Nearly a wasted trip but I did salvage a programme on Barnsley and with lots of new buses with Stagecoach Trackie it was well worthwhile getting that alone. The weather was not cloudy but sunny, mostly a clear blue sky and then the odd cloud which is the opposite of the BBC prediction, if it is only a guess or estimate they should give some indication of the degree of accuracy expected as that is now four weeks in a row that this has happened and just shows that we do get lots of sunshine it's when we don't want it though.

No hassles there these days as they sacked the people who used to run the satellite tracking equipment which homed in on bus enthusiasts so they could send out their tactical response unit, remember the time when I had two police women on horse back guarding me from the security guards! Crazy old would but nice not to have any hassle today. I gave up after this and abandoned any thoughts of covering Doncaster as it would have been impossible.

It was a good run over this morning over Woodhead and I did think of the roundabout at the Sheffield Barnsley end for filming but it was in shadow by the time I headed back. The old council buildings which were demolished have been replaced by a giant shed with a market inside looks worse than what was there before but then that's Barnsley for you. The high level of troubled people was very evident on the streets, issues galore no doubt! We are getting on with the Christmas cards the first ones have now gone out.Not a lot of orders in the post this evening ( our post comes very late) but plenty on the internet. I'm not sure after all this what I'll get done tomorrow, was thinking Stafford and Tamworth,  double checking though with as many forecasts as I can find. Still copying the 16mm films, a few are 'pinked' which will reduce value a lot but I only paid a tenner each. Not too many pictures today as it's hard to get shots there. The house is now full of plumbers, servicing the boiler, gas fire and looking at the bathroom sink which has never run properly since new. I'll have the Barnsley bus DVD ready tonight, there are three covers now that I do to complete. I've updated the Amazon shop but EBay needs adding to, our shop is always up to date though.

There was a fair old heap of orders to shift this morning, most now just go to the UK I guess overseas are reluctant to order with Christmas looming. I've got some posters to do for St Oswalds Christmas services and our next fund raiser a banger beans and bingo night for which I'm the caller, should be fun but that's not until the end of January but with India then on the horizon I don't want things put off to the last minute. We've already booked for the first couple of shows in the New Year, Clonter opera prize and the Brass Band Festival at the RNCM in Manchester.

Today after I got the orders sorted and while Mandy had done to the club for a swim I ran off a couple more of the 16mm films, these giants can prove very useful as was the case with a great reel on Germany and another on Salzburg which was sublime, even had some nice buses and coaches. After Mandy got back we had a brew and I set off down to the A50 in Derbyshire another roundabout but one I'd not shot at before, it came out well the sky was 100% clear and after a very cold start to the day it rose to about 7 above although as soon as the sun dipped its been back to freezing, it was -4 first thing. I got about 2.5 hours of the lorries, the chap with the paint job who delivers fork lift trucksd who did a spin around the roundabout at Middlewich appeared on the A50 and treated us to another 'twirl'.  I got hundreds of shots, I can't see these being filed this evening but I really want to move on to the posters so leave you with these shots taken just hours ago. Tomorrow should be a bus filming day although depends on getting some cloud cover.

A light post bag today, little came in over the weekend but it tends to creep up on a weekday evening as people get home from work. My filming days will probably be tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday with tomorrow trucks the remaining two days buses this keeps the momentum up and gives some structure to my week and fits around domestic duties. I've a fund raising committee meeting this evening but it is close by. I think I must have pulled a muscle either in the night or putting up the decks at St Oswalds yesterday it's quite sore now.

Mandy took me shopping to Handforth Dean near the airport, my worst nightmare and it was so busy at lunch time I didn't even get a coffee and cake. We looked for a better winter coat so I could use one whilst filming and a better one for posh dos ( like shopping?), this involved the usual frustrating walk through M&S who have mediums which are too big and extra large which are too small - finally found one I really likes in Lewis's which was not in my size at all. We got some bits and pieces, had a look at electric shavers as I'd declared i needed a new one when quizzed over Christmas presents, I don't really the old one is still going fine but in Lewis it was £20 more expensive than on Amazon so we left it to order online.

