After getting att the DVD orders ready for Mandy to pack I went out and tidied up after the builders had put the new house fascia boarding up, needless to say their idea of making good is a bit wing and a prayer. I wiped down the rest of the plastic surfaces and de-mossed the porch roof and fixed a tile which they'd clipped the edge off. I then got a lot of dead plant material into the garden waste bin, the council resume collecting next week. Then after lunch I was stuck into the grand piece of work on municipal bus operators in the late cine era up to the 1970's and before which catches nearly a hundred operators and pre PTE liveries. The work went on until dinner time, we had a glorious roast beef, a heft piece by any standard for two to eat but anything less will not cook well. We washed it down with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape which suits beef to a tee.

The coming week will se me edit the Birmingham trip from Friday once the municipals one is finished then
tomorrow possibly trucks at Lymm and then Hull on Wednesday buses and Worcester Thursday if the weather outlook stays roughly the same. The weather has been chilly to say the least and the damp spell looks like going on a while yet, it got up to 2degc today. Looks like my electric gloves and socks will be needed again. Fingers crossed that the water will have fallen when we look under the floor boards on Thursday, two weeks after the grand deluge.

Looking back at warmer days tonight then , feel the heat in Egypt!

I did the big Garden Bird Watch early on today and we had quite a mix which included our resident Great Speckled  Woodpecker and two Siskins which are a colourful and rare visitor to our garden, I think I got up to 13 species which is creditable for a small garden. The rest of the day was progressing the municipal bus DVD, it went off at a bit of a tangent, the Roy Marshall collection has a lot of the municipals within it, not surprising as Roy was manager of companies like Gelligaer in South Wales and Burnley Colne & Nelson in Lancashire. I decided that it would be a good opportunity to load up all of the Marshall collection, 8 hour cassettes as I probably won't get to scan it, the copies are old but the quality isn't bad for the era and as they are shot scattered sequences it will make it so much easier to access. Not a lot of DVD orders today but Sunday is usually busier. Many has been busy again cooking as we decided to have some of our favourite meals that we hadn't had for quite a while. We also purchased a chunky cut of beef which although more than we need for two does cook better in bigger cuts, that will be Sunday dinner.

The other task I tackled was to complete the last civil engineering projects on the first of the dioramas, I'm already getting the card kits ready to assemble and modify as I head into more recent times for the second layout. So I haven't been idle, tomorrow is going to be sunny but very cold and breezy at home. I want to get some outside jobs tackled suck as cutting down the dead growth on plants untouched since autumn, it should be dry enough to get near now. The death toll on Covid is still very high, I'm glad the vaccination will be able to carry on at its fast pace after the fracas with the EU. The new house fascia looks very nice, it will be nice to see it in sunlight tomorrow. The signs of spring are everywhere from crocus and snowdrops to daffs heading up a bit more each day. The Magnolia has lots of buds but they need to stay put until frosts aren't so frequent, its hard to believe we have the dark days of February to crawl through yet before real spring and our birthdays which are both in March. Mandy has a big one this year we were going away but obviously that's off the agenda, really its hard to think of anything yet until we see how the pandemic progresses as the days warm and vaccination comes into its own.

As I'm working on municipal buses lets have a few tonight, how about Sussex, not a lot of municipals none of course survive but its but my old home territory, some are from my buddy John in Sussex.

On the home front the house fascia that should have gone in last July has today been completed, we are both well pleased with it and just the front door needs a new paint job, possible yellow. Out two neighbours have black.

Mandy has heard that it might not have been the air bricks that let the water in as there are lots of properties in another local village where it was down to the water table being that high last week, lots of the homes there lost their power supply altogether. Hey just noticed the fascia almost matches the Birmingham electrics livery! Here are some more shots. Editing well wait until I've finished the municipals marathon film.

We had yet another hectic day with DVD orders, the printer played up for a while then decided it would work after all. We'll have our Thursday pub night as usual albeit at home. Mandy made a favourite dinner we haven't had for years as it might be the only chance to do cooking while Mandy is marooned at home, at least I can go filming. Tomorrow looks like Birmingham. Things can change through. Here are some shots from Wakefield yesterday.

