I've made sure that the boxes of DVDs are right up to date for the Christmas Cracker event at Boyle street this weekend. Although only 10% of our stock it is the best we can do as shifting boxes about is getting a bit beyond us now. Tomorrow we shall be filming at Cheltenham and Gloucester. We had the village Christmas tree lighting and carols this evening.  I've struggled with getting anything sorted for downloading the analogue films to the computer. The way around it seems to be that I am buying a fire wide card to be put inside the box which can be used to select from heritage devices on Windows as otherwise as pre set Windows 10 and 11 no longer support fire wire. Then I can plug in the Canopus gizmo which I've got second-hand and then plug devices into that to download. It is frightening to think that tapes are now harder to digitise than old cine films, who would have seen that one coming.

Anyway some shots from Grimsby early yesterday morning.

Horrendous journey back from North Lincs, the weather was a bit cold but no wind and no shadows from unwanted winter sunshine. I did some more scanning of cine yesterday and await the latest downloader for analogue (tapes) which was coming from a neighbouring town ( slowly?) So no apologies as some of the scenes were dark, it works better with video than a still camera.

The old editing deck which I was until recently using to upload analogue files suffered a motherboard failure. No material lost just the convenience and waste getting the monitor. They looked at moving the STORM port to the new machine but it wouldn't fit into the latest 'boxes'. The cheapo little gadgets on EBay are of no use operating at MPEG1, really dates back to the XP era and before. Can't see why they sell them as they only produce poor images. Anyway the STORM Was a Japanese Canopus product dated 2009 and a chap in Nantwich had their plug in solution which must have been a few hundred in its day, it was just £115, should be here tomorrow. This will at least enable me to carry on digitising my old tapes as and when and the spin off plenty of Youtube uploads. So that was a bit of running about first thing and then I had to clean up and rejig the editing suite as I suddenly have more space again.

The huge task was getting all the DVD orders sent off, just one needs its credit card details checking, Mandy will do that she'll be back in England soon. It was 2pm when I got all the post away, nothing at all in the mail today though or online after lunch. First call of today was 8.30 while I was in the shower.

Another huge job has been getting the DVD sales stock checked in order, labelled up better on the boxes and filling in gaps. My storage drive for DVD covers has been the constant companion but of limited capacity by modern standards is now full. I've deleted all covers up to 2500 which lets me play with it again for some years, the material is on two drives as well so I can use them as required for any older covers or just copy them from the masters. Not sure what I'll be doing for the rest of the week, it does look good weather for filming, I'll discuss when Mandy gets back.

A lot of work has been done today including the editing and completion of the outstanding DVD release Down Your Way Hampshire. This includes all digitally scanned images which have been treated to give a clean crisp image and the download copy is in HD. I will get the cover done tonight before bed. There is a pile of DVD orders, all the discs are ready just need to add covers and post them tomorrow. I've also scanned two 400' reels of scenes from 1959 in London, South Wales, Sussex etc. I hope when I ring tomorrow to chase up the old editing computer that the switch is fixed otherwise I need to locate and discover what means of upload is fully compatible.

It was disgusting that after paying a shedload of cash out for the machine that it had no such facility just like no disc drive on board. I don't care what 'gamers' want I have real work to do with it. The outfit was called Chillblast, they could have done with a blast up their a***. It is so frustrating when you have such energy and ambition to make work available to a worldwide audience that some jumped up techno kids tell what you can and cannot have. £4,700 is a whole lot of serious outlay and hardly anything worked without my own addition or acquisition.

At church this morning being the start of advent there was a special service at St Wilfrids in Mobberley, however a very small congregation as roads in the area were closed as a bunch joggers were ploughing their way around the region for whatever reason. Why can't people with energy to spar not find a sensible, practical outlet? I've not put the DVD cover for Hampshire together but here are screen shots I've taken for the purpose.

