A good night's sleep after a shorter day than expected on Friday which meant more to walk on saturday. What we didn't know that there were eight hundred young woman walking for cancer research in the opposite direction which meant churned up footpaths although the track was very obvious. There would have been good scenery this afternoon if it had stopped raining, at over Hardin I I raced Ashraf to get some ice a creams caught up with many in her car but we lost the remainder of the walk who were behind me and took the wrong turning. In the end I did the full walk to bskewell but some are catching up in the morning plus we've a raft of new walkers joining us, home tomorrow night with photo's
Isn't it annoying when you can't get the title typed, the quirks of Weebly sites. Anyway a successful day with Walsall and Wolverhampton crossed off the bus to do list for 2017. No real hassles although the weather wasn't 100% as I wished but I managed ok. One woman driver for National Express managed to do the old blink entry into a bus station with decker full of passengers, hopefully there was some vision through/between her fingers in from of her eyes, I wonder what drives people to such measures, what is it that they are hiding which instantly gives 100% attraction to any viewer who probably wouldn't have given her a second glance let alone identified her through a windscreen, it was very unusual for a West Midlands driver although I has a similar incident with Diamond a few years back and a very irate West Midlands minibus driver in Coventry many years back. Generally it's a very friendly region to visit. Have you noticed that car park charges in the grottiest places are highest. Wolverhampton was difficult to navigate, the trams are not running there at present, replacement buses are only from the bus station not the tram stops. A very busy bus station but less so in the town. The light was a le too bright to start then it started to rain but all the film I needed I have. I'll start tonight with stills from Walsall this morning. Still hoping to cover York and Harrogate subject to last minute weather changes. The weather was just right although perhaps a tad too bright first thing in York but it worked out well. We beat the traffic across the Pennines and were in York about 7.45 am all parked up, a Costa cuppa and then I got stuck in, a few new buses which will feature in the slide show later this week. No hassles at all and some rather good scenes by the walls down the road from the station in the rush hour. There seem to be less bus operators this year although there is nothing scientific in that observation. Tomorrow I hope to cover Leamington Spa and Nuneaton. After we had finished at York it was a swift getaway with much quieter roads than when I had to do the work on Saturdays. The folk at Harrogate were as friendly as you could get, Transdev et al were all superb and what an interesting fleet it is although the colours challenge photography in the best of conditions. We had a swift run back although the M60 round Stockport way was very busy even at 3.30pm. I've got the West Yorkshire DVDs ready, covers yet to do probably Friday. Then I've already started editing todays footage of York and Harrogate. Terrible problems with Youtube, they are still rejecting lots of bus material as unfriendly to all advertisers, what on earth their 'crawler' is picking up on I can't understand. I do reload them, trying less descriptive titles like just 'buses', you can figure them our or add in comments at least perhaps they'll stay on and attract revenue as this is what pays for the next trip etc. Tonights scenes from Wolverhampton yesterday. The joys of being a church warden, someone has reversed a lorry into the lych gate at the church around 11.30 this morning which ties in with the rubbish lorry which come on a Thursday morning. Another job to sort although it doesn't seem to be in danger of falling down. Our tower captain who sadly died earlier this year was also a builder and fixed the roof in the winter storms but now I'll have to fish around for someone, its really just a few tiles but they'll need to match. I'm all geared up for the walk tomorrow, Sat and Sunday in the Peak District, we are leaving about 7.30 tomorrow morning. Today I had an abortive trip to Leicester to film buses on the basis of the BBC weather forecast which showed cloud until late morning, instead it was a cloudless blue sky and no use at all, I salvaged something from the trip and got some lorry shots on the A50 on my way back. I've used the time gained to develop further the charity film show for Plumley village hall in November. It's nearly all done I just want to get the October one done as well, that's for a car club in Sussex. It's been a busy day with one thing and another, I'm trying to get right on top of everything before my Chester university course starts, induction a week Saturday. Time is already precious it will get even more so. Our friend in Canton China or Guangzhou as it is now, even then its known locally these days as Canton - has published his book on Cantonese transport and is now working on one on Shanghai. I will try and develop my bus to do list of locations for the autumn and hope the weather settles down at some stage, I think the problem is that the forecasters have no idea they just haven't got the guts to say that. The slide show this evening is taken from shots done this morning on the A50, east