On the Sunday it's a day at the annual Festival of Brass Bands, the best bands in the world are gathered together to celebrate the variety and virtuosity of this all amateur music which can astound by it's complexity and art in performance. As there is no restaurant on a Sunday and we have afternoon and evening performances I think there girls are going to prepare a picnic, the bar certainly is open. This all reminds me that we should be making a move to get concerts booked as the season rolls by so quickly. As you get older everything becomes that much more of a challenge. We've swapped hotels in Mumbai to the usual Oberoi now they've dropped the price a little and BEST have responded to my request for a depot visit, I must seek out a suitable gift to take them. We have looked at the early spring bus rallies and are limiting those requiring long journeys, I need to get Detling booked as we hope to get filming done in Kent with some days there before the event at Maidstone. Lots of new buses at Canterbury crying out to be filmed! Anyway staying with Oxford lets see what I have from past visits.
We start to spread our wings a bit for the New Year as we head down to film at Oxford tomorrow, we'll set off very early and beat the traffic. It's going to be a busy week, friend Sue is joining us midweek to assist with the Bangers Beans and Bingo night at Plumley village hall Thursday when I recreate myself as a bingo caller for the evening. There haven't been that many advance bookings but hopefully we'll get a few on the evening. We need to pick up a book of raffle tickets as the good folk who were covering that section may not be able to but we'll make sure it's covered. I've got all the bingo cards at the ready and the number generator standing by on my ipad. We've ordered a box of pens from Amazon which I think we could sell at 50p, mind you perhaps we could include them! Before all the fun of that we have the visit to the RNCM on Wednesday, it's one of the routine performances that singers go through being judged performing before a real audience, nerve racking for them but hopefully enjoyable for us spotting future talents. We are meeting their marketing manager who we first came to know through a 'Friends' evening promoting the new sponsorship arrangements, we've upgraded to the Principle's circle as we enjoy investing in future talent and have a relationship of sorts with the college going back to my hippie days. On the Sunday it's a day at the annual Festival of Brass Bands, the best bands in the world are gathered together to celebrate the variety and virtuosity of this all amateur music which can astound by it's complexity and art in performance. As there is no restaurant on a Sunday and we have afternoon and evening performances I think there girls are going to prepare a picnic, the bar certainly is open. This all reminds me that we should be making a move to get concerts booked as the season rolls by so quickly. As you get older everything becomes that much more of a challenge. We've swapped hotels in Mumbai to the usual Oberoi now they've dropped the price a little and BEST have responded to my request for a depot visit, I must seek out a suitable gift to take them. We have looked at the early spring bus rallies and are limiting those requiring long journeys, I need to get Detling booked as we hope to get filming done in Kent with some days there before the event at Maidstone. Lots of new buses at Canterbury crying out to be filmed! Anyway staying with Oxford lets see what I have from past visits. If I get bored I'll start on the next DVD features resurrecting the Bus Spot series and my special on the history of Stagecoach, happy days - Souter is not a person to be neglected and this warts and all look back with recall some of the early aggressive moves they made. Picture from the Mirror 2013. Greetings readers word-wide, I'm always so delighted that you've opted to spend a few moments of your precious time with me to see what has been happening with myself and Mandy and of course PMP here in the heart of rural Cheshire albeit a cock stride from the M6 motorway. We had quite a few DVD orders to process, Mandy had a good nights sleep which was an exception to the rule and I left her sleeping on and got all the DVDs ready for the post and then took up tea. We had a few errands to run, we picked up an ordnance survey map covering High Peak which I'll need for the summer charity pilgrimage walk and then we got a few bob from the cash machine and then called at one of the clothes shops in Knutsford which specializes in German shoes and clothes, we've ordered up a pair of summer and another for winter of their walling trousers. If walking is new to you ( how have you managed since being a baby?) then it requires a lot of very expensive clothing. Mandy had tried a couple of places but the combination of waist size and short arse legs wasn't to be found off the shelf. Then we went to Northwich and got some necessary stuff from Waitrose, we met some of our neighbours there talking of which next door has finally taken their bins in from the pavement but probably because they needed to park the cars on the pavement as they've had a delivery of shale chips to bolster the covering across their garden which had become so thin that the terram sheet was showing through. I got