Today we went to Ellesmere Port and stocked up on bird food, always thinking of our feathered friends and we keep our garden colourful and alive with the antics of so many species. Then we went to the British Polio Fellowship meeting nearby, Mandy is chair of the branch and I'm press officer - just been catching up on news letters and admin fee renewal reminders. I've done the cover for the Hull bus DVD, just about to list it in our shop then design the Hull truck cover - hopefully getting these out of the way before the Standing Committee meeting for St Oswald's church at 8pm. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get out and film in the morning somewhere local, I've a meeting at 2pm.
Greetings from Cheshire in the North West of England, we seem to have a good band of loyal followers for our blog as we push into the New Year, I think around 1600 unique visitors each week at the moment and a look at our Youtube channel revealed about 45million hits to date. The down side is that as from 1st Jan this year revenue tumbled as hits fell for the holiday season and advertising bids to Google collapse in Jan and Feb each year. This means we all need to make a great effort to support the Youtube advertisers wherever you are in the world, our job is to continue to feed you with lots of super excerpts from our huge range of DVDs all available in full length on our site shop page or from Amazon and some selected items on EBay. Preference please to our own shop as all the revenue goes to extending and maintaining the PMP Film Archive especially as we are about to embark on the first overseas trips of the year. Today we went to Ellesmere Port and stocked up on bird food, always thinking of our feathered friends and we keep our garden colourful and alive with the antics of so many species. Then we went to the British Polio Fellowship meeting nearby, Mandy is chair of the branch and I'm press officer - just been catching up on news letters and admin fee renewal reminders. I've done the cover for the Hull bus DVD, just about to list it in our shop then design the Hull truck cover - hopefully getting these out of the way before the Standing Committee meeting for St Oswald's church at 8pm. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get out and film in the morning somewhere local, I've a meeting at 2pm. A 5am start today, damp still but the temperature was in double figures, it was hard finding the parking place I wanted in the dark at Hull, it was a clear run but the M6 north was I gather blocked all day with a lorry full of yogurt all over the road then later two lanes south near Birmingham were blocked. Trapped traffic was finally released after 4 hours. No such troubles in Hull, I started at the bus station roundabout after a really awful coffee and bakewell tart at Costa, filthy cutlery and tart was stale, sometimes they can be ok, I was annoyed as I realised there was another coffee place Nero opposite and they are usually quite good. It was dull and damp and little on the dark side but the video came out fine. I did so well with the buses that afterwards I got out of the seriously weird car park, still only half full as it was just plain strange, I was on level 2 so pushed the list to 2 ended up at 4, for level 2 you had to push floor 1, even getting the ticket was hard and it didn't just raise as you went out you had to take your ticket back again but it was cheap compared to some others, there is a giant Tesco near the bus station but I couldn't find any info on parking there. We have the Polio Fellowship meeting at Ellesmere Port tomorrow afternoon, I'll leave my haircut until just before I leave for Malaysia etc at the beginning of Feb but I will stock up on bird seed yet again, they really get through it this time of year, it will soon be the big garden bird watch end of Jan. Here are some lorry photos from the afternoon on the road to the docks at Hull. We resume our 2018 coverage with Leeds, a dull day but noce even light and vert atmospheric, Arriva do the honours with lots of new deckers and all in all the bus scene there seems much modernised albeit the operator range has shrunk in recent years, I suppose it's Yorkshire Tiger and Transdev which keep the more enthusiastic delights alive and we do need our little top ups to keep us going. It was a real slog over there this morning, up at 6am and soon on the road, they said that the m60 roadworks were finished but it was a bit short on detail, really just a small stretch towards Manchester then the slog to the M62 is as bad as it's been over the past couple of years or has it been more, decades perhaps. Then as we came down to Yorkshire it slowed until gridlock getting on to the M621 which then meant about 70 minutes trying to get into Leeds, I finally parked up near the shopping area at extortionate parking rates and got stuck in with the camera. Loads of still photos from today and I need to do a cover and get it on the shop as I'm off to Hull early tomorrow, hoping to get through before the queues start and hit Hull at the end of the rush hour, perhaps even catch sight of some school workings, presuming the kids are now no longer on holiday. Talking of stills I did get thousands uploaded to our Smugmug still photo sales site over the weekend, also the Messy Church on Sunday at Over Peover went very well, here are some photos before we get stuck into Leeds bus coverage. It is forecast quite gloomy over most of the UK tomorrow which will suit city bus filming and I will leave it until later before I finally decide but it could be Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester lets just see what happens but I'll top my little car up ready for the outing. Mandy has to go back to Leighton hospital, we went today despite me saying it was on Tuesday and sure enough we were a day early! My next Bus Spot project is on Norwich and once again it will be all widescreen and digitally enhanced, I have virtually no NBC era other than a couple of minutes by Dave Cowell but I've got snippets from the ancient trams through to the war years and then postwar and my own video