well it was a dry day and not particularly cold. we had a pleasant enough meal considering the location but sleep was disrupted by smokers belw our window outside reception through the night, what on earth they were doing up at 3.30 in the night heaven knows but we had had enough by this time and phoned reception who gruffly said they couldn't do anything but amazingly the noise stooped immediately after our call. we can hear the cacophony now as we relax after the day out which doesn't bode well for tonight. we've stayed before and dined here but this is the worst experience yet. the roadworks surrounding the area are poorly marked out and signposts random in nature and positioning considering it goes on until the next century you would have thought a better job would have been done. I'd dropped Mandy off about 9am and she had a boring cold day, there were few people at the museum and it seems to have been a waste of time and effort attempting to make it two days rather than just the usual busy if not oft hectic Sunday, surely if it isn't broke don't go trying to fix it. fingers crossed that tomorrow Sunday sees something more like normal but I don't think there is a cat in hells chance of covering the additional expense incurred. filming say me head over to Falkirk, plenty of activity and although they had the new buses there were older ones in blue looking quite tatty and no markings at all other than a tiny first group logo. I covered the street stops and the bus station and got wrapped up in two hours. then I moved on to Stirling which could have had a bit more sunshine but it held out and I came in close to buses to get the exposure something like good. they had new deckers on the university shuttle service which looked very colourful. just had a wash, still noisy outside, there is music with dinner tonight.
we set off just before eight this morning and as planned we were set up at Penrith at ten am and the weather was pretty well spot on varying from sunshine to bright cloud. there were plenty of lorries about and the knne stood up well to two hours filming, lots of hoots toots and waves and I managed to get wrapped up and back to the pmp vsn before midday and put on the cold cuff on my knee and then headed up towards Carlisle with a stop on way for coffee and cake aleit at motorway prices. we then parked up at Carlisle and I set about finding my feet at this new location. the weather wasn't that good to start but it did descend to cloud with threatening rain clouds. there was a good mix of stobsrts although they by no means totally dominated the lorries bit I did get a good selection including rail and plant life plus car transport and a couple of fairly vintage road trains. thankfully I got an hour of film and back to the van as it started to rain. another change of ice pack and northwards once more and another refreshment stop and then to the museum at Bridgetown on the outskirts of Glasgow where the majority of stands were already in place. we met up with several friends including Graham from Cobham Julian from Kent and just as in Dublin Michael dryhurst . quite a little club meeting of English stall holders they were staying in Glasgow and we are back at the alone hotel at Strathclyde country park amidst the roadworks which are in turn near the service area where we exchanged as relay vans on the way back from lathalmond a coupe of years back. the TV isn't working but will to seems great mind you I'll find out how good when I press the publish button and if it does work illl download a TV play all and we'll be free of the room TV and able to play what we want. I'm going to film at Falkirk and sterling tomorrow if the weather looks good.
I had an early start this morning as my physio was at 9am in Hale, Mandy knows all the back roads to avoid the rush hour and roadworks and had us parked up outside with 3 minutes to spare. Physio Jill was well impressed with my progress and declared that her work was done and she could add nothing more to my progress, we did discuss what was and wasn't a good idea but bottom line if it doesn't hurt and you can do it go ahead and the odd bit of swelling in inevitable. Well that was job one out of the way and heading back we called at the post office to off load all the PMP orders before we got into a quick change act ready for the next appointment which was a funeral. It's been the stuff of books, p[lay or documentaries as well as police CID investigations, we were out in rural Bunbury at St Boniface's church which we had attended previously for a wedding and funeral.The buildings were still in war time mode with crossed tape on the windows and road marking deleted, it's the location for a second series about the women of a village in the war years. I can't go into any details but afterwards the wake split into two camps with the 'dissenters' being the most numerous and walking the short distance to the pub and despite the circumstances a nice lunch and superb Mobberley real ale, we may go back one evening for a proper meal. Nothing has been resolved and the circumstances are even more convoluted than before which is not a pleasant status and we can only hope that she is protected from the circumstances from a vantage point in a better place. We then had to return home for another quick wardrobe change as it was my latest appointment with Prof Jari