Yes hard to believe that it is nearly upon us the return to its normal time of year and anticipated by thousands of enthusiasts, this year don't rely on Youtube or DVDs come and see it yourself. Friendly and large turnout  plus launches of latest restoration projects from the NWVRT and members plus members own vehicles. Here it has been another catch up day but a whole list of household and building chores completed as the clouds now gather yet again and still not a chance to have a site in the garden yet, it will be the longest day and evenings drawing in  before we know it.. I'm going to try and get the Liverpool and Bristol DVDs made on the old editing deck, then when I get the last lead required I'll be able to switch from one to another machine and check the settings and am now in a position to play with the new titles plus I've got the programmes for enhancing old film and colouring b&W material.

We helped our neighbours put up bunting so we now have it in all directions and the tableaux that we made three sentry boxes for are up and look smashing, I'll get some shots tomorrow when we come back from church, its an early do at our neighbouring village which sharers our parish vicar. The garden is looking spot on even if we don't get into it very often. I'm still ding the daily back ups of our digital film files and mustn't forget the photos and I need to upload several months worth on Smugmug. Meanwhile Bristol buses taken on Friday morning.

I will be drumming on for the next week about the NWVRT Running Day a week Sunday, be sure not to miss this years event which looks destined to be the best yet and membership of the trust has soared over the past few months. We'll be there of course with the camera but also with the PMP stand which is an increasingly rare appearance as we have slashed the number of jaunts out with the stand, it is much more pleasant to just roll up with the camera.

Today were were down in the south west first at Bristol and then Weston super Mare where they not only have a new bus station but also a fleet of new buses and it all looked superb in the clear blue sunshine, just the breeze was there as it has been in the North West over the past couple of months. Buses mag have asked me to provide some films to play at their Bus Fest event, I lost track of where it is as it keeps changing. Anyway work goes on backing up files in the wake of the recent disaster. I've now got the new titling software installed but I'll probably bang out the latest couple of releases on the old machine so I can experiment a bit with all the wing bats and ding dongs.

So for our slide show I start with Weston super Mare this afternoon.

I suppose you could say that with such a lot of work going on behind the scenes there isn't an awful lot to show for it yet. I'm using all time that I'm out to continue backing up the files and looking at other methods of storage such as NAS ( which I'd never heard of until yesterday) a sort of cloud next to your computer. The switcher unit to tie together old and new editors just needs one lead which is ordered. I went to Lymm to try and film lorries and did a lot of tree lopping, I went prepared and even carved myself out a bit of shelter but as the wind was blowing straight at me and it got worse as the morning went by I had to give up but I'll used the footage we got to start using the new machine. I'll finish off the Liverpool visit also on the old system. I've got the new titles generator integrated  with the Edius system, I'll need to learn a few tricks with it, really I'll play with presets as it all looks very complicated.

I got a call today about music to play at the Platinum firework display on Thursday a week today, this saw a CD being burnt on the disc drive I'd installed minutes before, it worked spot on. I didn't get any further with the transfer of files for Railscene, it was weird as they should have had plenty of space to be moved, a huge flash drive is on its way to me. I've also been scanning more cine film as time permitted, a task I'd not had to do for several weeks - shopping! Anyway I bring you some more shots taken in Liverpool yesterday.

Well after the traumas with the new computer and the two drives which failed nothing really new accept the DVD drive for the new machine arrived today together with a high capacity extension drive which will allow me to download current files I film while I'm waiting for feedback from the chap in Northwich who dos data recovery, The main challenge of today was yet again the weather, nearly two months of constant wind and rain frequent there seems little prospect of change until next week. Very little jubilee bunting up on Merseyside only football flags, I think Everton won the world cup or something not an area of interest of mine at all.

I have only attended two football matches in my life. When a get the physical swithcher unit I'll tie in my old editing deck for a while so I can see what settings I had Edius on. I'm still trying to get the new titler tied in to come up on Edius, they have the worst service next to Amazon, Paypal, Ebay, Google, Weebly etc. Anything that comes out of the USA is poorly thought through and poorly executed they make the Chinese almost look competent. Well what about the spontaneous combustion of the electric buses through  Europe and UK, well what do they expect,  if I could wind back the clock I'd stuff all this green electric nonsense, they had already got hydrogen researched and working it was the US motor giants who bought up all the patents to block its development. Anyway jobs to be done some shots from Liverpool today.

Yesterday had been set aside ready for the installation of the new editing suite which much to my astonishment went reasonably well although the day wasn't without drama. Never offer to help Mandy always tells me as we have enough to do without extra tasks but I never learn.

I got a call from a chap who is from Railscene ( the connection is through OTA ) who I helped out a few weeks back scanning some cine and putting it on DVD. It turns out that he has no DVD drive so they wanted me to transmit the files another way. After frustrating attempts and time aside from my real task for the day we ended up with a flash stick from Tesco which was an experience in itself. Anyway the end result was that it destroyed my second extension disc which had the most recent scans on it, thankfully I'd already backed them up to the OTA drive which I keep up in tandem so we always have at least two copies and the new back up mega extension disc is now being loaded which should always have been done but it is transfers which take days which clogs up the machine for other activities.