started in the 90's so not the most thorough of coverage but it will be a first time and perhaps encourage more people to come forward with old bus film. We haven't had any 'new' cine film for quite a long time now but do promise that unlike Online we use all the film when we can and are always looking to extend the range whether it be bus, tram, trolley or even lorries we love them all, anything pre 1990 is of interest. I recommence my ministry course at Chester this evening so will be having an early dinner. We'll be having a look at the rally scene this week and deciding where we'll be going. I guess most people are now back at work, a slight bit of movement on the Youtube channel although it sunk to a very low ebb given the record levels we achieved through October to December. I managed to confirm the Russia trip with Regent Travel this afternoon. My email sent box is still not recording messages sent which is a pain, Regent had about 20 copies! When I've done the Norwich Bus Spot Ultra I might accompany it by doing Ipswich as I've gathered quite a lot I can use for there. I'll change my location entirely after that, there are several projects and I still have the Stagecoach story in mind. I also hope to get some truck film done this week. Thinking of Eastern Europe lets have a look back at visits to the former USSR states Here we are at last, I was that busy yesterday that the blog escaped my mind altogether. My travelling companion Martin confirmed yesterday that it was all systems go for our trip to Russia in May, by tomorrow I should have the deposit paid, we are hoping to get a couple of side trips done out of Moscow, the most interesting transport locations being Kolomna and Ryazin although Tver in the N West is easier to reach but just one tram route left. We'll see what happen. I was doing some ferreting around yesterday looking for additional material for my next Bus Spot Ultra series release and was looking towards East Anglia region for inspiration. It is so easy to just pick on the big cities but we have enough on say Ipswich or Great Yarmouth to produce something meaningful. Today it is cold and frosty, yesterday cold but above freezing but damp and I did manage to get a lot of gardening done, I even mowed the front lawn, tidied the borders, weeded etc. My ministry course resumes tomorrow evening at Chester and today we are launching Messy church at Over Peover at the village hall. Everyone seems to have coughs and colds at present which is typical for January. Tomorrow Mandy goes back to Leighton hospital to see about the second attempt to fix her blocked tear ducts, the first attempt failed. I'll be going with Mandy so probably no time to film but I'm looking at Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning. I've updated my UK bus location to do list on the new page of this site. The Youtube channel still languishes in post holiday dip, hits show signs of increasing lets hope that there is movement tomorrow which should see almost a complete return to school or work world wide. I did get a lot more photos files away yesterday and am now in a position to upload lots to our Smugmug still photo sales site which I feel is very underused especially as I created it in response to requests to be able to get prints from our travels. There is needless to say still a backlog of photos to get sorted but not too much as I now try to get them done as I take them. Lets call into our photo archive at East Anglia in anticipation of a production from that direction. A rollercoaster can put your stomach in your mouth and that is what it was like in the giant dip in hits and revenue on our Youtube site over Christmas and New Year but at last the downward trend has halted and we are looking upwards, I learn on the net that January and Feb are tough months in the advertising business and it is of course adverts that generate the revenue on Youtube but we still need plenty of hits so do your bit to support the PMP Film, archive as we set out on one of our most ambitious programmes of tours for some time. Another pierce of good news was that the company pension had gone up by 3.9% which isn't bad, there are plenty working hard who would cherish an increase like that. I was intending to go to Stoke and film buses this morning but the forecast last night was quite dire, in the end much of the morning would have been ok am but then it went to full sun but this meant it was warm enough to fix next doors fallen fence panel and get the bird feeders topped up, then in the afternoon I recommenced the weekly meetings with Jane my vicar and as well as discussing the future mission of our parish church we talked about Messy Church at our sister church St Lawrences which I'm helping to get off the ground this Sunday plus Mandy has been volunteered to get a small shopping list of misc requirements which releases Jane to have a quick cycle round the lanes if she is lucky tomorrow afternoon, moments of relaxing are rare but we did get out for a meal at the Golden Pheasant early this evening with Jane, Tom, Joe and Cathie and it was good to find that we knew folk on almost every table, the sort of circle of friends you don't get a chance to develop when you are out working all hours. I'm opening up in the morning so that Norman and Keith plus Rodney can make a start on dismantling the large tree in St Oswalds and remove any left from the festival, we have a charity pick up to clear the next weekend in support of East Cheshire hospice. I almost wrote 'and that reminds me' which is an awful link in the circumstances, a late card from our dear friends and neighbours Don and Margaret who we lived next to in Chortlon, well their daughter has now got cancer and that after two brain tumours which just seems so unfair. Being at home all morning did let me get caught up on some jobs, cover done for Birmingham bus DVD, a whole mass of film files put in the correct folders for easy retrieval on future bus spot DVDs, I'm open to suggestions and requests for the new Ultra range and online discovered how to clean my new electric razor, so rubbish were the 'instructions'. Here is the cover for the latest PMP DVD. I'm not sure how good next week will be I'm tied up on Tuesday , Mandy has hospital appointment for another tear duct operation, first one didn't work then it's polio Fellowship on Thursday so see what the weather brings for Monday and Wednesday, Friday is my course discussion, Monday sees my ministry course start for the next term. Afew other recent release DVD covers in case you missed them over the turkey and puddings. 