some cheap wash up liguid and other stuff that i can't think of the name for which kills off any moss on the drives and walls, it needs another dousing as the damp winter weather is fertile breeding ground for moss and lichen. At home I've been listening to a lot of music on the computer with the new speakers, Lawrence at the shop now has an array of posters for our forthcoming charity events for the village, we were in when an old boy came in sent no doubt by his wife to collect a copy of the new Cheshire Life, he hadn't a clue how to buy a magazine, take it off a shelf, take it to the counter etc, reminded me of Christmas when they came in for stamps , again no idea what you did with them etc.. it's a surreal world living in these parts where millionaires are the poor! I've spent ages getting photos trimmed up for filing, hopefully I'll get them on to the Smugmug site before the weekend is through. Peter Sarstedt has been on for the last hour or so, wasn't he a wonderful song writer, singer as original as Donovan, Peter's brother is an equal although had an unrelated stage name Chrispian St Peter. TV and papers are full of the orange man from the US, it too is surreal, I hope the buggers who voted for Brexit are satisfied what has been let out of the bottle giving hope and support to nutters like that. On another track I cancelled the Trident hotel in Mumbai and went for the Oberoi which had halved it's room rates which had been £600 a night plus tax but offers a safe, luxurious refuge in the Indian cities and responded for my request for a pick up at airport within hours of asking, if the Trident couldn't get that right I'd not much confidence in them! What now then well it will have to be links to our recent Youtube uploads as pudding is nearly ready, cherry pie and cream. The forecast last night showed a high probability that it would end up with bright sunshine rather than the original cloud so I decided to scrap the bus film in the Potteries and get our first trucking film of the year done just down the road on the A50 west bound. The sun indeed did shine all day, we got the DVD orders done which had come in late then there were more on the phone. Any thoughts that it had gone quiet were then dispelled as the table is full of DVDs to get out for Saturday morning. It was a great visit on the spur of the moment, I had hoped to have a bash with the window bracket filming trucks to our rear on the motorway but I'd reckoned without the curve on the glass of the window which left it looking up at the sky. I'll take a look at the A frames although I don't need anything complicated, what I had would have worked if it had an adjustable head to keep it horizontal. I do have some old tripods which might give me enough to bodge something up, a job for tomorrow. I'm not sure what is happening in the world outside, what with Trump and May I just keep my head down, add this to coming out of the EU and the world just seems to have got sadder, more divided than ever and the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.I need to get the settings on my still camera sorted, I can't help but feel that the white balance is adrift but touch one thing on it and everything else goes to pieces. I managed to get our noise killing head sets working, it turned out that you needed to charge them up first before they would operate, I didn't even know they did charge or need charging, nowt in the Chinese instructions which mentioned it at all. I'm working my way through filing the photos, I'll spend a bit of time over the weekend catching up, I do want to get a bit of time in the garden as well - now the recyclable garden bin is being emptied I can have another round of tidying up the back borders, I do wish that next door would get the fence panels sorted but they don't even seem to bother about bringing the bins in for days so not holding out great hopes, I'll just have to say something. I've a couple of DVD covers, three in fact to get made and listed on the shop, the jobs just pile up. I've cancelled the Trident hotel in Mumbai as the Oberoi has fallen in price a bit and the Trident didn't even respond when I asked them to arrange a pick up from the airport, I'm hoping that our visas will come through next week, the system has collapsed, the joys of Indian IT expertise and going digital on the visa process. I think I'm due to give you a photo selection from Derby, here we go. Today Mandy came with me to Derby, I was reminded by a customer that Derby was missed out in 2016 so we have now remedied that situation and what a jolly good visit it was with so much new to see and what a colourful mix of route brandings and operators there is and also double deckers seem to be hanging on in the region which is always pleasant to report. We took the morning post with us and then dropped it off at the post office, it won't take long to get today's done as it's the first day in 8 months that we haven't a single order - why don't you break that and put one through this evening. I did make in roads into the huge number of still photos taken this week and by the weekend I should have got them all uploaded not that many people bother to buy them, we've stopped most of our rally photo stock updates other than the large number of South East counties we have and the Manchester area but will probably