Very tired after two weeks away, it is two days hard drive each way and the only wet days we had were two of the driving days. It was about max 34 early on then it fell a little to a more comfortable level and a little more clouds but as you will see mostly it was sunny. Staying in apartments for much of the time worked well with a mix of restaurant and home cooked food. So our first apartment was right in the centre of Pilsen on a tram route with ponds and cafe very close.

What a horrid wet dark day it has been but I've just about got everything ready, a slide show on past Czech trips no doubt it will all look very different now. Its been quite a while since we have done a road trip. Anyway I've got maps of all our locations. A few locations will be omitted as it won't be quite at the pace we have done in the past. Staying a night in Germany each way.I've just finished saving the scans I've made from John Bishops London films so another heft load of archives to come. Meanwhile all the best, stay good and mind how you go and we'll catch up at the beginning of August. Any orders will be cleared on our return.

Just the one small cruiser went through the locks at the boat museum in Ellesmere Port while our Polio Fellowship visit took place. We were fortunate that the weather was clement considering the thunder and lightening we have has recently. We are just about ready for the early start on Saturday morning down to Ashford for the tunnel and stay overnight near Heidelberg. Sunday we go on to Pilsen where we stay for four nights. I've had to re scan a couple of John Bishops films and downloading old tapes while uploading film to our website has caused break through from one operation to the next which was a bit of a mystery at first. I'll have to do one job at a time!

A long morning getting the latest archive film finished. I've also been putting digital downloads on ( they are now £9). Some are under the Weebly limit to upload but still are too big in reality, it just means the hassle of splitting a file into two. I'm also downloading the scans of John Bishops London area films, I need some of the memory cards for the Czech trip. Tomorrow is the Polio Fellowship visit to the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port. We have our friends/neighbours round for a drink this evening so in real terms I only have Friday to get myself sorted for the road trip. We'll be back up and running at the beginning of August.

We have endured yet more torrential rain and thunder storms which seem to have become a daily event and with just one trip to Cambridge it is slim picking but we depart to Czechia Saturday where the weather is better and hope to come back with lots of film. The latest archive combines three West Yorkshire cities with Huddersfield trams and trolleys, Leeds from the dawn of trams with steam and electric the first half of the 20th century.  The other part is Bradford where it is mostly trolleys marking their passing. So a wide range of time and content. Another South Yorkshire volume is also likely this summer. I'm hoping to start the long awaited Bristol film. These are all in colour , when it is too early we don't give up rather turn to AI for the solution and the software has correctly picked the colours for early Huddersfield and Leeds. It certainly makes the old material feel more accessible as we start to encourage the films for their educational value. 

I've done another round of booking for the road trip with Czech motorway pass and tunnel tickets. Packing the case to do, Mandy takes charge there. I want to look at train times for my side trips. We have a Polio Fellowship visit to Ellesmere Port boat museum Thursday so just tomorrow free to get that archive done. I've masses of film here to edit and the remainder of John Bishops London films to download after scanning. We have provided film for an advert for D'Agostini  advertising in Bulgaria which will promote the usual East European buses that have done the rounds, I doubt if it will produce much new but handy revenue for us. We were able to turn down a Sky TV productions recently as they wanted to mess around and I haven't got time for that.

Keeping a Yorkshire theme we'll head that way for our slide show.

It was a bit of a dash  getting the new film clips ready for the OTA Youtube channel all destined to tie in with their latest newsletter which goes out next Monday. We are trying to get ourselves a little bit more caught up than we are. Digital downloads have hardly been done for weeks now. Thus we are concentrating in gaining some territory.There were 6 links to our Facebook page from todays uploads so I've not been idle. There will be more archive PMP films this week.

More goodies to go on Youtube, getting the films digitised will enable easier world wide sales and commercial use plus giving me a hefty boost on to our Youtube channel. I'll stick with Asia for our slide show this evening which hints of material to be loaded shortly with Cambodia scenes

I even got an apology from our web host Weebly, the problems the other night were 100% with themselves and they had a virus in their system which thankfully thousands affected were protected by our own virus defence. That will teach them to come out with platitudes when people have a sensible and correct take on a situation. Anyway a bit of a tidy up today, we have my sister Yvonne and Graham up tonight so minimal blogs!