A catch up on DVD orders and yet more demands from EBay on stuff they want to add to item descriptions which really applies to cinema movies. I spent hours this morning and got nowhere and my finger has hovered over the delete button for our shop there. Anyone out there who can order only from EBay, our PMP shop has the full range. Both Amazon and Ebay at quiet times cost us more than the revenue so we have to pay them and send the DVDs out for nothing at all - your money went straight to the USA.

After a wasted morning it went downhill more when I tried out the replacement film scanner which worked after a fashion but the usual lack of sync between film transport and take up reel produced a flicker that wasn't acceptable. Remember the Chinese supplier who said its only a little wobble! Anyway Coopers are sending a third, their last one in stock, I expect the others have gone to land fill, I can't see them sending them all back to China. I've copied a nice Malta 1983 reel of Maltese buses and a very brief glimpse of exquisite commercials waiting to load on the Gozo ferry. These were from Roger De Boer and we hope to start scanning his collection soon, we last copied it tele cine decades back.

After having spent most of the day indoors trying in vain to sort EBay demands I then turned my attention to the garden as it was hot and sunny after yesterday which was rain all day and night. Hedges trimmed, lawns mowed, edges strimmed. I need to do some dead heading in the borders and a feed and weed plus clear up after hedge cutting. More of the Hampshire trip and lets have some Southampton lorries for a break from buses. I'm now downloading ready to start editing.

We were lucky with the weather yet again with cloud for the trucks at Southampton docks and then sunshine when covering Southampton buses. The city is still a wasteland off people from anywhere but Hampshire and the fast food delivery cars pack at random with impunity and usually in front of me. They seem to be from planet Zog but it is probably against the rules to criticise the Zogians! I've downloaded the DVD orders which came while we were away and taken the shops off holiday mode. WE had a quick flan and beans courtesy a stop at M&S on the way home this afternoon. These are probably the easiest shots to find from Southampton I'll get the whole trip sorted and bring you the buses, trucks and even the wedding. A great long weekend away so good to catch up with family after such a long time.

It is our 47th wedding anniversary today.

Saturday was the day of the wedding of my niece Katy and Matt. They were so blessed by the weather which varied between bright and sunny , the rain held off until Sunday. The wedding reception venue was the brickworks museum near Fareham. , There was a showman's engine one of many on site for an open day on Sunday although I read that could have been a wash out. There alskseem five several buses stored on the site. It was great to catch up with my sisters and their families, for many if not most it was their first event in the Corona Pandemic. I'll bring you some photos when we are back home. While we were in Hampshire as usual it proves impossible to get into eBay although our shop shows we are away at present we got a message of non receipt of a dvd and our account is frozen until sorted, the purchaser never advised us and went straight to opening a case with eBay I was close to closing our eBay shop a couple of weeks back and am really minded now to abandon eBay and our shop there. This would leave both the PMP shop and Amazon. 

What ashsmbles this blog is on Weebly, just neatly finished typing the whole blog then all the text vanished, this happens quite a lot when using an iPad to do the post. We had a restful day yesterday, it cleared in the afternoon after s damp stsrt. Breakfast at my favourite cafe in Lyndhurst then national trust gardens in the afternoon when it was quite hot in the sun, had afternoon tea and in the evening we ate at seashells restaurant which has a wonderful view over the estuary into Southampton. Minutes after sitting down Queen Mary 2 passed by and later a weird ship a Swedish vehicle transpott came in todock. It is now Saturday morning sand Mandy has gone off with Yvonne to get their hair done ready for the wedding. I'm having alazy start to today. The weather should be quite good and although Sunday will probably be wet we have managed to get booked into clouds restaurant for dinner tomorrow night. Monday could be a little bit damp but I'm still planning to film in Southampton and also include the docks, if time permits we might come back via Salisbury.

We were up at four am and we arrived at Bournemouth around eight thirty and  had already stopped for breakfast on the way down. Thankfully the rough sleepers and druggies were a less evident this time. although there were some pretty miserable older visitors grumbling their was found! Taking to a go ahead driver in Bournemouth he reckoned ever bus that could move was in service and certainly there were many open toppers around. After finishing at Bournemouth we headed on to Poole and came across the hands and Dorset heritage livery bus where I didn't on screen greeting message. While filming near the bus station one kind reversing helper came for a chat and gave me o  promotional pen, later he came over again with an anniversary mug what a chance to be welcomed rather than aggravation and ful marks for go ahead  and public relations. The weather held out until I'd finished, we stopped off at Lymington for afternoon tea and get some flowers for my sister Yvonne. This morning we had breakfast in Lyndhurst o  the new forest at our favourite cafe.  Graham has booked us in to a national trust property for the afternoon while Yvonne carries on with pre wedding arrangements. The weather has been camp today but hopefully will clear for the family wedding tomorrow.  Not too many dvd orders are coming through  and those will all be in the post Tuesday. We'll cover Southampton buses on Monday and perhaps some trucks near he port. A lot of road works are making journeys difficult in the east of he city.

We'll be on the road early, 4am start and straight down to Bournemouth, fingers crossed that we don't encounter the druggies who seemed in control of the town centre last year. We'll also try and get full coverage at Poole afterwards and then head back east to Southampton, if its getting on in the afternoon by then we'll head straight to my sisters. We are all packed and glad rags ready for Katy and Matt's wedding on Saturday. I'm going to make a valiant effort to fit into my suit I got for our 40th wedding anniversary 7 years ago. We celebrate our 47th on Monday.