try and sell all this off and keep the precious space for the DVDs. Remember at £12 each post free direct from us by post or phone they are among the cheapest you can get. Our archives remain without equal and our annual coverage exceeds the wildest dreams of our erstwhile competition should there be any. Our lorry filming will commence once the weather changes, at present it is well suited to buses in city situations and we are taking full advantage. Tonight I'm preparing the Chesterfield, Bakewell and Buxton DVD plus the Derby one. Tomorrow we shall be at Hanley and Newcastle in the Potteries, no rally this year to report yet which is a shame, I wonder if we'll move sponsorship to anything else- we have sponsored the Heart of the Pennines then POPS almost since we commenced making videos. I did a bit more on Mandy's family tree search for detail on her natural father, titbits of info but heard to join it together. Mandy was out at the pcc meeting, next time I will go as well as it looks like the formal vote on my being one of St Oswald's church wardens will proceed in time for the agm at which such matters are decided. It's still dull and damp every day, not a spot of sun now for weeks, thankfully we are not in the days of coal fires and smokey factories as we would be enveloped in smog. Tonights photos from yesterday in Manchester. Today I got Manchester city centre bus filming covered as the weather continued it's benign if damp settled spell with quite dense clouds but really as good as one could expect in January. Truck fans do not despair we'll be back getting those lorry shots as soon as the weather makes a few changes and gives a bit more brightness. We have several new locations lined up for truck films this year as well as most of those we did last year. We shall also be adding overseas destinations not covered before and we shall be attending several of the largest lorry shows this season. So much to look forward to there and remember the still photo Smugmug site has many thousands of our still photos see links page, I aim to get them listed within a week or so of taking the shots, most of our 2017 shots are therefore already uploaded and even if you just want to flick through you can do that or purchase prints from just 50p each. I've been bashing away at Mandy's birth father's illusive history, there is DNA evidence which pin pointed Harold Cecil Patterson which ties in with family diary entry, also there is a 'sister' Florence Patterson who lived in Llandudno and where Harold ended up living and she was visited by Mandy's uncle Dudley after the show down which prevented Harold entering into a bigamous marriage. He had already married Blodwen the barmaid back in 1933. By chance perhaps those transcribing the 1939 register also updated it from time to time into 'modern' times, even up to 1990 I am given to believe although the annotations vary and there was no 'system' in place and as they were also used by the new NHS set up there are other health service numbers and characters used. An entry for Stretford near Mandy's family home in Chorlton housed two people surname Mayoh, one was Florence Mayoh then added later the name Patterson, a date and various scribbles gives 1961 which I gather is the date it was amended rather than the date of an event. So it looks like our Florence but how was she a Patterson, no marriage record as yet although she states married. Frustrating isn't it, everything to do with both my own natural father Jim O'Grady and Mandy's dad Harold Patterson is a mystery but that probably reflects their chaotic life. I'm not sure what we'll be doing for the rest of the week, plenty to go at though, anyway here are shots from Chesterfield yesterday. As planned I visited Sheffield but rather than carry on away from home I decided to do Chesterfield afterwards which would leave me facing in the right direction to dodge the worst of the afternoon rush. It was very pleasant to meet up with one of our young customer / friends by the bus station and I hope they got some good shots of the trams after leaving them. The sky was just about perfect for this time of year and the area where the market was is now cleared and fenced off but nothing there. It has opened it all up and photography is probably at least as easy as it ever was other than my loft up the steps of the old market now long gone. The early morning rush hour was still in progress when I arrived and generally speaking I found there was a good variety of buses although nothing that different fro last year other than the Stagecoach saloons and First continues to get more new deckers. The drivers all seemed very friendly, there was a crop of down and outs between the market and bus station who seemed to congregate around the betting shop, I realised that the next worst thing about them from getting hassle is getting one who wants to be your friend! Anyway I managed to continue until I needed a brew, used Cafe Nero which had provided a good coffee with hot fudge cake and cram at Bangor, alas this time not even a hint of hot or cream. I'd left the car at the park and ride, I had to pay the full day price as it was before 9.30 when I arrived and old gits pass doesn't kick in until 9.30 but it isn't that bad at £4.50 a good deal less than the car park on it's own in Leeds. I thought Sheffield