Stopped in my tracks?

not at all! Spurred on by blogs like Plastic Warriors, I decided to crack on with a quick project to keep me on wargaming/modelling track:

A second-hand Hasegawa PzIV flakvierling (donated by my son). No box top, but all the bits present. Running gear and body of the sharp end completed. I should be able to really push on tomorrow with this interesting bit of kit. I remembered reading an article in Airfix Magazine in the early 1970s in which some enterprising fellow used the then new Airfix Panzer IVF1/2 as the basis for a variety of flakpanzers, so I dug around in the shed and found these:

The November 1971 edition was the first copy I bought, as an 11 year old. I can remember quite clearly standing outside 'Raymond's' in the small town I lived in, peering at all the bizarre oddities that he sold (it was the sort of bucket shop that just doesn't exist now, in the age of sky high rents, niche markets, and the triumph of the glossy), and there was this copy of Airfix Magazine. I cadged the 15p from my mother, and I had added a new interest to my life.

Unfortunately, nearly a decade later I loaned most of my Airfix Magazines to a friend, and, of course, I never saw them again. But a few survived, including this one from November 1973, with the late John Sanders' '8th Army in the desert'. What a wonderful series! Only rivalled by George Gush on Renaissance Warfare.

A long time ago, but still there, somewhere.