Next Mandy's new car collecting it at Ellesmere Port on Wednesday, the PMP plates live on!. This was the Polio Fellowship branch annual dinner last week, I've been getting the newsletter compiled. We are getting Mandy set for her trip to Ireland tomorrow, I'm heading down to see my friend John in Sussex on a flying visit and swap around cine films for digital scanning. The next two DVD releases will be Hampshire in the Down Your Way series and possibly Berkshire.
With the continued awful weather there have not been that many opportunities for filming although I did get to Lymm for lorries yesterday. I've finished off a few favours that have been outstanding for Stephen Owen his complete sets of traffic monitor cameras of buses in Merseyside 1987 are now on disc ready to send and ditto Tim Bubb's films he wanted to send to a friend from gas board days who is not so well at the moment. So a few jobs off the to do list. I've loaded up files for digital downloads for the recent DVD releases at HD quality. I've a few of the archives I've put on digital to upload. The net speed in the mornings is nothing like the levels BT promised, somewhere along the long the line there should be £100 compensation heading our way for that. I've loaded a new bit of software for photo editing, Ashampoo is the chosen one, free from charge and free from ads when downloading, I haven't tried anything yet but it was no longer realistic getting the pictures on the old XP machine although it is XP that I prefer to all other Window efforts. Well here are some of the photos I took on the video camera while filming, I've ordered up a 'new' Cannon G16 which is the camera I prefer for stills, the old one needs artificial respiration to work and is ready for the junk pile. Our first venture into Hibrids, it has sat at the dealers for two weeks while they got the log book sorted as yet again the DVLA were on strike. It was late in the day, I'd managed time at Lymm this morning filming lorries and rain then set in, it looks like being rotten until the week after, Mandy is going to Ireland on Sunday, I'm off down to Sussex to see John Bishop. I'll get some pictures of the lorries on tomorrow plus I'm starting the next archive Down Your Way Hampshire.
A very wet day and another chance to get work done on the last section of my dioramas although at some stage I'll tinker with some bits I'm less pleased with. I'm going to leave painting the figures as this can be done with little mess. It is best getting all the cutting of card done while there are no films being scanned. I never seem to be able to get on top of things these days, the number of to do jobs is always beyond my capacity to make time and still relax sometimes. I received the electricity pylons and mobile phone mast, they are really superb, best value items I've ever got for modelling. The pylons with stride across the 1960's scene. I've swapped about a bit in my ideas but you have to be flexible. I made my last structure the model scenery kits which you download. I've shifted my transport cafe to the foreground and the old workshop to the back and there will probably be a sort of scrap yard come small holding which can soak up some of the many cars that I have plus some great variety of oddities that I shelled out for, I'm now a lot more frugal in my purchases and preference for buses of character. I have had a look at the weather it could be ok to risk just a trip to Lymm for trucks as it could do anything. The delays with Mandy car which is sitting at the showroom at Ellesmere Port for weeks. Hopefully Mandy will get it ready for travelling to Ireland next Sunday. I'm heading south to see my pal John Bishop, then some filming and a week Thursday visit Peter Waller of OTA to have our usual social come film collection ready for scanning. What can I offer well they had some nice shots of Cuba in Classic Bus so why not head there. Our latest DVD releases completed yesterday. Any week ahead with mixed weather. I think another archive film would be in order. Mandy picks up her new car today, our first hybrid it's a Jazz in East Kent or may be Ribble red and black roof. We had a go at getting the old one sparkling for trade in and I gave the little Toyota IQ a good clean. It is now within a thousand miles of going round the clock and is booked in for a refurbishment in February 23. I'm still working on the diorama with the dual carriageway and roadside cafe complete with a full lorry park. The basics are now all in place including backdrop and sky. We marked Remembrance day at St Wilfred's at Mobberley, a full church with youngest putting on a really well rehearsed effort, afterwards the tribute to the fallen was outside by the village war memorial in the autumnal sunshine. It seemed almost surreal not setting the alarm clock for a bus event but with an official start time of 2pm the NWVRT event was worth getting up for and it was obvious that hundreds of hours of hard work had gone in to make sure the fleet would look it's best. With the addition of several visiting buses there was a great mix of ages and types, enough to satisfy most enthusiasts. We took the PMP stand along but it was quiet for Mandy as most people were too busy