I know it's been a long time in the coming but my coverage today of the new tram line at Nottingham has been a pleasure to record. The weather was just perfect, there was hot sunshine with hardly a cloud in the sky. I set off about 6.20 this morning and was parked up at the park and ride before 8 when services were at 7min intervals. I didn't realise there was so much on road running so I decided to hoof it for the new section and took the opportunity of giving an in depth coverage of the line which after the road section goes on to reserved track and is line with a footpath cum cycle track along it's length and passes through some really interurban landscape and quite bucolic scenes with lots of wild flowers and butterflies about. Then nearing the bridge it provides some nice bends before a long straight a sharp right and left then up to the railway station stop and after that back down to grade and its the original route. The railway station has also been upgraded a sort of mini Hull effect I think. I had a coffee there before continuing through the original routes and some cab rides then an opportunity to film the buses in the afternoon and a few more tram shots at the old Market square and then back to the station, a bottle of orange juice and back to the park & ride for the crawl back to the A50 then the dreaded D road the A500 which then puts you in the toothpaste tube known as the M6 where millions of cars are squashed into a small space and it all goes to pot as I get near home which is pretty well what it will do after spending zillions on a SMART motorway which is adding to the present misery. Not an ounce of hassle, all the drivers returned my waves and no trouble at all filming, a real East Midlands friendly special do and a route I now feel I know inch by inch which of course all comes in handy for my long distance walk training. I hope the weather hasn't peaked too early this year, when this hot spell ends I bet we don't see the sun again until autumn. There was a change of plans last night due to the weather forecast I changed Nottingham tram coverage to tomorrow Wednesday which enabled me to accompany Mandy for her second round of pre op checks at Leighton hospital ( Crewe). We weren't there too long and had tome to call for a coffee at Waitrose on the way as well as some banking at Knutsford and dropping the post off. It remains quiet on the DVD front but we did manage to get the PMP van loaded yesterday which is now ready for the off and our planned route will take in Bournemouth , Poole and Weymouth on Thursday and probably Southampton and Portsmouth or whatever on Saturday followed by Southsea rally on Sunday. I hope that lots of you manage to come along and see us, with the break down on the M25 we missed Cobham and that of course meant missing a lot of you! The kitchen is progressing slowly, not helped by the joiner having a family crisis etc, like living through Emmerdale at present. I'm trying to get some more flyers and emails out to friends and relations for sponsorship for the charity walk in July, I'm not sure how far we'll walk next Monday but I do feel really on top of it and quite relishing the thought of seeing so much of the country by foot, it's been on my to do list for a few years now. So an early start tomorrow as we are surrounded by road works in all directions and I want to get over the A50 to the East Midlands before it gets too frantic. If i do really well with the trams who knows I might even get to do the buses in Nottingham as well. Talking of which lets have a few shots from the past to get me in the mood! Yes I found the lost blog but I think I covered most of it already but it seemed a shame to waste it so it's at the bottom end. Another scorcher and I went out with Jane and Tom and we did our twelve mile walk, it seemed to go very quickly chatting away and taking the occasional photo. We are luck to live in such a beautiful part of the world, I that Cheshire is quietly unpretentious in it's landscapes. The kitchen fitters are plodding their way through week four, perhaps it will all be done by the end of June when we return from Malta. We had a look at our postal votes for the referendum while we are away and we can send them off now, two to stay I might state proudly as a European but not at all because I agree with the Camergoon but if Jeremy will swallow his pride so will we. I've got quite a lot done on the 16mm cine film getting ready to list on EBay, it's been rather quiet on the DVD front while the weather has been so hot. After this weekend we'll decide on what to book by way of events for the rest of the year. I'm just going to pop out and feed /water the plants. I'm hoping to get off to Nottingham tomorrow and film the extended tramway which opened up its new branches just as I had my knee replacement last year. Then Thursday we go down to Hampshire, the Isle of Wight bit is off as its the festival and I've been caught up with all that before for will catch up there later on. That leaves Southampton and Bournemouth plus Portsmouth / Fareham or Winchester on the table. Friday we are going out with my sisters and then Saturday evening I'm treating my sister Yvonne to a belated birthday meal. The end of next week we go off to Malta until the end of the month. Photos from this mornings walk with Tom and Jane Sunday Blog an unexpected treat for the weather to hold through the weekend, locally the classic car show at Tatton Park had a belting weekend for their annual show whilst the gardens in the National Gardens scheme ( the yellow book) had a chance to show off and rake in a fortune on cream teas. At St Lawrence church in Over Peover it has tied in with Peover Hall and it's garden open day to have ait's first flower festival. We popped in on Sunday afternoon before it closed and met friends from our own side of Peover as well as catching up with life over on the 'other' side which also is home to The Dog which has been our pub restaurant of choice over the past year including the hiatus at present with the kitchen renewal. We did get a set in the garden this afternoon and I had my tablet tuned to yesterdays Brian Matthews Sound of the 60.s, all good stuff although it was set against a chorus of lawn mowing. We had an ice cream from Lawrence at the village shop. He has the poster for my charity walk on the front door and counter but response so far is very muted, should you want to support the 190 mile walk please visit my just giving page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/DaveSpencerWalking just lost all the script once more Weebly has failed me, this was when at the end I wanted to embed the link to my just giving site for the 190 mile walk in July, you can just copy and paste. