An early start and ready to film at Rotherham by 8am, the weather was as forecast thank goodness, very quiet at the bus station there must have been a lot of services thinned out, Powells it seems are no longer but a couple of new faces so not so bad, heritage liveries etc.

Then up to Castleford, weather a little too much sun trying to break through, editing will take a bit of messing around with to get optimum. I'm now rendering the film of Merseyside, it will be in the Down Your Way series albeit not all scenes are very old,. My favourite is the 1980s scenes which with a lot of manipulation are quite steady to watch and cleaned of 'noise'. The colourised Liverpool scenes from gold oldies era are a bit so so, I may not use all of it just the decent parts. The Rainhill trials re-enactment from 1980 has come out of the washer really clean and sharp.

Here are shots from Rotherham this morning.

A new Merseyside film will be launched ready for the Nocturnal NWVRT  running day week next Saturday 12th November. We are always asked if we have anything else and well scratching around I've found some scenes of Liverpool and Birkenhead taken just after deregulation and onwards courtesy the Bubb family archive. These are hand held amateur shots but cover operators I never saw particularly the ex Ribble vehicles on the Wirral Bus  operation. I've really started to get the hang of the NEAT software which works best as a first layer then other adjustments like stabilisation go on top together with brightness, colour etc. The whole thing is saved and then with a solid HD file any fine tuning won't ruin a nights work. The amount of wobble  and jitter that can be eliminated is surprising and there will be many more opportunities  to make the barley watchable quite alright. It will also include footage of a vintage vehicle run through the Mersey tunnel and the rally at Birkenhead with the old commercial vehicles. All this plus the Rainhill trials from a good vantage point and a couple of retro gems taking us right back in time on Merseyside and hopefully fully colourised from the original B&W image. Its all a voyage of discovery!.

Tomorrow I'm filming at Rotherham and Castleford in Yorkshire. I'm hoping to tackle another down your way presentation on Hampshire and one on Sussex. These all rely on material being available. If you have access to old cine or pre 1990 video we'll try and bring it smack bang up to date and enable sharing with fellow enthusiasts and long term safe storage with the Online Transport Archive. Well nothing for it but yet again some Merseyside scenes.

I've digitised a number of my old Mini Dv tapes which I always considered the best before HD and trying to establish what condition they should be loaded on to the shop and Youtube for optimum clarity. Sometimes overdoing it give unsatisfactory images that are 'plastic' you can add a bit of grain back to overcome the processing. Anyway lets have some shots from the new bus station at Stevenage as filmed yesterday

A 5am start, filming in Luton by 8am, quite busy at the bus station, lovely friendly drivers, my still camera was playing up again eventually sorted it out at Stevenage with lubrication. I'll try a tiny dot of WD 40 or silicon and that might do the job as it works otherwise and was fine at the new bus station. I was well impressed, obviously done to a budget, sone nice hillocks to stand on for optimum exposure slightly looking down. No ugly fences, not like Yorkshire  who copy the Syrian method with machine gun posts and huge fences. A good day all in all, took an hour longer on return than going which seems the norm now.

We took part in a world wide polio day zoom which includes such diverse places as Uganda and Australia etc . After lunch I loaded up the huge heavy box of films and video to take to Peter Waller at OTA tomorrow, yes back to Shrewsbury. I've now burnt the second DVD from yesterdays shoots and will get the covers done and get them on the shop. Lots to put on Youtube plus putting downloads on our shop. Meanwhile some more scenes from yesterday this time at Wolverhampton

The trip to Telford getting there early to get the school buses failed to some extent as it was half term for the schools. We had the pleasure of briefly meeting one of our viewers and his way to work, it was not cloudy but as the sun was still very low it didn't make to much impact and there was a representative of the main fleets serving Shrewsbury. Then it was on to Telford, more cloud or mist but it was fine for filming even when the sun came out you can film the inside  of the bus station apron. Then the sun made an unwelcome appearance in Wolverhampton after I'd travelled in circles finding a car park. Anyway I'm a bit tired but anxious to get the Stevenage film finished which was an experiment in what would cut mustard among the bag of tricks I've got on the mega computer and which films will produce the goods upgraded to HD, 60 fps, de interlaced, de noised etc. Here are shots from Shrewsbury first thing this morning.

I'm just getting towards the end of the first film made using the full pallet of devices which change the frame rate, de-interlace, stabilise, de-noise and even a small colourise section. This is proving a learning curve but processes I need to be on top of. It always depends on the original material, if its shock horror awful then it will never look great but mediocre I think I can improve a lot. I still need to file away still photos this evening to get a clean chip in the still camera lest I get completely muddled.

I've done an autumn clean up in half of one back border and planted some fresh plants in the front  door tub. The garden looks better when the dead vegetation is cleared. I've also put in a  sack of daff bulbs

I've done a few stills from the production which hope shows the standard that can be achieved on cine film which has to be enlarged by an astronomic amount to fill a tv screen, meanwhile some Ukraine shots as the wretched war is still rumbling on.

I'm still wading my way though the films taken at Newark on Trent this week featuring the lorries. This coming wee in addition to visiting Peter Waller of OTA in Shrewsbury I also intend three bus film trips possibly Tuesday , Wed and Friday. I've prepared files for the latest round of still photos, go another external drive in action and completed trials with the supposed all new Azure film enhancing software which I sent samples of old material to enhance last year. The boasted revamp and the whole of it rebuilt and enhanced by ability to upgrade to HD and higher frame rate plus de-interlacing produced on the first trial a treated film which was worse than the original after 18 hours of rendering. Azure into the bin of wannabes yet again. Some more shots from the Newark truck sessions

Another lovely friend Ian Davies one of our small band of Polio Fellowship pals who meet once a month or go on a visit. Ian Davies was with us a week ago today for our trip to Jodrill Bank telescope , he died last night. It was very sudden, we had been laughing and joking just a week ago.

We are hosting my sister Yvonne and Graham who are stuck on the M6 north at present, very quickly these are the new DVD releases this week.

First job today was the hospital at Macclesfield and battling through an 8 way traffic light at the complicated roadworks which is about 10 minutes each light change. There are now campaigning locally against the hell of 22 weeks like that. The consultant agreed that no action should be taken on my hands until it was substantially affecting daily life as the possible negatives outweigh advantages at present. Then it was down to Nantwich which avoided the return run through the works to the restoration garage where the IQ is booked in next Feb for a refurb. It will have gone round the clock before then.

Late morning through lunch time to pm I was at Warrington bus station, quite a variety of second hand buses as they pace themselves towards the completion of the new depot and the arrival of a new fleet of electric buses, the depot being built  is near the rugby football stadium. Meanwhile a very interesting and varied fleet!. We are getting ready for a couple of nights with my sister Yvonne and Graham visiting. I have six DVDs to edit and some recent ones to put as downloads on the shop.