I was too tired last night to do a blog, an early start and over to Grimsby and then Scunthorpe. Grimsby showed very little if no change from our visit last year whereas in Scunthorpe the buses seem to change year on year. Hornsbys seem to be going more coach based and there is the obvious all over for a local college on at least two buses I saw. Certainly one of the most diverse locations on North Lincolnshire or Humberside as it was known for a short while until Lincolnshire claimed it back. The slide show though is from Grimsby. I've also made a proper start on the diorama which centre stage is the distribution centre. Here is the base layer , it is based on a real building. There seem to be more balls in the air than usual, it was heavy going getting to the end of the A50 this morning as the M1 was backing traffic up for miles. I finally got down to business at around 9am, it was at first as forecast light cloud but by late morning this turned to sunshine but I still managed and reverted to plans b and 25a, subsection G. You can't beat a few sub sections and lots of bureaucracy. Mandy bless here checked up on the account which pays our Ancestry subscription, they had been overcharging me for years and we reached an agreement that they would credit two years subs and I would also get a year free. In the event they refunded £7 twice, the cost of conversion from dollars to sterling. It looks as if we'll have to go via the small claims court but I'll make them suffer along the way, anyone doing family history might prefer My Heritage with is Israeli not American. It seems to me that there might be thousands getting conned like this because the US charges are much higher than Ancestry UK rates. Hope fully after tomorrow, buses in Grimsby and Scunthorpe I'll have a day to catch up Wednesday and get the press release done for our sponsorship of the NWVRT at Kirkby. Some really good vibes coming back through social media. We like to put back into our hobbies and interests rather than just take although you despair of some 'enthusiasts' who never even buy programmes or merchandise they just ride buses and give no contributions at all. Its hard to come up with a balance between heavy handedness and being fair to what are charities. Anyway I feel really cumfy with the NWVRT and will be producing a shot online video to promote our relationship and encourage people to subscribe and participate in the trust's work. So that's enough for the moment, lets have some photos from Newark, remember when you are out and about watch out for anything unusual lets hope the police concentrate on likely terrorists rather than pick on bus spotters with cameras as they did a few years back. Also I'd be vigilant for right wing aggression, much of this is from far to the east of Clacton! I wish we could get another 20 hours in a day then maybe I'd catch up to where I'd like to be. It was the remembrance day service at St Oswalds then home for a brew and off to the Royal Northern School of Music in Manchester, where our small band of 46 have it seems raised nearly £1/4M is the 5 years of the Principle's Circle. I managed to ask the principle Linda Merrick if the college would be able to support the platinum jubilee concert in June 22, of course the Queen's continued indisposition is raising lots of concern. Anyway we have Linda Merrick on board and should be able to muster good support to Linda Richardson renowned soprano who has already kindly offered her services. We also chatted to a couple we have met several times at the college who had experience in long distance bunting ( 10miles they did) making our bid for 3 miles linking lower Peover and Plumley quite modest. Our entertainment and food was by the regular team led by our new head of personal giving and our lovely Jose head of catering. We enjoyed our first live music for two years and still have the WNO at Llandudno to look forward to later this month with Butterfly. I need to get something together to circulate on the sponsorship of PMP to the MWVRT where we were entertained yesterday in royal style among the buses and indeed on the buses no less. I'm going to put a short film together promoting the trust and our sponsorship. Some very kind words have come back and all i can do is unreservedly recommend the NWVRT for anyone who wants to get up close and personal with a bus project to look up their website. They also have one of the best bus running days which in 22 reverts back to June. We have had a shower of DVD orders the covers for which I still need to get ready for Mandy to pack tomorrow. I'm filming trucks at Newark, tomorrow buses at Grimsby and Scunthorpe then Mandy is going with me Thursday to Bath and Swindon again for buses. I've also been plodding through the artificial intelligence editing and have already loaded a series of clips on Martin Rickitts 1989 trip to Vietnam, they will pop up same time each day for 5 days and this is to keep our world wide audience second rank after UK, Vietnam entertained. Who would think that they bat all other comers from Europe, the Americas, etc. Here are some DVD stills, remember it was shot in 1989. The mix of formats cuts off a chunk from these shots but they will play a part in the DVD cover! A super day out, a little bit of playing on the buses and getting some background info together with some photos and video from which we hope to get publicity to launch the relationship between the PMP Film Archive and the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust. Much more of this to come but at present I've a few things happening together and I need to keep the balls in the air, ouch that almost relates to my hernia operation, an unintended pun you know! Anyway I plough on and hope tonight to have bulldozed the foundations for my diorama No3 which if you are regular and diligent in your reading You'll know is mainly to house lorries, the 4mm type not the 40' types. I've got an artificial intelligence project cooking, should be finished before bed time tonight and the new Merseybus feature covering the 1980's to very early 90's when pale green was still the colour to watch out for. The diorama will have some very substantial buildings and aims to reflect some of the monsters that now line our motorways, the gentle toning into the sky will be copied and the loading ports are already available from Scale Model Scenery. I've got to shift a lot of material to open up the central section which will lean heavily on the experience I had building the Derby bus station clone. I'm not sure if I'll have any branding, certainly if I had the Am*** outfit they would be mouldering away after the outfit collapses under billions of tax demands. However I know that a lot of people enjoy looking at things they can relate to. Anyway I'd better give you a couple of photos for this evening from my visit to Kirkby. I also got the Polio Fellowship newsletter compiled and sent of to head office for inclusion in the next 'Bulletin'. I'm