It took a concerted effort to get the Northern Irish film finished, just about to burn the master disc, already saved the HD file.  I have some thumbnail stills from the film in the gallery below. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get out with my camera to film, I need to check the weather yet again. No sign of northern lights in lower Peover as we get too much Manchester light.I'll get these views pruned down and cleaned up ready to make the DVD cover.

A bit of an upset tummy for last couple of days but I've been carrying on editing the new Northern Ireland archive feature which looks at the the story behind a region which nearly lost all its railways and how buses came to the fore only to become the centre of attacks in the Troubles. Thus it bridges more than one era that I missed and never started video there until the mid 1990's albeit I took still photos. It has taken a lot of compiling and includes colourised sections, some of which were acceptable others discarded. I wanted it to all be in colour as this is the trend I'm following. The weather needs some studying this week to identify potential film spots.

As we have looked at Ulster in some detail and may have stills from the new film tomorrow lets go a little sideways and see some lorries in Ireland

We have been fully taken up with family and friends over the weekend and the Session band evening at the RNCM in Manchester, a little too much drink perhaps and too much to eat, waved goodbye to everyone this afternoon. The Northern Ireland archive feature is still underway, colourisation of BW sequences approaching  a third day of rendering, I can't see it being finished until mid week. I'll pick up with it Monday morning and see how much progress I can make , I'll also need to pencil in any transport filming trips with weather outlook as a guide, plenty of places to go. Meanwhile yet another dip into the Irish archives from, all our shots are on the Smugmug shop link via shop front page.

A quickie as we are all off out for dinner at the Dun Cow near Knutsford after a day of shopping and getting up late which will probably be replicated tomorrow in advance of the Session Bands big show at the RNCM and fiend Sue joins the family. I'm getting plans finalised for our May visit to Slovakia and autumn trip to the trams of Alexandria. If the free Hong Kong tickets come through in May we shall be in Hong Kong, Singapore and Battam Island ( Ind). Meanwhile the Northern Ireland project is making progress. It doesn't look like I'll be able to take sales stock to the NWVRT Member day as Mandy is away in Ireland but will have sales stand at the annual running day plus Detling Bus festival 1st April and a fortnight later at Brooklands. meanwhile some Irish shots from my collection

Quite a hectic day, first thing as MOT for Toyota IQ, not even a comment or remark, 100% no surprise there. We got the house tidied ready for weekend guests and the order for DVD media, covers etc arrived. Lots of cardboard to fit in the recycle bin. I've at last made a start on the Northern Ireland 1960-80's film which includes 'The Troubles'. Lots of red Belfast buses which should go down well. I've had a call from my travel companion Martin and we are going to Slovakia in May and Alexandria in the autumn. I'm just getting the route planned. Lets look on past trips in that direction.

I put an order in today for fresh stocks of DVDs and DVD covers, the chap who supplies them told me that all his customers who had mail order based businesses suffered almost zero Christmas trade due to the UK postal strikes. This has probably put untold numbers of small operators like ourselves out of business. Thankfully the orders coming in this week show an upward trend. I've finished editing now until a family visit is over and back to normal Monday. I'm trying to get more downloads on to the PMP shop but it is a very clunky system and our slow internet speed isn't any help, latest update on full fibre is that they could be making a start March.

Here we are pancake day already and I assume first batches of Maunday money with Kings head, I left after breakfast rather than getting up very early and really I still got to Leicester about the same time so a lesson learnt there. No hassles filming, lots of super friendly drivers. New out of town bus station and quite handy for photos so no probs with that. The junction by the entrance to the new bus station is constantly being blocked by cars on yellow grid box junction which they just ignore. The council need to extend it down towards the other side of the entrance, pretty soon there will be an accident as buses try to get around the blockages.

Tonight's slide show is the heritage running day at Southampton plus the first day of services ex City Red First now Blue Star Go Ahead. I'll be starting to edit them tonight.

What a crazy weekend that was but I expect by now Go Ahead have their drafted in buses out on the road. Today I was filming in Liverpool, lots of editing building up and so behind on getting the digital downloads on to the shop, the reason is we have snail pace ulpload speed, fibre optic installation is supposed to start March but I think that begs the question which March.

A bit of a hectic dash around this weekend with the end of Southampton Red Buses by First, the start of the routes by Go Ahead Blue Star and the rail bus replacement plus course the heritage bus event. We managed to get back home to Cheshire by 5pm and we are just getting the DVD orders ready to send out tomorrow. I'm bus filming at Liverpool tomorrow and Leicester Thursday. Then car MOT Thursday and my sister comes down for the weekend so a non transport weekend next week. I'm just about to start editing the Hampshire scenes.

Our latest digital MiniDv has been uprated and HD clips are going on our Youtube site plus it will be available as a download, this is unedited material but some amazing quality shots, I enjoyed watching them after such a long interval nearly 30 years have flown by. I did a few screen snatches to give you an idea of what's on it. I'm also getting ready to tackle the Northern Ireland archive for 60-70s.