looked as rough as ever and showed no hint of aiming to be a city of culture although there is some graffiti on the wall by the bus station perhaps that would count. This visit the kids at the university seemed rather more polite than last time I was there. The photos today start us off for this week with Sheffield this morning. I'll take a check with the weather but a couple more outings planned this week. I got an email through from BEST in Mumbai with a contact to ring for a depot visit when I'm in India which was a very pleasant surprise. Still no reply from Trident hotel about airport pick up, not on the ball like the Oberoi at all. The lawn mower was picked up for it's service, not before they got lost and had to ring up, the office had given them the wrong postcode. I gave up trying to do the tourist visa application for India, it all crashed even if you reached the end as you tried to make the payment. There is a company or several that obviously work in cahoots with the Indian embassy and supply visas with only a fraction of the info you have to put on the online form and do all that in a three day turnaround. The reports on the net say how good their service is, this reminds my of the Algerian visa and probably Bangladesh which are much easier to get through an agent save all the hassle so worth the fee. Today was one for getting jobs done and after submitting the India visa forms I chased up the airline to make sure they knew Mandy had a wheelchair with her and also sent of a request for the hotel to provide a pick up at the airport when we arrive in India although no reply as yet, the joys of not using the reliable Oberoi or Taj groups. We then went to do the business banking after dropping off the DVD post at the local shops and at the bank asked about their account with airline lounge provision but I think we may be on to a loser so have just joined at minimum fee and it's then a pay as you go arrangement. I've got cards for us both so we have now plugged all the gaps that the Nat West caused when they withdrew Black account benefits with minimal notice. The next task was to get all the garden rubbish vegetation when I cut down the climbers plus some more general rubbish and stuff from church clear out into the van. The vegetation went in one of the rubble bags and the remainder including two old Christmas trees all fitted in as well, we'd got our van permit for the tip although they were having lunch when we arrived, not a pretty sight. That done it was home and a bit more clearing up then I got stuck into the Sussex bus archive project which I managed to finish and list. Then I've tried to save clips I've downloaded to my external drive which may come in handy for film shows. I'm then having a go at the Windmill presentation for John Bishop to use down in Sussex. I've been having a look at potential film destinations this week, it looks like Sheffield plus perhaps Pontefract and Castleford for tomorrow. Thursday will be the Potteries as Mandy wants to get some china while I'm filming, nothing heard on POPS rally by the way this may have fallen by the wayside due to lack of support from members as the last organisers had only taken it on for 5 years which has now passed. Other targets this week include Bristol or Oxford. Lets have a look what I've got on Sheffield, I did the trams last year as well as the buses, I wonder if the building work by the old market is finished yet. I might try and catch the weather forecast on TV and take a double check for tomorrow. Having spent days trying to sort out the new Indian E tourist visa I realise it's all a bit of a scam and the only way you can do it is to pay an agency, this has been a similar situation with Bangladesh, Algeria etc, they really don't want to deal with punters direct and it just puts India in a bad light and causes frustration. Reading the reviews on trip Adviser I quickly realised I was just one of thousands who had battled on ruining their weekend or health trying to do the impossible. Even if you bash your way through it all you'll fall at the last hurdle trying to pay for it. Actually all the countries which want visas are just a hassle you don't need. There are plenty where its not required or just a payment and stamp on arrival, that covers a multitude of countries who actually want you to come and visit and spend your hard earned cash there. At least China involved a quick trip to Manchester, an easy to complete form and going back to pick it up. Thus with my duties at church this morning, filming for the instructional feature on the duties of warden and sidespersons and right through to clearing up etc the morning was gone. I did a little bit on the new Southdown DVD and am actually getting towards the end of the images, just the sound to complete then it was on to the visa fiasco and into the evening. Not that the weather outside would have been welcoming to me as it's rained for days now, I had to drop off some paperwork on the way back this morning and roads all around the village back ways are flooded. The outlook for the next couple of days remains pretty bleak, I'm planning on resuming filming on Wednesday although I haven't checked the prospects today yet. I'm looking forwards to doing more lorry films asap although the bus side has been pretty painless thus far. We are just having