While I was lounging around in hospital, my parents had worked on a pleasent surprise for me - they finished assembling the track in the station area of the garden railway - and it runs!
Everything is joined with rail clamps, a fiddly job, but one that should save us from disconneted rail ends as the track moves when heating up and cooling.
Obviously, there is work to do fettling it, and ballasting once we are happy, but it's a huge step forward. One I haven't had the time, or enthusiasm, to do for a while. But now, well, we can run some trains!