to look at my knee replacement. He is always a little cautious and said it was 100% but preferred it if I could get it to 110% allowing a margin of error which would ensure my walking remained good well to the future. Nothing new but just keeping up with the exercises. Got the go ahead to stop anti inflammatories which require another pill to protect your tummy. Last night I took no pain killer and thus finally went through the slight withdrawal process to be free of opiates. I always have some tramadol with me in case of back injury and this will ensure that they will be effective should I need them. I did have some muscle pain after the gardening yesterday even though it was a short stint. I'll file away the matsters downloaded for the Dutch tram and trolley archive not to miss out some rare bus scenes. I should get around to editing in a couple of weeks time as we arrive back from Scotland Sunday night then Wednesday head down to Devon and Cornwall returning via Somerset. I'll take the Hadl and hopefully be able to blog en route , depends on the strength of the signal, spoilt here now with fibre optic high speed. I received my 1/72 model Liaz trolleybus from Moscow, a little toy like but a rare addition to my collection. The Atlas Ikarus artic trolley looks a dream in comparison. Spurred on by ghastly weather I decided to have a go at editing the Netherlands tram and trolley archives which have lingered along with Germany waiting for a spare week. Well it's hours rather than weeks and I'm sure I'll have quickly become bored with the task but I'm giving a shot. There seems to be several hours particularly Amsterdam , Den Haag and Rotterdam and even Njemegen and Arnhem have a decent length. There is also a bundle of steam rail, vintage trams etc. So I'm not quite sure how long this will be around but it's a busy day tomorrow with the physio early then a funeral which is about 6 months late, long story and not the right place to tell it , then the consultants final look over his handiwork on my knee. Then on Friday with fingers crossed for the weather we head up to Glasgow and at present plans allow for truck film at Carlisle to take in Stobarts etc near their depot. If it isn't much kop we'll revert to going to do buses up in Falkirk. I'm not sure i want to spend two days doing preseved buses running around in circles but a decision can be made later. Next week we have our trip to the South West of England which will take in the principal bus locations including Exeter, Plymouth, Truro , Penzance, Taunton, Barnstaple etc leaving home Wednesday and getting back some time on Sunday. It will then be a rush to see how I divide the footage quickly ready to puit my magazine adverts in. Next month we are looking at mid November for a visit to London but not if it's sunny with wretched autumnal shadows. Here are some clips from yesterday's trip to Wolverhampton, the still camera is now working again and the video is on automatic but the touch screen function is a bit erratic as the sandwich between the screen and next layer is still damp, its been in the airing cupboard all day drying out. Good afternoon, what a day, well it was unbroken blue sky in Cheshire and not really what we wanted for our intended trip to the north of Lancashire with Lancaster, Accrington and Chorley which Mandy would have accompanied me on. Instead I thought I'd have a go at the two truck locations I'd sussed out near Walsall. The sun was out nearly all the way down the m6 but when I got past Stafford the clouds came over and ahead was darkness. Yes that black pit that is Wolverhampton. Actually a good thing that I gave up on the trucks before i started was that the lights were out on the junction with the M6 and it was chaotic and the triangle of grass I'd use full of traffic light repair vans. So I headed to my right and followed on to Wolverhampton. The new trams are something of a shock after the dumpy little things they kicked off with, I will do a new tram DVD soon, I'm planning to cover the new Nottingham routes and renew coverage of the other systems. The rain started soon after I arrived and it took a long time to get any amount of footage gathered. Wolverhampton was once one of the busiest bus stations in Britain but now it's a bit of a backwater on a weekday . Nothing like the new deckers which swamped Walsall, same ole, same ole stuff other than Express motors has crawled to oblivion, a rejuvenated 50p pot of paint has cast Banger buses into a new light, a retro minibus fleet. There are a few smaller operators and in the distance I did glimpse an old first livery decker. Excitement was under control though and other than being damp and the still camera packing in I had lunch in Marks & Spencers, got to keep it in the family eh. I was covered in muck , I must have lent against some street furniture, talking of which you'll appreciate the shots of the works van on Market street which parked up so the mate could get dinner for them, only thing is its a disabled parking spot, a distinctly un-disabled labourer brought lunch out, berated me for photographing their van and threatened to beat me up if I did it again. Well I suppose that it showed how seriously Wolverhampton takes such things, when he went a couple of taxis took their place. I spoke to a zombie neighbourhood policewoman thingey whi said it depended on the