a pizza for dinner and Mandy is making a rice pudding. A bit of a fuzzy head this morning after dinner with Emma, Kath and Keith last night, Phil it turned out was at a Latham family men's reunion! Sam is now a PMP fan well into trucks and now he has some magazines to prove it. Not that many DVD orders coming through today so perhaps an easy start in the morning. Just in case I actually get to India here are some shots from previous visits. Greeting readers world wide from a cloudy, damp, cold Cheshire. I thought I'd better get the blog done as we are out for dinner tonight with our farming friends Phil and Emma plus Emma's parents more friends Kath and Keith. I decided I'd try and get caught up with filing DVD covers, new DVDs etc and after getting the small number of orders off at the post office Mandy took me to M&S near the airport to get another coast, all tied up with my appearance at church for the wardens duties. Not really my thing as I'd wanted to leave jackets and ties behind upon retirement. I also caught up with Sounds of the sixties on the BBC radio player as there weren't any good years on Pick of the Pops recordings I thought why not play the thousands of tunes I've got in my music file on the computer, since getting the new speakers it's given it a new lease of life in that direction, obvious I suppose to youngsters but it takes a few decades for the old pennies to drop with your golden oldie scribe. All the new DVDs have been copied and filed and ditto the covers so I've a clear deck. I've been looking at the weather forecast for next week, the start looks pretty grim at present but better for Wed-Friday, on my list bubbling away are Wrexham, Bristol, Sheffield, Stoke each possibly plus something else nearby. It doesn't look like much of a truck week though but I could fit in Lymm services of course.. Don't despair we'll soon catch up with the lorry side after all I'm almost ahead of schedule with the buses. I've also got all the photos from the last two weeks excursions filed and loaded on to our Smugmug still photo sales site which I fixed last week and got rid of the annoying tram which had replaced the watermark and blotted out the preview images thus go and get them now only 50p each for the basic pictures all sorts of images and media are possible. Keeping it simple as befits my brain these days here are the covers of our recent dvd releases and a link to a couple of trailers on Youtube where we've just passed the 26million mark on hits. Thoroughly pee'd off that the blog crashed last night, although I get frustrated with the Weebly host when I look at other sites and how difficult they are to update I think we don't do bad and if I avoid the app thing I can even do the blog abroad. All the time I struggled it was to do with this app thingey. Yesterday I started in Hull driving over the Pennines with little trouble just getting stuck in the early morning jam through Leeds, got there just after 9am. One East Yorkshire drive did the drive with your hand in front of your face thing, if he'd been Stagecoach he'd probably have been sacked by now but it's only really Stagecoach who come down heavy on dangerous driving and bad behaviours. The worst is the Diamond outfit. The joke of the year is Hull being a city of culture although there are young people playing a grand piano in the railway station which was pleasant but it's downhill after that. The whole city is one lot of roadworks with all the town centre roads blocked off, although hand for bus photography. Half of the shops are empty or derelict, no attempt like so many others to put up murals in place of empty shops windows. They were ripping up the old Kingston upon Hull original phone boxes which are surely listed structures. They have installed some whopping great whale or whatever in the centre which will shelter the dossers a bit when it rains, they have a special wino section with de luxe seating. M&S in the centre is even worse than the usual shambolic planning in the cafe and the car park at the station was a bit like Sunderland, took ages to get payment through by phone and no record you've paid and an extra 30p for what? After Hull I went to Wakefield which has an even dafter car park at the Ridings shopping arcade. The weather was spot on and no rain ( or snow). Lots of operators, both DVDs are now ready , covers still to do. I finally got the Indian visa photos resized via a little gizmo on the net, on their form there are 12 pages of random info on how to do it which ignored took a couple of minutes to sort. Today the IQ went for it's annual/10k service, RGG are the garage, annoying in the extreme keep trying to add extras to the bill and ringing you up, a snotty bitch when I rang back said 'SHE' hadn't phoned me, someone at the garage had, goodness knows what she'd do for car sales. I'll try another garage next time as I couldn't stomach them any more. We went to see cousin Trish and Derek, Trish still under the weather and getting the run around by the doctors over her heart medication etc. I've got to go for an artery scan as I'm 65 this year, the joys of life come thick and fast. Quiet today on the DVD orders but there was a lot went off this am. Photos are from Wakefield yesterday |
PMP Sponsors the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust at Kirkby.
Categories |