2018 bus coverage began today with a visit to Birmingham, not perfect conditions but it was well timed to capture some of the large number of new Enviro 400's MMCs on central area services although that grey is a pig for photography in less than ideal summer sunshine conditions a bit like Blackpool the other week theirs is also a very difficult combination perhaps darker and harder to accurately reflect than Birmingham's. We got away at lunch time before the weather really turned for the worse, a fence panel out at home, its next doors but I expect I'll end up fixing it. I may get out tomorrow morning but no promises, it is very changeable weather and hard to predict. I hope to get the cover done for the Birmingham DVD and loaded on the shop tonight. Lots of destinations already added to out to do list on the news section. I've got a meeting tomorrow afternoon and something on Saturday morning but hopefully there will be some breaks in the weather next week and we can start 2018 truck films. The Youtube channel suffered terribly from New Year it will take a lot of clicks to catch up, operating at 20% of December average, we'll be luck to get to Leeds at this rate let alone Russia although it does look likely in May then June to Ukraine but first Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, later Madagascar and Reunion that should do for a start! Photos from friendly Birmingham, fair play to them smiles and wavs all the way. Damn, just lost all tonights blog, Weebly just crashed out on me. Sorry but I'm not typing all that our again. Here are the photos I was trying to add, they are still shots from the recent Bus Spot Ultra releases. Not bad for screen shots from moving images which shows the quality you can extract from even the oldest of material these days. All on our Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne titles. The Vancouver trucks film will bve live on Youtube very shortly and I'm keeping my eye on the weather to see if I can salvage some shooting time tomorrow from the stormy days so far this week We can't help it the weather will do what it will and we can only stand aside and keep warm as gale force winds lash the country again and heavy rain falls on already sodden ground. I did get the covers done for our two Bus Spot Ultra productions so here they are, both are on the shop albeit the photo part of the application isn't working yet tonight. The good news is that it will upload to the blog and here they are. I'm aware that there are a couple of more I need to backfill with. Thursday still looks rough but perhaps there will be a window in the weather somewhere reachable. I attended the funeral this morning for one of our local villagers who supported our church fund raising activities and had been born and bred in the village. I was due to have a church related meeting this evening but one of the people involved is stuck in Cumbria so it is by the fire and watching the soaps but I will look at the missing covers to get our other recent bus releases on the net. I managed to work through the afternoon and evening and get the latest addition to our Ultra series of Bus Spots complete which covers a century of trams and buses in Liverpool with widescreen throughout and most in colour, digitally enhanced and lasting two hours in duration and all this at regular PMP bargain prices for specialist collectors items. I also managed to get get clips loading on to our Youtube channel for this latest Bus Spot which should be all on very shortly and join all the other great trailers posted over the Christmas and New Year period. We take this opportunity of hoping that you all enjoyed seeing in the New Year, we stayed up so I could pass the church key to the bell ringers at St Oswalds, Lower Peover who joined the worldwide activities with a peel lasting over the end of the passing and New years. Some super memories from 2017, what a tremendous year it has been in so many ways with the PMP archive going from strength to strength and reaching up to 100k views a day in up to 204 nations and territories and creating a dramatic upturn in advertising derived revenue which secures the future enhancement and widening of the archive. In 2018 we will make our annual tour of bus and truck locations in the British Isles and extend our overseas coverage to countries we haven't visited before plus updating some favourites. It sounds as if we shall be having a busy time then and look forward to keeping you informed with the full DVD list on the news and shop front page and new DVDs straight to our shop before they are available anywhere else. No increase in DVD price or postage, in fact on our site UK postage remain free of charge and as a special service to our friends around the world sent to all destination on planet earth free, please don't order overseas from our regular 'sales' promotions as this really means selling at very little profit and is a service to extend our hobby not a way of tight- fisted Aussies to get a 'bargain'. It was very pleasant to get phone calls and emails today wishing us well for the New Year. Our UK coverage of buses should commence this week weather permitting. It's beeb dark and wet this afternoon after what turned out to be a bright morning. I've managed to get my course essay finished, spell checked etc, I'll take another word count tomorrow and a final read through and then get it submitted. I'm at a funeral tomorrow bus I'll get all DVD orders off in the post and I'll be get concerts and trips sorted and on the calendar. So our photos tonight must be of Merseyside! |
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