bound was closed for a while, I saw a multi vehicle pile up towards Derby, typical its getting as bad as the M6. I'll try and blog from our hotel the next two nights, wish me luck and dry weather. Youtube has some 1996 London shots uploading, new record monthly revenue achieved and subscribers at all time high. Subscription channel and DVD downloads are starting to take off. Today was a different sort of day to normal, we woke and it was pouring with rain but then cleared up, we had already decided that we would travel over to the peak District and do a little homework in advance of the walk starting Friday. The ground conditions weren't bad as the limestone in the park tends to drain very well and I don't think we will have any problems as the paths and trails are well marked and the guide to the Peak Pilgrimage walk gives very detailed instructions. Mandy wanted to have a good idea of the locations as she is providing logistical support and now knows most of the first two days route and where road access occurs. There are some very beautiful places although the miserable weather in Staffordshire did little to enhance it. Certainly the walk along the banks of the River Dove would be wonderful but in drizzle perhaps slightly less so. There were still hordes of walkers about, I don't think we shall be alone much on this stretch. We stopped and had a liquid lunch and later my favourite cafe in Bakewell next to the chocolate shop which has the best tarts of all, the actual Bakewell Tart shop is always a disappointment to people. It took ages to get around and I only ticked off five of the churches we pass en route and I think there are 13 in total, those doing the route by car on the Sunday will be very busy possibly likewise the cyclists although they have less parking problems to worry about. I took a number of photos to give everyone a taste of what we shall enjoy, our digs at Biggin Hall look interesting, a very ancient building if nothing else and a bit out of the way. I thought the pub next door looked a bit dour. The second batch of photos takes us back to the East of England trip and the lorries of Lincolnshire. We shall be going to film buses in Leicester tomorrow followed by Loughborough. Friday Saturday and Sunday we shall obviously be away in the peak District. Next week the weather looks as if it will be equally mixed but I'm sure we shall get out and about at some stage. Remember our still photo sales on our Smugmug site via links page, very underused and we started it as we got requests for copies of our photos, so why aren't people using it? A day which seems to have vanished in the blink of an eye but our Youtube channel has reached new heights of success due to you our viewers although bus clips look set to vanish from the top ten in favour of trucks so bus fans you'll need to click the adverts even more if you want to stay in the top placings on our statistics. Also did you know that almost as many women and girls watch our films as do boys and men. Where would you think would be our second highest viewership in the world, well it's Vietnam which explains why we are uploading more material from that delightful Asian corner of the world. Tonight we add 1996 clips from Argentina. The archive features are also available to download in full and on our subscription channel. The subscription channel is at last taking off, a great way to save money. Our sights are set well on internet activities as the vehicle rally scene in the Uk runs down and lets be fair things in the UK have been pretty tight for a long time, better for us all to corner support from a world wide viewer base. It makes our trips far and near possible. We are aiming to be getting around £2K a month by the end of 2018. This could be exceeded if the subscription side grows as fast as the advertising partnership. Notwithstanding all this we continue to put out all our material in several outlets online. You can find all our DVDs on our own shop, most of them on Amazon and a good selection on EBay. I updated all the shops this morning and created a sale on EBay which is with us soon, just 3 days so be quick. Showbus is our next UK rally, we'll have the recent DVD releases and a load of reduced stock to clear as we make room for our huge annual output. Today Mandy had the small procedure to remove the stent which has hopefully formed a new left eye tear duct, it was painless but some antiseptic cream still needed to clear up minor infection. I put the end to the last of the visible woodworm at St Oswalds this morning, it was heaving with rain but all seems secure with the roof at present. I've run off some more respect disabled parking leaflets as people are ignoring our three disabled bays at the church. The weather for the charity walk / pilgrimage looks a bit mixed but we shall hopefully have plenty of company when we start on Friday. St Oswalds website on Just Giving is the place to support me, I've already done 38 miles getting there and it's another 38 miles around the circuit in Derbyshire. I've loaded up our recent still photos from Essex on our Smugmug stills site and sghould have the east Anglian views ready to put on later this evening. Meanwhile we start to look at the trucks of Norfolk as we start in Kings Lynn last Thursday early in the morning as the sun came up. St Oswalds fund raising meeting this evening. Bus filming Weds or Thursday this week I've been hard at the DVD cover task today and have