going to put together a short film to cement the relationship between the NWVRT and PMP, I think the trust has a very inclusive and relaxed attitude and it was this coupled with proximity and damn good running days which attracted me. I put off the Newark truck visit as we have endured high winds, we did go to Southern cemetery in the south of Manchester to do our usual autumn clean up and put in flowers for spring. The bench which we gave a new coat of paint in spring looks very good. When we got home after lunch I started editing the Merseybus DVD , about 50% done regards collating the images. I'm also treating the 1989 trip Martin Rickitt made to Vietnam with artificial intelligence after Topaz have revamped all the options to work much more rapidly as rendering could take several days. Now I think an hour of material could be ready in 24 hours or so. Anyway what has been completed so far looks a lot fresher and sharper than its age would suggest. I aim to put most of it on Youtube in several parts as Vietnam is our second biggest Youtube audience after the UK. I might consider the Mersrybus film also a candidate for AI treatment. Then there will be nostagia programmes from Britain and the promised Crosville and Ribble releases. All these could be ready by the Boyle St Christmas cracker weekend which we shall be attending with recent releases and local interest films plus some of our fabulous Lucky Dip boxes at just £50. We mustered 10 members of our branch of the British Polio Fellowship for our annual dinner which was held at a hotel on the Wirral. They did us proud with a room which had been decorated for a promotional film and the food was yummy and plentiful and the company superb. The mood in the BPF has been of looking forward with optimism with the financial woes now under control. We go back a couple of days for trucks at Muckley Corner on the A5 outside Lichfield. We were due to film at Newark for the sugar beet campaign but the wind will be too much so putting that off to next week. Instead we shall tidy up the family plots at Manchester Southern cemetery with spring flowers and grass cut and bench inspected after we renewed the paint earlier this year. I'm about to start putting a series of clips from our Vietnam trips on to Youtube. I'm giving the latest issue of Topaz a second chance with some of Martin Rickitts 1989 video in Vietnam. This nation makes up the largest viewing block for the PMP channel after the UK. Its pub night which is a bit on top of the dinner today but I'll try and work it off tomorrow. As promised a selection of shots from our visit to Ashton under Lyne yesterday, they wouldn't load on last nights blog, finger crossed it works now All my ports are full doing other operations at present so I'll load some Ashton pictures on tomorrow morning before we go out. Ashton is a real nightmare to park in, probably why I haven't been there much. Thankfully someone advised me to try the Sainsburys / M&S car park which is only 4 mins away and free for 3 hours which did me nicely. A lovely young lady at the desk in the bus station said no problem filming and pics there and off I went, a bit damper than anticipated. Had a break for coffee when it got wetter, then resumed and through to the end and lots of Little Gems and other mini buses from Diamond etc, even saw one from Nexus the PTE in the North East.
Then on to Wigan, well I moaned about Ashton, Wigan takes the biscuit. What a horror story, after 30 mins driving around in circles through roads not on the map, road works without end, turnings and car parks blanked off, signage which no longer applied - I gave up and came home. The operation scar is becoming less noticeable as each day goes by, no pain whatever, anyway it was parking and finding stuff that was the pain today. Tomorrow its the Polio Fellowship branch annual dinner on the Wirral and tonight our first meal out with Mandy's cousin Trish and Derek. A long time in the coming. Friday I'm hoping to film at Newark, trucks, sugar beet campaign time. Then Saturday we are going down to Kirkby to meet up with the lovely folk at the NWVRT which is now benefiting from PMP sponsorship. We have a new location , it's Muckley Corner on the A5 outside Lichfield and I spotted its potential as the Satnav took me that way heading home from filming at Lichfield bus station. I understand the name is derived from the old word for clearing in a wood,. not many trees to see there now that for sure. Lorries though are plentiful plus a petrol station cum shop and a layby on the old Lichfield Rd. I was spotted by one of our lovely band of viewers at the bus station and his name was also Dave, you can't get too much of a good thing. All my scanning equipment is now filed away and my table cleared ready to start work on the truck based diorama. I've got images to give me the basic shapes and prototypes so I just need lots of copying , card and sticky back paper. Anyway lets keep it brief and have a look at the buses I saw at Lichfield, I'd always felt if I got a cloudy day the newly refurbished bus station would give me enough material for a whole programme although to do this I linger quite a bit!... struggling to get any pictures loaded this evening, no idea what the problem is, one my try. I just needed it to be 10deg or above and around 9.30 it hit the magic number and I was able to start applying the expensive watertight membrane to our chimney , roof and surrounding brickwork. I kept going until the pot was dry. It sort of looks and feels expensive which of course it is but fingers crossed that this keeps the damp out in the bedroom. Then I got the foam sprayed into the loft at the eaves where it touches the wall so any rain blown through cannot get in. A very messy job it was plus I'd also planted bulbs in the borders first thing and got a lot of dead vegetation in the recycle bin. It was then afternoon so any thoughts of getting filming done went out of the window. I have got to be here until 9am tomorrow as the chap is coming to measure up for the replacement glass in the triple glazing. Once that's done I can get out for the rest of the day. Wednesday yes filming but it can't be too far as we are out with relations in the evening. Thursday its polio fellowship annual dinner and Friday is still free. I've got to the end of the present round of film scanning, trying to match up some of Dave Forrests earlier cine copies with the scans so I can incorporate the sound where there was striped film. So another busy ish sort of day. Here is Dave Forrests film all neatly on reels and numbered and indexed. I am clearing the decks after cine scans end ready for construction of the third diorama which will be a top shelf layout, only seen by the true fans, well those who are tall will also see it, going to be a bit of a drag working it all at height. |
PMP Sponsors the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust at Kirkby.
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