council and they said it depended how long they were parked. The whole point had obviously bypassed the officials and with luck you'll bypass Wolverhampton and enhance your week!. My knee stood up well to the extended tramp around town and is obviously reaching new heights of achievement ready to show off his good work when I see Prof Jari Thursday. Another hectic day, I woke up earlyish so Mandy could go swimming first thing, its been a fairly muggy day despite rain and cloud quite mild. We had a few errands on the list and I think we got through most of them including ordering up the 2015 official PMP Christmas cards, earlier editions are now quite collectable I understand and often framed and displayed. I cannot give away too much but a small clue is that it involves council workmen and snow. Well hope that's got you thinking. We had to go to Northwich shopping but managed to call at Winning Kitchens near my old office who fitted our kitchen 16 years back. Before we start decorating the house next spring we'd like to have the new kitchen in place and preferably a lottery win to pay for it. We then went on to look at tiles and flooring nearby. I had to order up a new external drive as filing away Aug and Sept film files I used up all the space in the current on, also needed to get a box of copy paper so that's stationery sorted. There were two bags of post this morning. I've downloaded all the still photos back to August and started editing them prior to filing on our popular Smugmug site where you can order up prints from as little as 50p each. This afternoon I managed to update our Amazon and EBay shops with all the new DVDs. It's good not to have piles of film awaiting editing although there are still projects which need attention as we still have all the German and Dutch cine archives to put on DVD although this requires quite a lot of skill and patience plus a lot of time. Lots more cine film has arrived this week and everything is stashed i the editing suite awaiting foul weather when I can get set up for copying. I need to order up a 7.5 mm projector some time as a lot of true archive material especially pre 1960 comes in that format. What can I offer tonight, lucky dip perhaps. I'm waiting to see the weather forecast and see if I can manage to fit in a film trip tomorrow. Friday we head up to Scotland, I'm thinking trucks at Carlisle and buses in Falkirk. It's still a bit early to be certain though. Forthcoming trips to South west and London again weather dependent. As the East Midlands are still on the radar lets go there tonight. ot's certainly taken a bit of doing but we now are up to date with the DVDs , covers and listings. Everything is on our shop on this site and hopefully I'll find a few mintutes to get them on Amazon and EBay. Remember our own shop should be your port of call for best value at £13 each free postage worldwide. Our Amazon shop is popular but they ( not we) render an automatic charge for DVDs which increases like mad across to Australia and New Zealand. I have tried to exclude Australia from the countries we serve as it is a bit of a loss maker with more whingers than anywhere and those who only buy at sales when I can't exclude a specific country but it makes a loss before leaving our house. So please, please use our own shop, its now fully cross related to content, location, era etc and is powered by Paypal just like EBay so its 100% safe to use. It's been a busy Sunday with lovely weather which is set to go downhill as the rain spreads across from the Atlantic. I managed to get a large section of garden borders cleared of summer plants and bulbs planted, the recycle bin is now full. The knee was up like a balloon as would be expected, in fact cutting down the painkillers led to a fairly rough night and an early morning rising. we've had a flick through the new tv consul although we still struggle to watch what is one rather than scan around 700 programmes, I think BBC and ITV were enough perhaps it was the adverts which made a second channel palatable. We've had roast chicken for dinner and a locally sourced sticky ginger pudding and cream set for pudding shortly. Mandy has got the stock ready to maker up the Scottish DVDs ready for Bridgeton. talking of which we had a vert curt communication from them over the stand at the open weekend next week, it seems they are like so many show organisors treating us as milk cows to support the unsustainable events. There is a limit and costs need covering preferably with an element of profit to sustain our efforts. Here are some Youtube uploads of the last archive feature Greetings and here it has been a misty cool autumn day not without it successes and surprises. We got up around 07.30 and after breakfast we swapped around cars as Mandy was going to the Holmes Chapel health centre for her flu jab and I was having my second lone outing this time down to Shropshire. It was quite a fast run to Shrewsbury and I managed to grab one of the last surface car park places close to the bus station. There were even more 'independents' than normal as GHA bless them have picked up routes from Arriva, no surprises there then. I wonder when GHA will be starting their Shetland services, never has a new entity spread so fast on a budget. It was very pleasant to see a line of buses in different liveries, different types, several operators