finished all the new releases right up to Heaton Park filmed yesterday. They are all available for purchase now with trailer clips on Youtube. This has taken all afternoon. This morning we did have a bit of a lay in bed after the trauma of getting soaked at Manchester on Sunday. I've also got the rest of the Barcelona trip sorted out with a side trip by train to Zaragoza booked. I'll also catch up with the present bus scene in Barcelona and perhaps a few tram shots, we hope to do our sight seeing with the 1939 Austin which I had actually purchased on behalf of Albert from Teesside. Albert will be working at the bus museum on the Thursday, perhaps an oppoertunity to film another side to bus preservation in the UK, there are some superb vehicles around in Catalonia and the local annual rally is given a lot of prestige, much more so than in the UK. I did an obituary for the Polio Fellowship magazine, we folded up the tarpaulins which got wet having dried out on the washing line and in the green house. The weather for the start of the pilgrimage in the Peak district of Derbyshire on Friday is looking a bit grim, lots of rain. I want to pop by the church tomorrow and check that the outstanding work on the toilet building is now completed plus I want to finish off my wood worm inspection/treatment as required. Tonight we have photos from last week in Norwich. Still to follow the truck shots, and there are some great ones. I've also got more still photos filed and uploaded to our Smugmug still photo site, see link page and you can purchase them from just 50p each. We also did some banking and I've got on top of my own cash flow which seem such a chew these days as the government keeps paying every four weeks rather than monthly which is bizarre to say the least. Hoping for bus filming Wednesday and Thursday this week subject to suitable weather, I must check it again. I think our days of outdoor rallies are coming to an end with yet another awful day at Heaton Park, the weather forecast said rain at 6pm but they were over six hours adrift as it had started before lunch time and just got worse. We had to initially cover everything and then pack up in heavy rain. No stock was damaged but it's not an experience I'd want to repeat again we are getting too old for that game and many of our regular rally customers have vanished, alas I suppose their demise was inevitable and they were the folk who were never going to be connected to the net but that is where the business now comes from. Photo sales are a pain as they make a mess of the stock and spend hours blocking space on the stall and spend a few coppers. We had a really good stock of reduced price DVDs at £8 each but even these only sold a few and no regular stock went at all before the rain started but I did manage to get an hour of film of the vehicles arriving not at the usual pond site but at the funfair entrance to the parking up area. I'm just running off the master of the Kings Lynn truck film, there will be three from last weeks trip. We are just sorting out arrangements with Albert in Barcelona which seems to be plagued with airport delays and strikes so fingers crossed on that. We should have a schedule of things to do but we only have three full days there to fill so we can't do everything. I'm mindful of the normal UK bus circuit and coming up now should be Leicester and Lancashire which we'll try and keep within a year of previous visits. Tuesday Mandy has the stent out of here tear duct so a trip to Leighton hospital , Monday catching up. A cloudy week so not truck filming weather, I'll get the distribution centres around Cannock cracked before the winter I hope. Lets have another dip at the photos from last weeks trip we are now on to Ipswich in Suffolk. Nice wether although cold and misty to start, it really is autumnal. I didn't have time to enjoy the fine weather as I had so much to do. I've now edited and burnt the master discs for all the bus visits in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. I can also confirm that three truck DVDs will follow. I'm busy filing away the material from August. I had a meeting with Ged Coates ref the pilgrimage walk next Friday, Sat, Sunday. We discussed some of the outstanding logistics for the evening get togethers , hotels, driving support and other bits and pieces like would Ged and I have time to take the longer harder, higher walk Sunday afternoon which is already the toughest day. My blister seems a lot better today, I think it was caused by wearing the wrong under socks. I got all the still into a presentation for Jan to show in church Sunday. We shall be at Heaton Park rally tomorrow and try to get back sharpish before the predicted rain arrives around tea time although I wouldn't be surprised at more dampness. I've made the poster for my November film show on the swinging 60's. I've got all the material China John has purchased on EBay and will send off with some gift DVDs on Monday. We got the rest of the DVD and cine film orders away this morning. I fed the birds who were scratching for food after my absence on the film trip. After I've done this bliog I'll start uploading the Youtube clips from the new DVDs, revenue dipped yesterday perhaps everyone was watching football, keep clicking on the adverts dear friends and support our future travels. The pictures this evening come from my stop at Colchester on Tuesday. |
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