I'll give you some photos from our Leeds trip today in my next blog, too much excitement isn't good for you! A bit of catching up, I've now completed the DVDs for 3 volumes on trucks at Lymm in the past week. I need to get the covers made so I can get them on the PMP shop. The usual rounds of cine scanning goes on in the background and I'm gathering material all the time for future productions. We are also discussing possible overseas locations. Here are some screen shots from the Birmingham DVD. Welcome everyone as our Birmingham archive feature all in colour looks at the buses, trams and trolleys over many decades with realistic coloured views. The software seemed to work much better than previously and together with the NEAT clean up we are making good progress although as spring arrives archives go a bit more to the back burner. The next one already started is on Kent with East Kent buses through to NBC era then Maidstone buses and trolleys together with some M&D sequences all 1950-60's. I was wondering would people prefer me to do the daily blog on Facebook, I'm a bit reluctant really but there is hardly ever any feedback considering all the news and photos it includes. Anyway I'm back to the grindstone as I add titles to the Birmingham sequences giving some context but not over loading. Our visit to Stoke on Trent went well yesterday, the weather was suitable although with a stiff breeze it felt raw. One miserable First driver but the remainder were all thumbs up and waves and ditto the smaller operators. Here are some photos, the DVD will be ready along with download after finishing the Birmingham production. Thank goodness we didn't go too far today . I just went to Lymm Poplar services to finish off what I started on Tuesday. Actually before the rain set in I did really well and got a record breaking over two hours of lorries on one shot which shows just how busy it was there. The utilities chaps were back to open up the huge hole they excavated before the holidays and that mean a pneumatic drill background. I got plenty of stills and at the moment the colourisation of the archive Birmingham film to getting near completion plus I'm downloading scenes I took in Mumbai Dec 1998 and at Lymm in Jan 1999 - always good to caste ones eye back over all those years, there will be plenty here to put on our Youtube channel. I'll also have enough to get several lorry DVDs this week. I've also near completion of the gathering potential footage ready for the next Kent archive film. Anyway here are some stills taken this morning at Lymm. Today I released coverage of the Wrexham New Year Bus Running Day, I have also made very substantial progress on the Birmingham archive project which will be our very first to upgrade everything to colour even when there sources were B/W. The software has suddenly chosen to make a better job of things and I know it will be a great trip down memory lane for many and fascinating to see really old material in colour. The Birmingham DVD should be ready by the end of this week. We resume our nationwide bus coverage this week with a trip out both on Thursday and Friday. We have put the Christmas decorations away for another year and popped the tree round the back onto a sheltered spot in the garden. The garden is looking very bleak as any remaining leaves have fallen, just primroses giving a bit of colour. I've done a bit of tidying up on files, I didn't realise that the old external drive which has all the DVD covers creates back ups on its own, deleting all the old one has given me 60% capacity when it had looked full. We are still very quiet on the order front, remember the Luck Dip Boxes are still available but there will be more old DVDs from rally sales stocks going to the tip this month. I'd say there is enough for another 20 boxes., only £40 contains 20 or more DVDs. I'm starting to put together our next Kent film archive production this week which will progress on from the Birmingham release and also I must see how much I took of Lymm trucks yesterday in the dire weather. A damp windy day, it was the worst the weather forecast could hint at. I did go to Lymm and shot a few lorries and have some photos for you but in the end it was evacuation before I wrecked the camera. The rest of the day was taken up with working on the Birmingham archive feature which I think is all on the timeline now and just needs lots of tweaking and messing about with to get to the complete item! Anyway here are shots of lorries at Lymm this morning. A shadow hangs over the family as yet again a close relation of Mandy's is seriously ill in hospital at the moment, Mandy has just left to visit, it seems yet another crisis following on from last year. We can only hope and pray. Well while I wait for Mandy to come back this evening I'll try and make some more progress on the West Midlands archive feature which looks set to have many gems within it. We have had a fair sprinkling of DVD orders come in this weekend they are all ready to take to the post office tomorrow. I'm hoping to get out filming in the morning and Friday looks a promising day. Anyway lets have a look in the lucky dip bag of photos. I sat from 8.30 to nearly 10am at the Wrexham Rd park and ride car park and not a sign of a bus so I assumed it had been cancelled at the last minute. A lot of other cats came in and turned round and left. There was no notice to say what had happened. It turns out that Cheshire West and Chester council pulled the rug from under the organiser's feet at just two weeks notice , it was a bit like the final episode of Doc Martin, if they had wanted it to happen they could have just issued the piece of paper, last years it was them who rescued it when Wrexham has lock downs still. Anyway as I left a vintage bus floated by towards Wrexham so I followed. Then came the usual difficulty of finding a parking place, the cars parks are not shown correctly, the nearest has shut down altogether, I took a risk at the one near the church which only allows 3 hours. At least I didn't get a ticket, I wasn't more than a few minutes after expiry. A good mix of buses lots of folk to wish happy new year to. Well Mandy and I are going to have a relaxed night with the telly, we saw the New Year in with our neighbours and it was about 1.45 am when we got our heads down. A bit jaded today I must admit. |
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