riding and then lapping up that special atmosphere of buses in the dark. So a great day out and yes I'll be editing the film tomorrow afternoon and this together with the St Helens trip on Friday will very soon be loaded on the shop. We had the pleasure of meeting many of our younger followers many through Youtube. A few selfies were taken and the usually hard working tirelessly friendly NWVRT crew really got to grips with the organisation and as ordinary members as well as sponsors we are looking forward to the annual dinner at Rainford. So without further ado here are a few humble offering from yours truly. I guess the latest Boyle St restoration took a bit of the limelight. We really do hope that the forecast for dry mild weather will draw plenty of you out for the first Nocturnal Running Day at Kirkby. It reminds me of our days sponsoring the Heart of the Pennines rally and with the autumn event which also drew a good crown. We'll have plenty of Christmas present material and all at the very special price of just £10 per DVD. A new release launches as well, yes it is on Merseyside! Sorry no photos as the computer has been working hard for the past few days backing up the first extension drive with masses of scanned cine film files. These should all be loaded by Friday and I'll thrown in the DVD covers and still images to complete the drive's capacity. Using the office computer there are few USB ports compared to the new beasts but I like to be able to use them for editing and downloading current material. Being Windows 10 the new machines are a lot less user friendly with mass transfers of data. Oh for the joys and positive feel of XP the best Microsoft ever did and still for us churning out the DVD covers. Hopefully I'll be able to plug in for photos tomorrow. I'm also intending to film at St Helens tomorrow morning then get ready to load the car for Saturdays nocturnal running day at Kirkby.
I managed to get my hair cut at last, beginning to look like a sheep. We called at Holdcroft's in E Port to see what was happening with Mandy's new car. We could see it out in the back yard there, looks very nice. They were waiting for the registration document to make the transfer of plates to our cherished PMP version. The agreement is as the DVLA are on strike that we'll just take the car with the reg on Monday whether the document arrives or not. Looking forward to seeing many of you Saturday, we'll have all DVDs at just £10 each for one day only at the NWVRT. The final diorama is taking more and more shape and should be finished this month. Although the adverse weather has taken its toll on filming it has given me an opportunity to get on with the scenery. All the sky is in place and the cafe itself finished. The trees arrived today and a couple of bits of scenic stuff for the surfaces. I've spent a long time looking at backdrops and should be ok .
I was trying to get a job finished before Kirkby Saturday with the old traffic monitor footage by with 3 hour tapes the file sizes are mammoth. Still it will be done again by the end of November, the original digitised files were lost in the summer of extension drive catastrophe!. The nest archive film will be Down Your Way Hampshire, no date on that depends on other commitments. Mandy's new car has been a pain, an old chap at Honda Ellesmere Port really didn't understand what he should have done but we'll pop in tomorrow as I'm getting my hair cut in the Port and then its the Polio Fellowship annual meal on the Wirral. The back up of the first extension drive with scanned films is taking some copying but at least I'll have two copies on top of that which is already with OTA in Shrewsbury. Putting it on a cloud with our internet speed would take weeks, even months. There was supposed to be light cloud at Widnes and Runcorn so set off there early to catch any school related workings but the weather was mostly sunny and any cloud brought wind and rain, even a bit of sleet which seemed strange. Anyway I took the external drive to Currys and swapped it for hopefully one that will at least fire up. They wouldn't give me a refund on the cloud which I hated and only had one day. I've deleted it from my programmes hopefully it is all gone, trying to get a refund it was go to the shop, then the shop go and phone them. I'm sure there are cloud storage options which work a lot better than Currys who have hardly any instructions and it is not in the least bit intuitive to operate. That said I'm having a hell of a time getting files back up on the beast so I've shut it down and wil do so with the office computer, sway the external drives to this computer and at least I can think about editing then. Still not sure what weather tomorrow holds in store.
I have however made good progress on the last part of the diorama which is the 1960-70's truck stop and lorry park and an old warehouse where there must have been some dodgy dealing going on. As long as I can get all the structure done and backdrops finished I can paint figures and detailing as and when without all the clutter of card and glue everywhere. |
PMP Sponsors the North West Vehicle Restoration Trust at Kirkby.
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