It seems like it has been forever although in reality the lull before the Christmas rush and the fact that we'll be in Hampshire for Christmas so it all meant I needed to get my finger out and finish the structural side of the last diorama to be tackled then the big tidy up and get rid of any dust as that is a no no when scanning cine film. I tried to get a few more buses on display, many are actually triple parked behind those in front on the deeper shelves, that remains the case just a slightly bit less. I thought all the layouts complete there would be more shelf space. Back to the drawing board, I jest no way. I've no scanned to disc several Mini Dv tapes which will get stored digitally and be available as unedited resource on the PMP shop and clips on Youtube. The DVDs which are a result of the process will be a bit of a belt and braces job. So lets have a look at the office and display room cum editing suite as of today.

The little IQ car DS10 PMP clocked up its 100,000 miles on the way to see Peter Waller in Shrewsbury yesterday and I remembered to get pictures of the mileage. I had a pleasant almost festive lunch meeting after we had taken a brisk walk into the town and up to the archive. Progress was obvious by the discarded temporary storage boxes ready to get recycled and the increasing pile of long term storage boxes for the slide collections. The challenges are enormous but work is ongoing and with even a briefest of glimpses into a bus orientated collection there were certainly many gems to discover. A move to purpose built premises is very much on the cards. On the way back I called in at Tim Bubb's house near Oswestry and had a good natter about the old days and what we had spotted on our more recent travels.

Unlike Mandy's new hybrid  Jazz my little car has very few features or controls to worry about. I must say I do hate driving in the dark now. Today with an almost frosty start I'm trying to knock the last diorama on the head with just a tiny population to be added at a later stage from the array of 3D modelled figures I've accumulated.

I've just about finished editing the North East trip with buses in Newcastle, Durham and Middlesbrough. I', also starting the Down Your Way Hampshire which will cover quite a lot of territory, content and eras. I've been trying hard to get the last diorama finished but the postal strike looks as if it will delay the last of the trees I've ordered up, perhaps it will all get here on Saturday. I gave the sky a dusting of cloud cover which involved getting the domestic white paint out. It has turned very damp and chilly now but I am keeping an eye out for filming lorries tomorrow. The last the the North East clips should be on Youtube by tonight. I took the computer to the repair shop waiting for feedback but I've also ordered up a simple gadget which grabs the material and converts it at less than £20 as back up in case the old box has bit the dust. Meanwhile here are some photos I took at Middlesbrough.

After getting up very early for two days I nearly managed to sleep though to 6 am, I'm going to edit the Down Your Way Hampshire film plus those I've filmed this week and do our Christmas news letter to go out with cards. Meanwhile here are some pictures from my visit to Durham yesterday

A very long tiring day and lots of driving in the dark which I dislike. The power button on the machine I use to download video tape has stopped working. As it has the Storm card fitted and the new one had nothing I've just used it as a stand alone unit, hoping it is fixable but if not I guess the card could be fitted to the new machine, why they didn't put one in I don't know, I carefully listed all the things I needed and it was the same with the disc burner, the disc drive is a separate flimsy thing that gets in the way all the time.

I did well on the trip out today and first thing was the battle to get into Newcastle, road works put me back about 30 minutes, after there it was a quick drive to Durham, the new bus station is still a building site and the temporary arrangements are as bad as the day it was all set up still it really suits filming and photography so who cares. Then it was on to Middlesbrough where I got the third hour of film finished as light began to fail. A long hard slog back to Cheshire in the dark, worst is the traffic past Leeds.

Mandy is now in Ireland and will be back a week today. I went down to Sussex to see my friends John and Maureen Bishop at Hailsham, stayed at Premier Inn at Polgate and had meal and good laugh with John and Maureen at the Italian on the dual carriageway nearby. Set off early this morning was in Reading for morning rush hour bus services, just a little bit of rain then on the way back north I stopped to get post away and then it went to monsoon standards of rain. Lots of standing water, saw a couple of cars which had gone off the road in the heavy rain. I managed to get all todays DVD orders away at our local post office so nothing waiting at present. I'm heading to the North East tomorrow which may be the only day of good weather for filming. I'll try and just cover 2 or three locations as light is short now and I don't want to be getting back too late as I really don't like driving in the dark. Here are some shots from Reading this morning.