Actually it was all good news other than the nasty Shearings driver, why would someone as bad as that take up coach driving, clearly a person hater as I as usual smiled, waved and gave thumbs up at Appleton Thorn and of course all the lorry drivers were great, ditto the other Shearings drivers. The old story, vehicle approaching, you wouldn't be able to identify the driver if you wanted to, gets to the middle of a roundabout then pauses to issue his tirade, probably a public order and a traffic offence and putting at risk Shearings operators licence. We really have to take a stand each and every time these bad things happen.

Why is it so particular to bus and coach drivers plus of course security guards. The chap seemed to be English so we can't throw this one at the Polish proto- terrorist groups - just an old fashioned bully boy. The others all made up for it and I had a pretty good time at Appleton Thorn near Stobarts UK land transport HQ as the trucks made their last outings in 2018, lots of tractor units around there and at Lymm. It was generally very quiet, first thing it was heavy cloud  but it did lighten a little as the day wore on but after lunch time it all went dead. I moved to Lymm to get the lasts few minutes but even the service approach road was quiet, most of the vehicles were coming from Stobarts direction although a WS came off the M6.

Well despite these events I send my good wishes to one and all including the abusive DVD customer from the Isle of Man, never sent him anything before - hope he never comes near us again. The year as a whole was free from a lot of hassle it was only the SYPTE which blighted it a lot, I've still to get back to Yorkshire police to get them to restart the investigation into the temporary bus station manager who threw his weight around a bit too far from 'home', the PTE sought to support his illegal and unwarranted attack which of course brings to mind all the other times that this wretched organisation has blighted the British transport industry and it supporters and enthusiasts. Another case of why be in this position.

I thought about doing a review of the year but there is so much hatred left in me that it is difficult to talk about all the lovely people we know through the hobby. Abroad it seems so much easier, what a wonderful time I had in Malaysia, Singapore ( mostly) Indonesia, Russia and Ukraine etc.I'm so glad I never listened to those who preached against the Russian trip, wonderful people, welcoming, polite  and
helpful. They always say if Hitler had invaded Britain they would be lining up to offer their services these types, yes little Hitlers live on in Britain and now want to pull up the drawbridge on Europe and ruin a generation which on the whole has known peace. If you look to the Balkans, Caucasus and break up of the USSR you see how change can go awfully wrong.  Another reason I cannot discuss this year Brexit, shame on those who brought this upon us, Cameroons who thought of it and then ran away, those xenophobes who backed the UKIP lies. Obviously there is work to be done, especially with immigration, but who started the break up of the Middle East, yes wonderful Britain in it's glory days of empire, divide and rule - it all comes home to roost.

One an upbeat note the shots I took today at Appleton Thorn! Clips from the DVD of this are going on Youtube this evening.

A sort of bitty day when I never really got my teeth into any one things, rather I dipped into a lot and got a bit done here and there. The good news comes twice, I found that I'd kept the miniDv tapes of the cine films I'd digitised and thus don't need to copy them again other than put to digital once more. Thus when I selected another batch of films today to copy rather than do the same again in a short time span I an increasing my pile of cine reels which can be deposited for long term safe keeping although I hope some get a film show outing or two rather than slumber in the dark. When I copied the first two reels today the lamp went on the projector, amazingly I'd put the two spares in the drawer marked 'bulbs', well there has to be a first time for everything but when I changed it there was still no light. I remembered my pal John Bishop said that the prongs on the lamp can get coated, I guess the electricity oxidises the metal, so cleaned then off with the edge of my scissors and hey presto I was back in action. Really nice watching some of the original cine again mostly after many years storage.

I've copied HEC Peircey 1973 Poland and the Terry Barker 1962 and 1958 German trams and trolleybuses, it's the trolleys which make this one so desirable. I've packed that up for the evening. I've done research on accessible outings for the Polio Fellowship next year and also for St Oswalds 750th celebrations, I'm trying to draw out theme for the flower festival. I've also been putting together material for a Bus Spot Ultra on Brighton. There is an abundance of material so I need to be very selective, the old archive section while nowadays least popular takes the longest to prepare. Very few people view the older material on Youtube but there are many gems there. I load our archives now to our shop as raw material for research or with a licence for commercial use. It is still surprising that people are downloading digital films thinking they are DVDs, the price alone would give the game away as well as the category and media descriptions. It is also surprising that anyone uses Amazon to purchase when they charge postage and it is free in UK in our shop.

I've spoken to my friend Martin this afternoon and we are progressing the Asia trip in March, I'm looking at a few tweaks to add a 'rail' element to the travel hopefully in North Borneo. I will research that this evening. I'm looking at truck filming tomorrow morning if it isn't too dark, nowhere far away though. The next bus DVDs will possibly cover Wrexham and Chester, nice handy places for a winter excursion. Here are some shots from Stoke last week.

Youtube posts on for the Southhampton Docks DVD.

