My first ever diorama

wahey!!!!! i'm in the final stages of the creation of my first ever diorama (i.e give me a month or two) i started making this beast of a scene about 6 months ago and my parents won't stop whinging eg, "Seb, go to bed your eyes have gone blood red..." and "Whenever i walk past your room you're always working on that silly thing. War, war ,war dont you ever get fed up with it?" and so on. Let me set the scene (forgive the pun) normandy, a small village, namely carentan, near caen. The diorama is quite big, a small plaza with a little bit of road on the side. A sherman, having busted through a brick wall, lays knocked out still halfway through the wall while the crewmen try desperately to escape with accompanying rangers making their ways through side alleys and past long bombed out houses to the plaza,. On the other side of the plaza, in which their is a beautifully handcrafted balsa bench made wonderfully by myself and other such goodies, a panzerjager panzerschreck team relocate and an mg team prepare to hose the americans about to pour into the plaza, all this and more, buildings festooned with detail such as shards of glass everywhere and half-doors along with boarded up windows. The list goes on. I am yet to make the and the stand as well as several figures which are not yet assembled. i have a new scanner and will be issuing several photos of it for you people to comment on. Oh and by the way, i need to be informed of techniques for making sandbags, yes i know i can buy them but they aren't the right size, and has anyone got techniques and ideas on making cobbled roads and streets?? Watch this space. Thanks in advance.