Today as well as domestic jobs I managed to edit another two cine reels of Swiss trolleys and trams. I've also copied some family video to put on discs. I've been looking at new technology for enhancing our older tape derived films , it uses artificial intelligence and looking at some of the latest colour enhanced upgraded material around now it is making quite an impact and is far beyond the rather crude images you can get on My Heritage site which aren't much cop.  I've downloaded some of the enhanced films to demonstrate what can be achieved but the colorizing ( yes they all use the US version in software) programmes are under development and there aren't any compatible with Windows as yet.

There seem to be many jobs which are about to come to a need to do status, the front door repaint among them. I'm waiting for some still dry weather for truck filming but I can say that our Essex and East Anglia trip will be the next big bus excursion. When we get the final ok from government on relaxing the Corona rules we'll start thinking about stand booking for transport events in the rest of the year. As we head for Bournemouth then lets go there for our nights slide show.

I'm currently passing the third of John Bishop's cine films of Switzerland in 1968 through the cine scanner, with the passing of so many years ( 53) they look suitable old in places but then again modern in some respects. Always a popular destination for transport fans with virtually all the modes usually followed by enthusiasts from funiculars to trolleybuses, trams to light rail etc even double deck buses these days.

I also managed to load up more films on the PMP shop as digital downloads at just £8 each. I have also transferred more of Dave Forrests collection to digital which will make it easier to locate, copy and share etc. We were able to drop off scans to cousin Trish this afternoon with old family tapes on DVD, some jazz got Derek on board with the delivery and a few copies to do now for their friends in the trad jazz world.

I did a bit more work on family history for Mandy's side which goes off on some interesting lines in Lancashire and Cumbria and stretches back over a thousand years. When you look back with such a perspective the French side of the Vikings ( Norsemen-Normans) was actually quite a brief period although they held sway for parts of Europe and Asia Minor the edges of their possessions were always battling at the edges from rival fiefdoms.

Our monthly sacks of pills were picked up after a false start as they hadn't arrived this morning, we collected them on the way back from cousin Trish's in Sale, Manchester. The roads were quiet, I guess there is probably some football on again, we have managed to avoid it so far with deft clicking of the TV controller!

We go down to Hampshire for the family wedding this weekend, we leave Thursday 4am and straight to Bournemouth then either over to Poole or Southampton perhaps even a truck film at the port. Monday we'll pick up some shots on the way home, Monday is also our 47th wedding anniversary.

Here are some shots of Switzerland so you can see what it has had to offer in more recent years.

I've just put the updated DVD list on the front page as I've got a good sprinkling of recent releases on as downloads, remember these are just £8 and it doesn't even matter if we are away filming, open 24hours for digital. I have also been running off more digital versions of Dave Forrest's video and a couple of hours of his 1980s cine film. I've also been scanning John Bishops cine film starting with Switzerland which looks superb when scanned to HD.

Just t the same time I've also been adding to both mine and Mandy's family trees, we are in deep history at present back in the dark ages really , anyone got a torch then. It's amazing what you can find now although Ancestry struggles with early years pre 1000. Mandy's has been straight forward today, just picking up when I've left off research on a direct line and taken up the microscope once more. My Heritage has some good bits and their Geni site should be linked to their family history side as it has some great stuff, even resorting to Google throws up Wiki info and very often there is well researched documents with lots of notes on sources and biographically sections to bring it all to life.

So with Merseyside in the 1980s, Hong Kong in 90's, Mandy rellies in 850 and mine in 350 and then John Bishops Standard 8 , 1960s in Switzerland we have all sorts covered. Meanwhile lets go back to last weeks South West Trip and head down to Camborne and Newquay for Cornish buses of the moment! The net has gone really slow it was taking ages for stuff to upload. The internet seems to have been lousy in our part of the world, really a pain when you are trying to multitask.

Thankfully I  didn't water too much yesterday as it rained overnight. A cloudy day with low temperatures. After church where I managed to slip on a step helping Mandy and cut my finger and added to the back pain I got home with enough of me functioning to crack on with scanning cine, the latest machine straight out of its packaging purchased within the UK wouldn't function so I'll have another play or it can go back. I've already got a couple more of Dave Forrest's 1990s tapes digitised and ready to go on the archive external drives. Plus I got some of the South West bus trip on to down load on the shop.

I had an early morning chat with ebay about emails from them re fees charged, it was all about nothing really but being American they have started sending out new messages about the monthly shop charge and fees on items sold. Once upon a time you got your money monthly less any fees, now they shower you with money every day ( assuming things have sold) it makes for a very lengthy bank statement. They have managed to get the messages so messed up from American to English that it reads like some sort of penalty charge, but got to the bottom but I was within a few seconds of scrapping the PMP Ebay shop. This will happen one day and I've been imploring people to use the PMP shop rather than Amazon or EBay, they take a big slice of the revenue.

Here are the latest DVDs, all listed on the PMP shop.

We move on with our photo summary of last weeks trip with scenes at Torquay and Plymouth

Sorry I missed you all yesterday, I had the worst pain in my back for many months and it was the day of Joe's 21st birthday next door, the young un's were really good and helpful and we had plenty of willing hands to erect the PMP tent. We had no rain and dismantled it this morning. We were pretty cold but Gary had an outside burner going which sustained life. Lots of the guests vanished to watch football for part of the evening. There was far too much food as ever on these dos and we had a little food parcel with cake and fruit. Thankfully the Cornish farmhouse clotted cream survived the journey back.

I have been pottering a bit between editing all six of last weeks bus films. It has been very breezy but we enough sun to sit out for a while. I tidied up as best I could with the back muscle pain.  Although I say so myself the garden is looking fine at the moment, I must get some more pictures as it has moved on a lot from these shots before the South West trip.

The front office is now tidy and the display cases locked away with all the models and modelling kit ready for me to start cine film scanning again.

So with all the DVDs from last week made I need to turn to the covers and here are some photos from the visit this time in Penzance

So next stop getting DVD covers made!