We are really looking forwards to resuming our coverage of transport in the South East starting with Kent then Sussex which will take us through to Friday evening. Meanwhile I've got all the DVD orders from the weekend ready to post after I've been to Ellesmere Port for my haircut, four months since the last one. We were at the Vicarage decorating again this morning but I made sure we were back home at lunch time and able to have a really nice pleasant relaxing sit in the sunshine. The flights from nearby Manchester and Liverpool airport really started to make an impact, actually although nice to have no vapour trails and noise it is time for normality to kick in. I'm just trying to clear photos from the still camera, in the back ground I am getting sorted for the third volume covering the progress of London bus operations, the next will be the LTE 1948 to 58. I'll knock Amazon off line tomorrow morning, EBay goes on holiday settings and our shop is there always although orders won't go out until a week tomorrow. It says this on our shop front page but I bet people still ask. I gave you some Kent shots yesterday of buses what about some lorries, here we go to Dover. No blogs after Monday until Friday at earliest.

I was at the vicarage this morning with a large team from St Oswalds as we have a whole weekend push to get it ready for the new vicar to move in. Meanwhile at home this afternoon I've carried on with my family history finishing off some data from last night which now links me back past William the Conquerer to Charlemagne. Then I've been scanning yet more old transport cine films and made a start on updating the archive database which now has a digital section, I had to learn from the net how to be able to extract the mpeg4 file names in text to add them to the list as they contain a complete description of content and with over 300 files already on the list it would have been a huge task, thankfully it was quite easy  when you know how. Hope to have a restful evening then up again to carry on the painting at the vicarage, lets hope we get a sit in the sun tomorrow afternoon although there is already quite a pile of orders to process.

Don't forget we are in Kent and Sussex after Monday and not effectively back until the next weekend, all orders after Monday will go out the following Monday. I'll knock Amazon shop off and EBay will be on Holiday setting, the PMP shop is always open. I suppose with Kent inmind it should prompt a slide show from that direction.

We have a friend with us this evening so a quick look at this past week which has seen us record buses in Northampton and Bedford, and from the myriad shots of lorries at Lymm poplar services. Don't forget this coming week we shall be away filming in Kent and Sussex. We hope you are all well and enjoying your hobbies, perhaps at last summer will be starting and we will be able to continue our coverage in the south with Devon and Cornwall next after Kent and Sussex.

4404. London. UK. Buses. LPTB on film. 1933 to 1948. The first of the all embracing London  Transport entities from pre war, through te war and into reconstruction
4405. Northampton. UK. Buses. July 2020. The bus services has been further enhanced just a couple of days previous and Stagecoach seemed near pre pandemic
4406. Bedford. UK. Buses. July 2020. The bus services all except longer distance to be at pre Coroma levels and we  get a fine array of shots incl Major Tom bus
4407. Lymm Poplar Services. UK. Trucks. Yes we are back to one of our all time favourite lorry destinations with a break in the series of wet days, three volumes
4408. Lymm Poplar Services. UK. Trucks. Yes we are back to one of our all time favourite lorry destinations with a break in the series of wet days, three volumes
4409. Lymm Poplar Services. UK. Trucks. Yes we are back to one of our all time favourite lorry destinations with a break in the series of wet days, three volumes

All these DVDs were editing and covers completed today, the need to be uploaded to our shops. I've got one left to get clip for Youtube which I'll try and upload but my computer has been doing the massive copy of scanned films to the OTA external drive which is taking nearly two days to complete, it should be done by tomorrow morning. Well we did go shopping to M&S first thing and then did all the DVD work.

Thankfully I found a spare USB port in the back of the computer so I can load these DVD images and I'll be able to put them on the shop. I'll change the list as well.

It feels like it is never going to stop raining but we are assured that it will cheer up over the weekend, lets hope its true. Anyway I dropped Mandy off to get her hair cut and coloured at 8am and she was ready about 1040. My day for hair is Monday, thats the reason we head off to Kent and Sussex on Tuesday. We'll get the post away as normal on Monday after that it will be a week Monday that the next post goes so please if you need anything urgently order now.

Good news I've managed to complete the mammoth project on DVD of the LPTB era of London buses 1933-48. It was surprising how much bus material I had managed to garner together. I've just burnt the master DVD and will get the cover done in due course. Six more DVDs to edit now as more good news I took advantage of a break in rain between fronts passing over to film lorries at Lymm poplar service station and got three hours of film.I even did a bit of ground work maintenance there with my hefty tree cutter.

WE have our friend Sue staying Friday night and after watching the awful weather outlook which has already written Thursday off it looks like Friday is out for film work but I will catch up with the editing and getting DVD covers made. Next week is going to be a lot of work in Kent and Sussex sticking if possible to our schedule, it will be the first trip away for Mandy with me since lock down as she has worried so much about toilet availability. It seems even M&S cafes aren't open, what is! Anyway tonights slide show takes us back to lorries and then tomorrow I'll bring you shots from Bedford.

Thankfully Stagecoach had upped their services yet again this weekend and thus our targets for today yielded a good crop of bus scenes in both locations. I think it is still longer distance and contract runs which are absent but notwithstanding those it was a worthwhile day with plenty of activity with dry cloudy weather which at least means you can point the camera in any direction. I didn't find anywhere to have a coffee, Starbucks seems to be just take away and Costas have all closed down. I gave up on the food and drink side but hope we have better luck next week down in Kent and Sussex. I've already downloaded todays shots although editing is now behind the LPTB London DVD which I hope to finish tomorrow and then move to todays offerings. I'm still hoping to have another trip out on Thursday, as and when the sun returns I'll get some more lorry film done. So lets start at Northampton this morning, filming started just after 8am. Friendly drivers on the whole, one Stagecoach I think was being negative but guess he came from far to the east of Clacton. Any talk of being quiet this week has gone out of the window, bumper haul of DVD orders in the post today!

