it was lovely to see Ann and Dudley this morning at breakfast, they had come over to hand out Christmas cards before we all left for home. The wedding was a great day and after the reception and for some a rest, then there was a hog roast in the evening with more entertainment. A couple of photos of the day which I'll have to get straightened and trimmed etc before sharing and also some shots from our journey along the coast on Friday. I've had a session in the garden, as ever the wind had blown the recycle bins down the borders. I even mowed the front lawn which had sprouted yet again, the back is too wet to touch. There are more buds and flowers coming out each day as we continue with this false spring, no doubt the artic air will swing around and clobber us before too long. good evening readers worldwide, well I struggled once again to get a blog away from the bull at beaumaris last night but as usual it vanished. this time I've tried doing a dummy publishing and then amending in this message. we are well into the day of festivities celebrating the marriage of Mandy's cousin Dudley's hardy to the lovely Ann who has one of the world's nicest smiles. the service was at St Mary's parish Church the weather was mostly windy with added rain and a slot of sun. the windows had been banging I. our hotel room so with a disturbed night it was all too soon time for breakfast after I'd used a couple of cushions wedged between the layers of primary and secondary glazing and thus almost silence. they had a lovely horse and carriage, Dudley's was in his dress uniform. I should be in a position to post photos from home Sunday. we've had the reception and now resting prior to a hog roast not outdoors I hope! lots of activity on the cine films on eBay and a few DVDs to sort when we get back home.
greetings readers worldwide. it is cool windy wet day in Wales but luck was on our side and after filming at Llandudno I met Mandy for coffee at marks although this wasn't helped by there being zero phone reception there but eventually we caught up. I tried there new gold luxury fruit cake which was nothing better than average. we then headed down to Bangor which was gridlocked with traffic and lashing down with rain but it was thanks to marks and spencers canopy that I managed to get the filming done. next we battled again with even worse traffic to get to Caernarvon where the rain magically stopped as we arrived. very much express travel territory with a few artics mixed in but a good variety helped by approaching school bus time. then we carried on back to the bull inn at beaumaris and checked in . we had tea in the lounge nobody else in the family around we then tried Dudley's house to drop off present but it was in darkness returned to the hotel where the room could do with a boost of some heat.
Hi Ho, it's been rubbish if mild weather today and I never ventured out of doors at all. I had intended to do some gardening but it rained. i had intended to film trucks a Middlewich but it rained and got very windy. I had intended to wash Mandy's car but alas these were the things left undone. There is of course no great urgency for any of it. Tonight we are out at a wine, cheese and carols party in the village. Tomorrow morning we head west along the north wales coast to Anglesey where we stay at the historic Bull Inn of Dickens fame in Beaumaris. We have a family wedding these on Saturday morning and then Sunday we'll head back home at some stage late morning and catch up on the PMP orders. Mandy has actually taken 3 lots of post to the village shop today so that we are sure that every possible thing has been sent off in good time.
Anything which arrives tonight onwards will go out on Monday's post run. It hasn't died off altogether and really I suppose it is still busier than a normal week but a rest is required and we'll not break our necks for Amazon etc. I did get up quite early this morning, once I'm awake and my left knee wants to stretch it starts getting cramp if I don't get up so I made the most of it and got the post done and started to trim up lots more photos for filing and putting on our Smugmug site. There are thousands which want putting on so another rainy day next week will come in handy although if it could just be a bit murky it would suit tomorrow so I can film in North Wales. If not there will have to be a few tea stops en route. Anyway I've been productive today having worked my way through 7 hours of standard 8 cine film put on to tape. I've now cleared up the dining room ready for the cleaners next Monday and Christmas meals. The next stage with the films is to download on to the computer and then put clips on Youtube and then sells off the reels on EBay. There were only a few gems among them such as one by Mobil with Butane gas delivery, petrol sales on the forecourt etc in 60s, a really good one on Jersey in the 1960s with JMT Leyland PD2s seen. . Another good one was Hastings carnival 1963, my dads band the Sussex Yeomanry looked to be in the parade , a careful study is requited to verify and fingers crossed identify some of his contemporaries. I'll try blogging from The Bull tomorrow and Saturday, must rush all that wine to consume and cheese to drink.. oh well merry whatsits and speak again soon. The mild weather continues and even coats can be discarded unless it rains. The thought of a white Christmas this year seems well out of the picture and we imagine deck chairs on Brighton beach to be on the evening news December 25th as they head for temperatures in the 60'sF. After a very busy day it has been a case of catch up getting the overnight film and DVD orders out, then Mandy went to Knutsford to get the banking done, early as a busy back end to the week. Then she back tracked to the health centre and picked up our pills with a few sleepers thrown in which may ease the long hours to and fro to China . We seem to have a great surplus on the likes of Statins which I stopped after getting a lot of cramp in the knee replacement leg. An amusing letter from EE who are I think what was Orange our former internet provider, we moved to BT when we got fibre optic as they were so inept at answering any questions. We