although at least three are actually GHA - like its spread geographically it also sweeps up more liveries than anyone else. There were several other bus enthusiats about some spotters some photographers then out of the mist came Glen Bubb which was a surprise albeit its not far from home, Glen and Caroline had actually spotted me whilst filming trucks at Whitchurch back in August. I also had a chat on the mobile with my friend Alan Jones who is still enduring the machinations of Amecfw. I has promised Mandy that I would take my pain killer at lunch time with a hot drink, as Glen was meeting Caroline outside Marks & Spencers I went up to join them them parted with assured witnesses that I'd done as told and added a toastie and bakewell tart to the line up. Afterwards I got back to the car although steps were involved as an escalator was out of action, the knee was now ell swollen. I emptied the water on the cold cuff and refilled with iced water which saw my through to Telford. It took some doing but I eventually got a parking space near the ice ring and for free thanks to a kind exiting motorist, I battled through the rats which were thick on the ground, photographic evidence amongst shots today. The weather was spit on for filming light cloud long me it remain so and no hassles other than sub normal local lads always 4 or 5 to a car perhaps we could export them in exchange for some pleasant Syrians. What about the channel tunnel invasion, there will be guns on the front of the trains before long and armed guards. Anyone else caught up with Talking Pictures the new tv channel 81 on Freeview, it mainly old British films 1940s 50s 60s etc. We had fun when I got back setting up the BT TV package with success, can't believe we did it, battled with technology and won but we'll wait until Sunday when there is nothing on usual channels and have a look through to see what we have gained, I think its about 300 channels.. oh dear. A new baby in the family up in t'hills, Mark Ashmore a grandad again. Anyway some pictures before I start editing Shropshire and I still need to finish the second central southern England archive feature. The London decker is with IronBridge Tours. I see Weebly my blog host has been messing about with the site once more trying to screw up whatever little I manage to squeeze out of it they can never let things be if it ain't broke don't try to fix it as a maxim lasted for thousands of years now ten seconds attention span reigns supreme. It was quite a busy day my main achievement being my first meaningful gardening session since the new knee operation. This involved tidying up the front garden, getting rid of weeds adjacent to house structure, weeding between pathing sections, clearing dead summer bedding plants.
We had banking to do and got errands done on the way to and from The Spire hospital at Whalley Range in Manchester where Mandy had a steroid injection in her knee to see if it can remove the arthritic pain in her good knee. We called at Trish and Dereks on the way home. I'm working my way through tasks associated with the DVDs, just edited the Cat & Fiddle truck film and just this cover to catch up on. Not sure what is happening tomorrow I'll have to wait until the BBC weather has been on TV tonight. Here are the covers for the recent releases all of which are available from our shop. It has been a warm autumn day, indeed an Indian summer with about 18 at peak which isn't bad for October in the north of England. I got all the DVDs and EBay auction items matched up with orders and Mandy did the packing, this is how the division of labour seems to be shaping up. I checked my bank and as I just got the normal pay I guess they skipped the pay in lieu of notice request and lumbered me with paying the tax. Still I'm not that bothered a few cards up my sleeve for getting my own back on them. Having cleared the house and business tasks we decided that I'd better not push my knee too much after the hill climbing in Derbyshire. Thus we ended up at Ellesmere Port stocking up on the bird and hedgehog food, then on the Marks & Spencers where I seemed to gain a winter sport jacket and overcoat plus a Xmas present for Sean in Ireland - e also got an engagement card to send to N Zealand. We had lunch in M&S and then went on to Occitane on Cheshire Oaks outlet centre before heading back home. Sorted out the post, read Buses Worldwide magazine and then went into garage sat in sun at entrance going through our Scottish DVD stock ready for Bridgeton weekend next but one weekend. We'll have at least one of all our Scottish DVDs. I then sorted out more items in the garage which we could load for auction on EBay this took a fair bit of time. I've updated our shop with all the latest DVD releases. Next I need to edit Dublin Port Rally Trucks ad then Derbyshire buses and finally Trucks in High Peak. I'm going to tiday the garden in the morning, get rid of dead plants and flowers and then look at which bulbs I can put in. We have a hospitsal appointment for Mandy to have a steroid injection in her knee mid afternoon. Saturday depending on weather forecast should be a bus film outing. More truck films next week and we shall probably heading to South West mid Oct and in November back to London. |
PMP Sponsors the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust at Kirkby.
Categories |