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/DaveSpencerWalking It's too hot to rewrite everything but its been a lovely weekend, we got a sit in the garden and this afternoon popped along to the first flower festival at St Lawrence church in Over Peover and had a chat we the 'other' side of the village which also is home to The Dog our pub restaurant of choice over the past year and during the hiatus of the kitchen renewal about to enter its fourth week. Scenes from this afternoon at St lawrence. Tomorrow I'm off with Tom and Jane plus any others of the team on a 12 mile walk as we ramp up our practise for the July epic from Northumberland to Cheshire. Amongst the displays at St Lawrence is the William Morris window which is signed by Wm Morris and the flag with the General Patton display is that left to the church when he left for the D Day landing and thus the display is Saints and heroes , St Lawrence being an early Christian martyr and the US troops the heroes. He also paid for his flowers at his table at the Whipping Stocks pub to be put out after his departure, a tradition carried out to this day. For a man nick named blood and guts he obviously had another side to his character. I've downloaded all the China trip photos to be edited ready to file but there are now over 30k photos waiting and another 20k ready to put up on the Smugmug site. It makes you wonder just how long to stick it out balanced against hundreds of hours of getting everything list and arranged on the PMP shop but even then it's never taken off to the extent of EBay or Amazon sales even though its Paypal powered and everything is sent post free world wide. Its been a hot sunny day, I can't even think of all the jobs we got done but the hedge got trimmed, strimmed the path edges, washed the van, cleaned bird much of paths, cleaned garage door, sprayed bugs on flowers, went shopping, registered new appliances for a cash back, well there must be more , oh yes edited two films I shot yesterday plus I've uploaded a few hours of the 16mm cine film ready to put on EBay with screen shots and Youtube clips. There will also by truck interest clips going on Youtube soon just putting on memory stick. Grazed my leg in three places whilst doing the hedges and my lest arm feels like it's dropping off, ditto my little finger on right hand, arthritic joint doesn't like the sultry weather. Hope wee get a bit of rain this evening that will save me watering the garden. still no response from Weebly reference the problems putting on files including photos, I'll have another bash at yesterdays M6 shots but doubt it will work. it has worked for a single file via Google Chrome instead of Firefox, ahh.. success with Chrome instead of Firefox! Plus its started raining! Sorry yet again Weebly has thrown a wobbly and won't let me upload the photos Cor blimey, I'm done in, it's hard work this being retired lark. We were up early again ready for the kitchen fitters, we will be entering week 5 next Monday although we do have some stuff fitted even if temporary. The ovens are working as are the washing and tumble dryer machines. The hold up is the work top delivered to wrong length by German supplier. The weather was perfect and even hotter than the past two weeks although Saturday may well see the garden getting a much needed watering. I did truck filming but next week we get stuck into the buses again with our trip to Hampshire. We still have a few rallies to book for later in the season, we are trying to fit in a trip to Ireland for Mandy as well as our other travels plus cultural events. The Showbus stand prices seem as high as even despite a suggestion that the move from Duxford would see entry prices fall, also the GVVT event at Glasgow is now very expensive and last year we only just managed to cover costs which meant we came up at a loss, this was caused by the decision to hold the event over two days and ramp up the stall charges with no thought to the cost of hotels etc required. From a friendly show it has sunk rapidly over the past two years and Lathalmond remains on the up again so we pinned our colours to the mast and stuck with that over Gaydon Buses event. All the Chinese DVDs are on our shop and list has been uploaded up to date yesterday. I'll get the latest truck stuff done asap also trying to get more cine films listed on EBay that go back to before the China trip, just shortage of time. Anyway here are some photos from out new spot on the M6 by the upgrade to SMART motorway in Cheshire. Another busy old day although we did have a very pleasant evening out with cousin Trish and Derek at the Dog at Nether Peover, the weather which looked as if it were breaking actually came through with warm clear skies today and I took advantage and cleared the left border in the back garden, with the front lawn slowly recovering the whole picture is starting to look very good. The kitchen looks like pottering into a 4th or 5th week as one of the work tops was delivered too short but that shouldn't hold up that much and even the oven are temporarily in place this evening. It's sort of starting to look good and it's a pleasant feeling to think that be the end of the summer the whole house from top to bottom will have been decorated or revamped inside and out. I took care of the post early this morning as we need to be up and done ready for the workmen on the kitchen. We went to the Plantation nursery on Plumley moor Rd, only a couple of minutes drive away, had lunch there, pot of tea and a very good Bakewell tart, spot on consistency just needed a bit more Almond essence. Then we caught up with some soaps for an hour between editing the remainder of the Chinese video, finishing off this evening there will be two DVDs on the lorries featuring everything from artics to three wheelers. When that is done I can revert to listing the 16mm cine films which I copied before I went off to China. We are already checked in for the Malta flights on 18th June although before that we are down in Hampshire prior to the Southsea rally the weekend after next. Subjects should include Isle of White, Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth etc. Tonight a taste of the polluted dusty hot roads of China We worked hard all day , Mandy did the ironing after getting washing done at laundrette yesterday then I did a lot more editing of the Chinese material before we went out and did banking, picked up prescriptions, got hardware superglue and garden sprays, had coffee! Then I spent the afternoon sorting out the back borders while Mandy went through our personal files folder and got rid of old stuff. Then she had a call at teatime supposedly from BT CAll Management about a one off payment to replace a monthly charge to get rid of nuisance calls, she thought it all sounded a bit weird but they had most of her bank details and wanted to confirm the rest - like an idiot she did and that was £125 up the river! It's so easily done and they always sound so plausible, the art of being a con merchant. Just as annoying was the amount of time it took to report the incident to NatWest, about 15 mins battling through spurious numbers on the cards which were no help just flogging services. Anyway card now cancelled. Tried contacting BT they seem to have a fraud site which is also a spam site, you can't win and there seems nothing you can do they just get away with it with no sanctions or police input etc. We are going out for our delayed birthday meal but really we've no heart in it, Mandy is very upset and there is zero support from bank, BT, Police or anyone on these scams. It just makes you feel very vulnerable and silly. I'll resume the China photos tomorrow.
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