I'm running off more of the 16mm film, last night I had the 1956 Mobil fuel economy rally which was stunning, a quality print with great colour and so much interesting coverage of our country when it was just ours and still beautiful. I've added the 1950TT races on the IOM and now it's a Walt Disney educational film on Thailand or Siam as it was in those days but nothing to beat the pre war colour film of Philippines, Macau and Hong Kong I copied yesterday. I also uploaded another two destinations of bus stills to our Smugmug site, after so many requests to get hold of my still photos I can't understand why it isn't more used. One thing that does get more use is own own shop when Weebly started to facilitate all credit and charge cards as well as Paypal. The photos from my last lorry filming in Middlewich last week. Also loaded to Youtube was a pile of films from the Super8 material I'd copied, notable for Ring of Kerry and Scottish Highlands films plus Esso tankers 1970-77.

Another hectic day, I finished off loading the remainder of the Super8 cine films to EBay and then left the whole lot to load on to Youtube which is still ongoing. It was the day to get the tree dressed at St Oswalds, three long strings of electric lights formed the bases and then as many baubles as it would bear. Tinsle was thought to be a bit cheap so we held off on that. Getting a decent tree of this size is becoming hard and we are looking for someone with enough land locally to grow them on for a decades time. The Intra Express trips went online in detail yesterday and there are trips to Japan and Ukraine which sound good but of course come at a price and that is in euros which means it's dearer than ever. I have a mini trip to Ukraine which I planned for this year but it never happened a week or 10 days would be just fine and my quickie trip to Japan would visit the most interesting tramways without spending a fortune and getting really fed up with the food, actually they don't even include food so I reckon the whole trip from Germany would be about £5K whereas I'm aiming under £2K.

Anyway at the moment I'm having a trip backwards in time, a wonderful pre war colour film of the Philippines, Macau and Hong Kong, shame the biggest section is on the first but the HK airport shots of Imperial Airways and China national airline at the original airport are priceless. Then came a trip backwards in time again through Scandinavia and a gem with colour footage of Dublin trams via another Pan Am film and this is followed by the Mobilgas 21956 fuel ecenonmy run in the UK , a brilliant colour print with few scratches. I've about 60 16mm reels to work through. They are always interesting as most have a sound track so I can hear it copying in the library while I'm in the office. I've also found time to get the trips to Keighley and Coventry filed away, I can get these on the Smugmug site when the films have finished going on to Youtube which may be over night. We are having a half shoulder of lamb for dinner, I've got a huge glass of pastis , petit bleu de Marseilles and a Chateauneuf De Pape with dinner, this is the life, just thinking of those poor people who have to get up for work on a Monday morning. This week filming will be trucks Tuesday and buses Wed and Thurs, possibly including Yorkshire, Shropshire, West Midlands or Staff, perm any two! I can't upload photos without slowing my uploads to Youtube more so I'll give you a super bundle next time

It was the coldest night so far this autumn and a very heavy frost. Mandy did go swimming and I got all the DVD orders sorted, there were two bags full that went out this morning and today is looking like it will be similar for the morning.

I decided to have a bit of fresh air and went out just before lunch time and just took the camera to Middlewich about 10 mins drive away, one of my earliest truck 'spots' and it was really as good as ever even though the distribution centres aren't like Tesco days when they moved on to Runcorn but its a nice mix of operators  and the sun was in a cloudless sky, no wind at all and it felt quite comfortable although even the shadow of a wagon going past dipped the temperature. I'm bashing my way through the Super8 cine digitised material and it looks great taken on the HD camera, some superb reels and these will be listed on EBay asap and clips will go on Youtube, I did load the recent trip to Cambs and the trucks earlier in the week all on Youtube but please buy the DVDs or if you visit Youtube click on the advert rather than app zapping it or just ignoring there are some great products advertised and it's what keeps it going.

The year is nearing it's end and in 2017 we celebrate our entry into our 5th decade of trading having started back in 1976 with still photos sold at the psv circle meetings at the Britons Protection and Boyle St when it first started. Tonight I'll give you some of the Peterborough photos from our long day out on Wednesday.

