During this mid-life crisis I decided to take up OO Gauge model railways. I have been binge watching OOGauge Model Railways on YouTube for well over a year, so I thought.... how hard can it be??? The answer is quite! The pros are truly brilliant at providing inspiration and showing you how amazing your layout could look and they do cover the basics, however getting there from scratch and avoiding some very basic potholes (even though you think you know enough to avoid them, D'Oh!!!) is harder than it looks, well at least it was for me, maybe I am more basic than I realised!! I aim to share the fundamental errors that I have made so hopefully you can avoid them, to date they've probably cost me a couple of hundred quid!! Which in these hard times I'd prefer to have avoided. I'm certainly not suggesting that you shouldn't get into this great hobby and indeed I wish I'd got into it sooner, just hope I can make it a tiny bit easier for you.