“So there is a curse. That’s very interesting.”

For personal reasons, CG artist Duane Beckett has had to leave the project. Back to square one. AGAIN. A very long time ago I had a vision of me having to buy a 3D package, learn how to use it and do all the umbilical cord effects myself. The vision does not recede.

But for every exit, an entrance, this time in the form of a pyrotechnician (or “pyrotician” as Ed would say). He’s even offered to blow some random stuff up to give me an idea of what it’ll look like when we actually come to exploderise the models.

This afternoon I went to recce Chris Jenkins’ garden for the miniature shoot. I shouldn’t keep calling it Chris’ garden, since he doesn’t live there any more, but his mum Moira is always willing to help out. There are very few people who require mountaineering skills to tend their own garden, but Moira is one of them. As she descended into the steep undergrowth, playing out the rope we were using to measure whether my extensions leads were going to be long enough, and which she was also using to prevent herself from plummeting to her doom in the dell below, she pruned away some of the dense foliage and discovered flowers she had planted years ago and had not seen daylight since. Measuring the dell itself, we found it to be just barely wide enough to accommodate the 25m of set we need. A certain amount of landscaping is going to be required.