One again I did manage to get the photos filed away and loaded to Smugmug our still photo sales site, see links page and you can purchase from just 50p each which is less than many sell for at rally events.

Yes we were down in Cambridgeshire yesterday and afterwards met up with my sister Sue and Graham at Northampton, after dinner we headed home and got back about 00.30. Thus there was no blog yesterday and we were indeed late on parade this morning after catching up from a day which had started at 4.30am. We got to Cambridge in the middle of the morning rush hour and the light was quite even so we caught quite a few of the early services then had breakfast at M&S before carrying on to conclude the requisite footage and then headed back up to Peterborough where I met up with one of our viewers a local enthusiast who knew the low down on all the vehicles and amazingly I was there to see the 390 which is a once a week service from the remnants of the once prolific independents which really these days just means Delaines.

A security guard from foreign parts came out and queries if we were allowed to do video, I assured him I'd done so for decades, anyway he shuffled off and next time just walked past me, incredible how they travel around the world, wash up in England just to annoy bus enthusiasts there must be whole empty continents somewhere!  The drivers just like Cambridge gave a great Cambridgeshire welcome to us and although the light was sometimes tricky is was ok for the most part and yet another volume in our Peterborough coverage has been added.

This leaves a few targets on our bus hit list and of course there are whole areas not covered in 2016, thus 2017 looks like being more busy than ever with several possible new truck locations that may well be added to our rota. Photos then from Cambridge yesterday morning, there should be clips on Youtube by this evening and the DVDs are being made today along with those from Lymm earlier in the week. We caught a dad and son combo in action much to the delight of the little fellow, happy to oblige with his special Youtube clip, hope you get to our DVD shop for Christmas!

We were fairly late up this morning, we must have needed the sleep, unless we are going out filming etc I don't bother with an alarm. After getting all the orders ready to go out Mandy packed them up and posted them off while I went the short distance down to Lymm so I could keep up with the lorry side of filming. I did Lymm Poplar Services very quickly then it slowed for lunch but another first I went and filmed the other side of the motorway junction at Lymm which picks up the trucks going to and from Stobarts HQ at Appleton, the light wasn't brilliant so I adopted a manual mode at high speed and plenty of light to brighten it up , I also had a trip to Appleton but it wasn't really the day for that spot and I only needed a few more shots to finish off the second hour. All this took a while slightly later than I had envisaged and when I got back on the M6 it had needless to say clogged up as usual so was in a queue all the way to junction 19.

I then got both white cars back to their original colour as both were pretty grotty with all the bad weather motoring, it took a lot of time to get both cars looking as they should, the van is untouched since I gave it a supper autumn valet after the Big Orange show at Manchester. Talking of which we have all the replacement DVD stock and recent items to add to our DVD sales at the Boyle St sale Christmas Cracker in December. A couple of projects in mind a big apple for West Yorkshire to match the big orange of Manchester and then the Stagecoach story followed by Arriva and First Group plus maybe Transdev etc in due course that should all keep my busy over the winter. I've downloaded all the Suoper8 digitised images and need to get then ready for selling and clips to Youtube, they are all loaded on to the computer, I'll probably put them on widescreen and it doesn't mean that much distortion to the Super8 images and there are plenty of gems among them. Sales now buoyant with publication of latest Buses magazine. So tonight's images come from this morning and early this afternoon at Lymm. Tomorrow all being well a very early start and we'll be covering Peterborough and Cambridge. Zhang from China emailed, did we want to go back there in 2018, I made a polite excuse, a bit too much in 2016 without a return.

We have now come to the end of the copying part of the process with the heap of Super8 cine film, there has been some splendid amateur productions particularly on Scotland and Co Kerry in Ireland. The next step is to upload the files to the computer and then put them on the timeline to edit save and take screen shots, they then go on sale at EBay and record stored in the PMP archive digital section. The first two hours are on tape as the film had sound and this was the work around with the kit used those have already been uploaded.