Foul weather yet again, high winds and more rain but it looks as if the rain arrives later in the south so I'm aiming to do my Northampton and Bedford trip tomorrow. I had a day spare and thought I'd get much more done than I did. About three hours to get hotels booked for Kent and Sussex next week making sure they were accessible for Mandy and we could eat. Getting information from hotels seems like getting blood from a stone in the UK, you would have thought with months sitting on the back sides they could have got their acts together but no. I did finally get the three nights sorted and the itinarary will be something like Canterbury, Chatham, Maidstone, Dover, Folkestone, Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton, Crawley, Tunbridge wells and Croydon. That is four days work.

Thus next week I shall as previously advised shut the Amazon shop while we are away and put holiday setting on EBay. The PMP Shop which you should always use in preference remains open throughout. Any orders next week will go out the following Monday which is the day I get my hair cut, Mandy's is this Wednesday. My next day out filming this week will be Thursday. If you have urgent DVD requirements order this week. Delays will happen most weeks as we catch up on our coverage. National Express West Midlands is now 100% pre Corona schedules. Lothian is starting to ramp up, I guess two steps behind England so we'll leave Scotland until September. I'll fit London in somewhere along the line, if the rail prices come down perhaps I can go by train at the moment it is horribly expensive.  We are fairly slack this week so any orders will get immediate attention.

I did manage to get some more digital downloads set up on our shop not as many as I hoped by internet was a bit faster today. Editing the LPTB era of London is well underway, hopefully it will be finished on Wednesday this week. Much of it covers the war years plus a favourite era of mine the remainder of the 1940s just before I was born. Photos tonight  from Northamptonshire area  in anticipation!

It doesn't sound a lot does it but the day has really flown by and at least I've got another 4 reels of cine scanned and have all the weekends DVD orders ready to send out tomorrow morning. Yesterday I updated the shops, the Amazon one still needed some cover pictures on a few new listings as it is impossible to keep track as they mix everything up when it is uploaded to your shop, why I have no idea as it has a numerical sequence but hey ho its the Amazon way. EBay is teetering on the brink whether we stick with it as it makes its way to becoming a financial services supplier in the way Paypal was for EBay then it went its own way and now any old link or relationship is out of the window.

We have been mak8ing preparations for a journey to Kent and Sussex, not this week but the week after, we shall suspend the Amazon shop and put holiday settings on eBay, ours will remain open all times. This is likely to repeat itself as we cover the South West, then central southern England followed but Wales and Scotland and sometime in August to Northern Ireland and perhaps October in ROI. I am still hoping for an overseas trip in the autumn and in early 21 a long distance trip to somewhere hor and sunny and with transport interest, hope the government list will have grown a bit by then.

Here are some more shots from the trip to the North East last week these are at Sunderland, Thursday will be another trip down the M1 direction plus somewhere along the line a couple of lorry visits.

Here are all our latest DVD releases and our own shop together with those on Amazon and ebay now have these releases.

WE went over to help with the decorating on our vicarage in Lower Peover ready for our new vicar who arrives this month. It was in a bit of a state and has had some new fixtures in kitchen, bathroom, windows etc but basic state was pretty dire. Lets hope the water board get the new pipes connected as the old ones were still lead, its been a long job for them. Good to see our St Oswalds team in action doing what we do best all mucking in together. I don't think social distancing came into it though.

I then spent the afternoon catching up with the three PMP shops after having made covers for the latest five releases. I've also at the same time been scanning another two cine reels. Last night the computer ran straight through and the OTA external drive now has the scans for cine and all our pictures. The process is ongoing though and I will soon be going to Shewsbury to pick up and drop off films and hopefully down to Sussex to collect some from our friend John Bishop. I don't think this week will be too good as Mandy has hair appointment and we need to collect our monthly pills from health centre so it will probably be long days trips still but the week after we may well be on the road Tues to Friday catching up in London and South East is the weather stays fair for us and there are hotels to book. The Crown looked to be open when we drove past, we'll try and stick to our regular nights though.

After a fairly hefty sleep it was back to the grind stone with many tasks finished including getting all three North East films finished and clips from the four locations on Youtube. I'm now compiling the covers. I have transferred some of the digitised films to the OTS external drive with the remainder going on overnight starting around 9.30 tonight, it will take quite a few hours. I had to get the temporary storage freed up as it was full. When I've got the OTA drive done I'll transfer back to my new PMP ext drive which like the OTA one has both photo and digital films included. My own digitised films should go on as raw archive on the shop which I will do but there are quite a few recent releases that need loading for digital downloading on the PMP shop plus I must get Amazon and EBay updated.

The other task that I interwove with the above was getting all the data on my royal lineage on to my Ancestry tree, this was about 26 pages of data hand balled on, I haven't time yet to see how it all links in but somewhere I'm up to about 40x grand parents. It has rained all day and been quite chilly , the weeds are growing well but the lawns haven't looked so good in years particularly the front garden. DVD orders were moderate overnight, light today at present but at night all the online ones come through. I will be watching out for news on which countries we can now visit with a view to late summer trips and a winter break together with next years schedule.

I can't believe some of the events now listed as being on for late summer, really Truckfest at Peterborough with 15 thousand people over the bank holiday weekend, I don't think I'll be booking any time soon. Showbus I am certain has been postponed to next year although their site still showed nothing about it until recently. Keeping an eye on the weather so if it is fine and hotels are available we might to to the more distant parts of England. Tonighrs slide show comes from the visit yesterday to Gateshead .