every seven.  Steady progress was made, the car began to have a shape and sense of what the finished item would look like.  Probably.

For then it stopped.  I forget when and I forget why.  Most likely in the Autumn of 2020, when the light was less suitable for my needs (although I'm sure artificial light would be fine) and, more importantly, going out, going to other places, began to become a possibility.  Another lockdown would follow in due course, but by then the impetus was lost, my mind elsewhere.  Despite that unsightly, and annoyingly placed, pile on the carpet of the study.  

And that's frustrating, for although my model making abilities were well short of perfection, it was beginning to look like something I could take some pride in.  Now it almost feels too late.  Getting back into it would be slow and awkward, as I try to determine how far through the build I'd got (or did I mark the stages off in the booklet?).  I know I'm just making excuses though.

Maybe I need an other lockdown!  (And another, real life, 2CV!)