We received an inquiry today about supplying material for a film on South Africa, not sure if anything will come of it although it will go to cinema release. As well as this major feat we have also filed away another pile of digital photo images and uploaded them to our still photo sales site Smugmug see links on the site's link page. There you can purchase from as little as 50p each. I have also submitted renewal requests for our EU health care cards and as well as that started the request process to activate my state pension which will do as beer money if nothing else.

The phone has been quite busy with all sorts, the fund raising meeting for St Oswalds has been postponed so more time available this evening. The weather has been quite atrocious, not sure if we'll get out to film before Wednesday or Thursday. I remembered to phone my auntie Thelma this afternoon as she is well into her nineties now and I used to phone regularly from work, being super busy at home makes it easy to forget. Cancelling the fund raising committee resulted in some bounced emails, investigation showed that the person concerned had over a thousand messages in their in box and had maxed out! Amongst the latest photos were those at Crick in Jan this year, our first investigation there as to possibilities.

I wasted several hours, half a tank of fuel and £6 entry fee and came away with nothing at the cine film fair at the Hilton hotel in Blackpool. As john found at the recent event in London other than Phil from Cleethorpe's stand there was little and he had concentrated on just super8. Talking of Superr8 film when I did get home I spent the rest f the day continuing to wade through my heaps of reels from this format which on the whole are masterpieces of amateur film making although usually very heavy on the scenic splendours which on the whole are the bits that least change however pleasant they may be. I'm letting my little Eumig projector have a rest now, I didn't use the big projector  the Sankyo as it was blowing expensive bulbs twice in an evening, this has bitten into my reserve stock so I'll need to order up a few more, the only thing it is essential for is Super8 with sound as the little job hasn't a sound facility but just plods through hour after hour of film with no hassle band easy to rewind.

The weather has been dry and the morning sunny but tomorrow bodes wet, Wednesday and Thursday are lining up as the best filming days but I have to watch the weather forecasts to get a general picture and decide if it's likely to be the exact opposite as was the case last Friday. I've also got loads more stills filed away and uploaded to the Smugmug still photo sales site. We got Friday and Saturday orders away yesterday, there are a few to go tomorrow but not a heap as yet, I thought it was getting busier at the end of last week but slipped back again now. Well with a zero shopping trolley load at least a few bob remains in my pocket after Blackpool, the only chap who had a few films of interest was so rude and wanted a fortune for them, easier sticking to my source in Cleethorpes and EBay. Some of the photos I've loaded up today on Smugmug included the Northampton visit last spring.

Greetings from the frozen wastes of the Cheshire plain yards from the black hole of England aka the M6. Today I did a lot of Super8 cine film copying with HD camera, there are already about 15 hours worth of film copied and next week I'll start loading this latest selection on the PMP EBay auction site. Meanwhile we had a pile of DVD orders which we took to Lawrence at the village shop cum post office. Mandy had a tumble in the hallway as we went out, suspect broken bone/s in foot, not unusual but blessed painful. Tomorrow is the North West Film Collectors fair at the Hilton Blackpool if I take my still camera I can get you a few shots for tomorrow's blog.

We went to Dunham brewery near Altrincham while we went out to do a spot of food shopping, they have a small brewing set up I encountered when my sister and brother in law were with us at Dunham Massey NT property ( where Berta Mandy's mum room watched). It was a bit muddy and the shop wasn't at all obvious but it was up a steep flight of stairs in an old farm building, the brewing done below. A nice little shop with a smart display of their fine bottle conditioned craft ales and porters.

Back home more film copying plus I've filed away our 2015 and 2016 photos of York this year with Harrogate last year coupled with Selby. I noticed that I still haven't filed 2015 of Halifax which I revisited this week. I'm looking at locations for the coming week, lets hope it turns less raw not much fun getting the old fingers frozen and struggling with the light, either too much or not enough this week. I thought I'd just link to clips of recent visits, I'll put York and Harrogate on later this evening. I sorted out some photo files for John Bishop from our Mexico trip last year, its of the PM lorries very little ever published on the manufacture of trucks in Mexico they had quite an industry, PM was I gather at Monterrey.

PS We flew through the 25 million hit mark on our Youtube channel , let's make it 30M and everyone buy a DVD!!