The work started on the house fascia late this morning when the worst of the rain was over. They found that the original cladding was on a hard wood base not at all damaged and the replacement would just be softwood so we agreed that leaving the original added to the insulation and would be best left alone. Time thus saved they are about two thirds of the way through and it looks quite stunning.

I've started work on the marathon DVD covering the existing municipal public transport operators in the pre NBC/PTE era. There will be around a minute of each, there were over 90 though. As well as buses there could be trolleys, trams etc . I'll use scanned cine where I have it or then resort back to our telecine copies for the remainder. Roy Marshall did a bit of a tour de force on these lines which will come in handy. The only area I can't get to grips with is South Wales , there aren't even a lot of photos on the net to help me identify the operator.

I filmed buses today in Leeds and Wakefield both will produce one longer running DVD. The weather wasn't really light cloud at Leeds more blue sky but I managed to battle through all the same. I won't be able to type too much as I'm having a lot of nerve pain in my left hand, the right one has been knackered with the Dupuytrens contracture that has been developing over many years but the added complication probably comes with the nerve pain generally which is tied in with my crumbling spine. The weather actually got into double figures. The DVD orders are still coming in thick and fast. We could really do with a holiday from it all, still I'd be moaning if we were bored.

Of course it was good to see so many new buses and generally the remainder of the First bus fleet locked fine freshly painted in the green livery having echoes of Leeds bus livery in council days.

Busy day, got back from Stoke and started prelim work on Bus Spot Ultra Wolverhampton and the municipal round up film then started filing the remainder of the OTA film scans which for preserved railways takes me a lot as I don't really know much about railways other than the obvious stuff! Printer played up, got through 5 large black cartridges until it finally found one it wouldn't reject. I'll probably be filming in Yorkshire tomorrow, heavy snow expected cross Pennine rest of week.

Tomorrow I'm going but to Hanley bus station at Stoke and re-filming the section which had no sound, hopefully that's the hiccup for the year out of the way. The weather looks difficult to judge this week, I'm hoping that Wednesday may present some chances if not there are still more archives such as the municipal features previously announced. I have put the new truck films on to the shop and there are lots of clips of Oxford street buses on Youtube.

New that the new fascia for the house has materials coming Wednesday and they are due to start work on Thursday. I've still got to file away still photo files from last couple of weeks but I have eliminated unwanted shots. The DVD orders went ballistic once more mainly by telephone with people studying the Buses advert over the weekend. We are still turning everything around in a day despite the array of leads like daisy chains everywhere. We had more snow overnight, heavy frost and sleet, it wasn't that windy though and I cleared off the snow on the vehicles, the roads looked treacherous.

It is already on the PMP shop and next another sample of shots from the outing on Friday to the A50 Uttoxeter roundabout next to come are the three programmes that I shot there. Watch out for Oxford St clips on Youtube .

Lots more to come so keep viewing our daily blog and be first to know what is happening at PMP. I've now started getting all the kits ready to build for phase two of the showroom dioramas. Photos when there is something better than a bare shelf!

The new all colour production on London bus management eras reaches the swinging sixties with an hour of nostalgia wrapped around period music and scenes weaving between street scenes and the general London streets of the era.

The weather has drawn our friendly pheasant to our garden as the snow began to accumulate once again, below the scene at breakfast time.

The sandbags ordered by our new lovely neighbours arrived early on, they got filled as snow came down for the second time today and are now firmly placed against the air bricks lest the great melt produce more floods. We remain strewn with electric extension leads keeping our show on the road.

A great triple addition to our lorry coverage for 2021 during the third English Corona Pandemic lock down. I've never seen it this busy outwith accidents. The action was almost non stop and after lunch the Friday afternoon rush just kept streaming by. A bit more wind than I would have liked but it gave the new heated gloves a tryout and that with the heated socks enabled me to carry on and get three hours or more film on a sunny but freezing A50 between Stoke and Derby. All your usual favourites plus some I've not noticed before. Here we go then and I'm already downloading the video. We hope to return to buses if we get suitable weather next week and get Stoke Hanley finished and move on further afield.

I'll try and push on with the bus archives I've promised over the weekend before starting on these trucks!