had to pay a wallop to disconnect but it was worth it we thought to be free from them pathetic attempts at service. Then today we got a letter with a surcharge as they couldn't get the monthly rental any more, could be that it was because they continued to take it after the contract was cancelled and paid off. Anyway I've returned the seasons greetings and added a surcharge to the amount over charged and threatened to take them to small claims if it isn't settled by the new year. We are still dashing off Christmas cards especially to the received and not sent, it's a hard call to know when they should lapse.I was reminded today that a good friend has his 70th birthday just before Christmas despite attempts to relocate like the Queen to a more clement month, hard to think what to get the chap who has everything but I'll do my best, oh I know getting a card through the Christmas post may be enough of a test. We visited Mandy's cousin Trish and Derek at Sale near Manchester and broke our fasting day with mince pies and Christmas tree biscuits. The presents under our real inside tree are starting to pile up I've even found where I'd hidden Mandy's card, couldn't face having to shop again. Tomorrow weather dependent, if sunny will do tucks at Middlewich if not copying cine film and gardening, the latter tasks by pm in any event. Evening time we'll try on clothes for the family wedding Saturday and pack. We are travelling along North Wales coast Saturday and will film is weather suitable. Catching up with PMP orders Sunday evening. What can I give you this evening, some snow perhaps, Budapest one February provided much of the stuff. We got up at 6am in an attempt to beat the traffic over the M62 but that failed and the only consolation was that the queues coming back in Manchester direction were much longer than those going in Yorkshire. Once past Leeds it was a lot easier going, lots of flooding along the river Ouse as we headed in York. We had breakfast at Marks after wandering around looking for disabled parking with a lot of roads blocked by a Christmas market. The light went up several notches as I started around 10am and by lunch time I had just over an hour and it wasn't looking too bad so I decided to take a punt on heading back up via Selby which I'd never visited before but I noted that on destinations it had a bus station and a bus company called Utopia with a lady Santa driving it. I must say Selby despite the inclement weather produced some very welcoming Arriva staff and certainly broke the trend of hassles which dog visits in other parts of the country such as Hull or Sheffield, Barnsley or Rotherham etc etc, although since they started paying off the bus station staff the situation has eased as has trouble at the facilities which inevitably was usually caused by the mindless idiots they had employed, happy days then. I was impressed by the local people who wanted to stop and chat about their Abbey the park and spring flowering, the Chinese pop star who got married there, the endless coach loads of Chinese who now visit to see said marriage site and it just went on. Any special bus you want to see, are you bus spotting, oh great.. must be something in the air in Selby also noted lots of lorries servicing foodstuff plants or as we used to know them rat farms. York had a fair bit of flooding but with the Cumbrian situation it obviously had been eclipsed by the greater severity in the west. Buses were as usual much changed in the space of a year, it changes more there than any other spot I can think of other than Taunton perhaps. Well worth a visit and again no hassles at all and on a weekday less yobs as I know them otherwise laughably called students or school children. We got up fairly early as Mandy wanted to go swimming, I cracked on with the orders which had piled up through from Saturday afternoon and kept coming with the phone ringing just after 9 this morning and hardly stopping. Lots of multiple orders and ones going abroad. Not much happening on the cine film front, just waiting for several to be paid for. I had a chap on today moaning about the Malta cine which evidently he had bid on and thought he had won but it ended up sold to a chap in the USA. Very strange, I checked it out with Ebay and I'd sent it to the correct person, recommended he took it up with EBay as they confirmed my actions were correct. Sometimes people don't pay straight away when they win at auction, strange as why bid if you aren't going to pay, only loses you marks on the EBay score board, its hard enough keeping your head above water. I've been hard at work after getting shot of the post putting the next three hours of cine on EBay and loading the clips on my database plus clips on Youtube. Things seem to be picking up a little in that direction, as ever all I can ask is that you give the adverts a couple of click each visit, I know they are annoying sometimes but they do pay to keep the site up there, what else would you imagine keeps it going. ell it certainly looks a bit like Christmas as the real living tree has gone up in the lounge and its decorated already, the house is glistening with fragments of glitter from the decs. Tomorrow we are up early and filming buses in York. Not sure about Wednesday may be something close to home and Friday if its clement filming North Wales on the way to the family wedding. I've had a couple of tweaks in my back today, its been good for quite a while, the knee took a bit of a hammering getting all the orders ready this morning and then the rest of the day with the uploading and editing etc up and down stairs. We had a superb roast lamb dinner tonight, Christmas pudding still to come, dieting days tomorrow but i can see us popping into Marks & Spencers at York for a warm up tomorrow. The Sutton and Cheam amateur radio society clips reminded me of the many things i was in during the late 60s including the ROC and Wargames Society in Eastbourne. The days are certainly racing away now for Christmas but the deluge of DVD orders doesn't stop and I've about 30 orders to sort in the morning with up to 10 DVDs on some orders, goodness knows how many disc that will be. One of the