At most I've lost a couple of scans which I need to check through the files and borrow them back, it could be that nothing has been lost. Meanwhile my everyday computer for general office work as being used now seems to becoming harder to fire up which will probably mean the motherboard is on the way out. I've cleared anything on the desktop away to proper storage and made a list of programmes I will need to replace if and when it expires.

I will be able to use the old editing machine which works on Windows 10, then both main machine will be on Windows 10, not that I like it the main benefit is it in not Windows11 which keeps popping up wanting me to install it on the new computer. I didn't realise that they don't build in DVD drives but one is winging it's way to me post haste from the machine supplier who did have it on my wants list for the build but never mentioned that it was now a plug in accessory.

At present the files have around 10 hours to go and that is just a small batch. I think the main back up session will take a week. I look forward to trying some of the new AI based technology on the new computer I've several programmes installed although I'll leave Topaz for the moment as it has already shown itself to be a bit of a curates eggs, good in parts. So urgent I need to clean the house as Mandy gets back from Ireland this evening and mow the lawns plus order up another extension drive. Hopefully I can get out filming later in the week, a customer reminded me I hadn't filmed in Liverpool yet this year. I can't load any pictures as the transfer is taking up all the usb ports etc.

Good to meet so many people I knew and to make new friends at Morecambe, an inredable achievement getting so many vehicles there and the crowds seemed more that at the Ribble 100 do.I've just added a rake of new DVDs to our shop, one truck entry just won't let me put the cover picture on, I'll try again tomorrow. I need to do a bit of tidying up in the garden, there is a lot of DVD covers to trim up  but all the DVD orders are ready to post in the morning. I'm hoping tomorrow I'll at least get the new computer online and start putting the various programmes on it, thats like apps to you young 'uns. Please note that the entries on Facebook are generally generated from my blog on our own site, I don't normally use 'messages' on Facebook if you need to discuss something either email or phone, we don't even get reception for mobiles in our village.

A very long day yesterday, I went to London by train ( mistake) it wasn't bad at all going down but then coming back all services were delayed and with no information other than garbled announcements which you couldn't hear and the mass of people drowned it anyway I ended up getting the last train heading north which was on the London Midland and Timbuctoo service which takes ages, in the end the scheduled west coast Italian spag bog service got into Crewe a few minutes ahead of the the slow boat to China. I must remember going by car is less stressful and you have control over your journey especially when you have had enough and then have hours to wait only to find it delayed anyway. The car park ticket machine at Crewe is not at the car park but unsigned and in the station, only it didn't work, ended up with a bunch of youngsters who couldn't get it to work either, the help person was useless, the area around Crewe station late at night is dark, seedy and the drovers lanes through Cheshire are more fitting to Neanderthals than the 21stC. The weather on the BBC checked late evening was light cloud with about an hour of light rain possible  around lunch time, actually it threw it down all morning and never stopped until afternoon, I got drenched and the camera bag leached on to my pullover. Anyway I did get film at Brixton, Peckham and Lewisham plus some at Waterloo in the evening.

I hope you enjoy the Brixton shots, now some more from our Romanian jaunt two weeks back.Timisoara on a Sunday

I'm going to start getting the new super computer working today as I seem to have all the components to hand and know what I need to download but I'll get the London video downloaded first. By the way London Transport is still the worst for information or lack of it, signage is on par with Guadalajara.

Our by now fairly regular meetings down in Shrewsbury tie in very nicely with lunch at the local pub who are now back to their usual large range of real ales. I had dinner there as well which saves me cooking this evening with Mandy still being over in Ireland. I got in touch with my friend in Sao Paulo to see if I can fix up a trolleybus visit on the way back from our wildlife tour in July this year. I've got some more Phil Tatt cine to scan mostly on the near continent although by 1959 he had stretched his wings as far as Italy, Switzerland even Luxenbourg plus the usual Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Always an adventure delving into material that old. I received the key board to use with the new super computer, I have everything I need to get it set up just the courage lacking at present. A couple more slide shows with more for truck fans with lorries on the M56 yesterday and electric traction in Romania from last week this time at Craiova.

Another busy day with Mandy away in Ireland not back until next Tuesday. I went over to Ellesmere Port to have my hair cut and took the video camera, got a couple of hours of trucks filmed at two junctions on the M56, I had an idea about all busy truck motorways country wide from over bridges, this could be the start of another development. I'm hoping to be in a position to run up some more archives in the coming months.

I have ordered up all kit to fit my new super computer in and link up to the others, I want to have the back up capacity of using the 'old' machine if I get stuck starting work on the new Grass Valley editing system. As the new one is mostly USB sockets I've already ordered a bunch of adaptors. I'll get the truck films edited, minimal work as shots very long and continuous.

Here are a few shots from this morning on the M56

The second location in our Romania trip was Ploiesti