So being home gives me a larger screen and the chance to better look at the code.

Although that will simply create a new model, not test a model loaded from the database  (the original bug) (the bit where I got a bit stuck with the test, thank palkan for the push to get unstuck). I suppose a combination of what was added to the helper and what you say here would be the way forward.

```ruby
Model.create! id: 1, created_at: '2014-01-01 12:00:00 +0000'
subject(:target) { Model.find(1) }
```

Or even 
```ruby
Model.create! created_at: '2014-01-01 12:00:00 +0000' # Make sure at least one model exists
subject(:target) { Model.first }
```
and simply check that what the accessors return isn't nil (the original problem) but move creating the model closer to the actual test.