hazards at this time of year is the relation present purchase by females who are expecting a Walt Disney or ice road truckers presentation rather than made to order copies of a very niche market which might see one or less of a particular title sold in a year or more, obviously others are relatively popular but I'd challenge anyone to second guess which these might be. One solution is to make them more like the high street product, buying a DVD printer and labeling them all is time consuming and costly but a possibility. At present the onward sale of the cine film is producing good revenue streams back and we have even met a chap who is using Scottish cine film in a PhD and looking to take all those we have. We have also made contact with yet another customer in Romania who has placed a large order which we'll send tracked at our own cost. As you know we send everything post free worldwide from our DVD range on the PMP shop on this site, this is because we like to share the hobby with others across the world. I can't understand why people insist on using the likes of Amazon which they get from me no more quickly and have to pay a post and packing charge as well. I detest Amazon and their treatment of workers and suppliers and am seriously considering letting our shop there go after Christmas, as I look at the gains through largely seasonal sales with them I ask is the pain worth it for a hobby. It is good to have such a wide circle of friends worldwide and we enjoy visiting many countries each year, we are now a major archive source for emerging markets where poverty or law make film making difficult for those living in the countries in the past. The Brits have long been avid adventurers and remain so. The coverage of UK buses continues apace with York being the chosen location with a good forecast of light cloud on Tuesday this week. I might fit in a truck or bus trip locally on Wednesday if the weather is reasonable but thereafter we are off to Wales for a family wedding at the weekend although if Friday plays ball we could have time to film our way along the coast to Anglesey. Our congratulations go out to those who are putting a lot of effort into charitable works at this time of year, the amount raised can be enormous but seldom comes without a lot of effort often from individuals or small groups of unsung heroes who in the real world seldom want or seek publicity unlike the TV or media inspired 'events'. Our own small contribution comes from being forced to consume wine and cheese on Thursday night and sing carols, it's a hard life raising money folks! What on earth can I give you tonight I suppose Romania wouldn't be a bad subject which fits in with some of tonights themes. It really has been a day of atrocious weather and thankfully we had nothing plannerd, just the post to get away and a few odds and ends we picked up from Knutsford. I've been busy continuing loading the cine film on EBay and putting clips on our youtube channel plus I've updated our EBay and Amazon shops with the latest of our DVD releases. It's been a quiet day for selling cine film but the reverse on DVDs which has seen postal orders rebound for the week and a flurry coming through on the net plus the occasional phone order. I did spend a little time this morning getting the PMP books straight for November. We are all set for the trip to Northampton tomorrow morning we are going to meet my sister Sue and family for lunch around 2pm. Other than that I can't think of a lot to report tonight, herewith links to the Youtube clips from our adventures Friday in Worcestershire. The site has been quite good of late but last night rushing to get out for a meal everything on it was having problems such as adding the Trafford Park truck DVD to the shop and as you will have noticed doing the blog. Anyway all is well at our end and we had a super meal out with Kath and Keith, Emma and Phil and vowed to repeat it in January. We were up sharp this morning and off down to start our bus filming at Redditch. Despite the rush hour all was fairly good through the traffic, Redditich is a really weird sort of place born of a poorly thought out new town policy and other than a ring road and the old bit of town and market that is left it is a maze of roundabouts and modern ghetto shopping malls. This all makes getting a coffee and cake hard so Mandy just waited until I'd finished but with the second destination as Stourbridge we don't fair much better there, I've never seem any trace of a town centre, there surely must be onme but the traffic just seems to flow around in an endless stream and if you stick with it long enough you get to the station. On the bus front Redditich is very much all Diamond Rotala services, not an operater I'd enthuse about and some of their buses were frankly both rough looking and rough sounding, just one Stagecoach decker passed through, a few Johnsons from Stratford direction , two or three perhaps minor operators but nothing like the variety it once provided. Stourbridge and the sun was coming out although not particularly welcome, I managed OK and had my first exposure to the new National Express West Midlands red livery. What an awful colour it is almost crimson looks terrible on film and just what connection has it got with Birmingham . A good bit of variety here and some very frequent services, the 9 to Birmingham with the new buses seemed to run about every 4 minutes very commendable although is that sustainable I wonder. With no cafe in sight we headed back home and encountered Friday afternoon crawling on the M6 back up in Staffs and Cheshire, by now the sun was well out. Temp ranged about 4-5c and little wind but rain expected and turning to snow on high ground for tomorrow Saturday. Home tomorrow then joining my sister Sue and Graham for lunch with some of their family all at Northampton on Sunday. I'm editing todays film and I'll be posting clips on the 8mm standard cine as time4 permits. A fresh supply of mini dv tapes arrived today so I can keep the momentum up, hopefully there will be more gems as I got stuck in the mundane rubbish on yesterdays session. |
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