While I've been working I listened to a few hours of Tony Blackburns Sounds of the 60's, when it finished I ended up with Radio2 live, what a load of drivel they now play, sounds more modern than radio1 although I must admit I don't know what radio1 plays at all.

Today I started on a possible bus spot ultra series candidate of Brighton although to some extent I've an overabundance of material for this especially when we think of all the Southdown material we have plus the BH&D and trolleybuses etc from our friend John Bishop. I started filming there early in my video career so there are almost annual trip from the late 80's as well as Tilling, BH&D, Southdown,NBC, Corporation etc right through to 2018 although if I take my time perhaps it will be up to 2019. I wonder what the first candidate for the New Year will be, there are plenty of locations not too far from home and big ones at that. It seems light quite late today as the sun came through mid afternoon. I've got several of the latest DVDs uploaded for digital sales and all my recent trips photos filed, just need to put them on the Smugmug still photo sales site, link via this site.

I think we'll be off down the Crown this evening as Thursday is our usual night and we only came home Thursday evening from Hampshire, I don't think we'll bother with New Years eve, had enough excitement for one Christmas. The electric has been dipping and cutting off  since we'v been back, nothing new there then, phoned Scottish power told them what I thought of them and rated 1 on Trust Pilot, adding to all their other abysmal scores, not a company renowned for service. We've had power outages for 40 years in the village, it gets better sometimes then back to where we started, wrote to Esther McVey our mp, we might not like her politics but she usually does her constituency stuff ok. Scottish Power are themselves owned by the Spanish, doesn't bode well does it.

Well from the new DVDs the recent releases covers then some shots from my trip to see the trucks at Southampton on Christmas Eve.

After the chaos on the UK roads yesterday the traffic including lorries has today slumped to about 20% of normal, I'll poke my nose out on Monday but doubt if it will be much difference. It won't get back into full swing until Wednesday or Thursday as in the UK Scotland has an extra day to get over the New Year ie wear off the hang overs and thus a clue to why Scotland has some of the worst mortality rates in the UK.

I spent a few hours at the A500 southern turn off the M6 motorway and scraped together enough material for a DVD. It was a good balance though with lots of different companies and a classic Foden and a three truck heavy load convoy with rail wagons on them. We then came back home and had a late lunch and went to Altrincham to but a new toaster which matches the new kettle that Yvonne and Graham bought us for Christmas at Dunhelms. We had searched for an orange one including looking on the net so strange it never showed in the results. Anyway nothing wrong with the old one other than tending to toast one side more than the other so its now pushing up cobwebs in the garage. We found the PMP labels for envelopes in the garage after chasing delivery, the carrier never put a note on the door to tell us.

I've now got two truck DVDs to edit, clips will go on Youtube over the weekend and digital uploads will go on the shop. I intend to make more inroads into the PMP Film Archive getting more digitised which may well go off for external storage and safe keeping. The images will be on the shop to download and commercial use is available with the licence which is downloaded at the same time it can also be used to cover film from DVDs. Here are shots from this morning.

It's great to be back after a family Christmas, a terrible journey home from Hampshire with nightmare post Christmas traffic on all the roads. We can however bring you the stills from our Christmas Eve visit to look at Southampton dock traffic. We are settling in back at home and getting all the DVD orders ready to send out tomorrow ( Friday). Perhaps I'll even have a little time to film near home!

The weather in Hampshire has been dry, still and mild straight through the christmas period. Ive just popped out fir some more milk and yiu hardy Clickhereneeded a coat. We are expecting about fourteen for the party this evening. It will soon be time to get cracking with the buffet. We've mopped up a few chocolate biscuits for lunch and the vast array of left overs from the delicious dinner yesterday have variously been discarded, salvaged for the buffet or transformed into bubble and squeak. We had a mega may I. Bed this morning and I think we bit our annual record for late dressing hardly making it before lunch time. I guess the towns and shopping centres will be crammed but I won't be going near them. Our dvd orders have started to flow through and hopefully we'll be back in time to make a good start on them and get everything away Friday morning but I'm still open to last minute film destinations should the weather be suitable. I think snow scene to escenes are going to be in short supply for the remainder of 2018. The present distribution took a fair while yesterday afternoon and the family party games took us right up until midnight. Food is still plentiful and the fridge is bulging with sausage rolls, minceoies and trifles. I was really pleased to hear from our friend Alan in Perth australia and that he has had s bew heart valve and is up and ready for more adventures. The state of emergency in ukraine has finished which puts us in a good position for our third all Ukraine team and trolleybus trip series this time centered in khsrkov. Lots of great destinations lined up including indonesua, hi g Kong, Brunei, taiwan and the Philippines plus perhaps Malta and a couple of trips to ireland north and south. Talking of Ireland Hil and Sean are struck down by flu at the moment. Mandy and myself both hope that you have had a super Christmas and that you will follow our adventures through the coming year. Remember all dvds are now uploaded as digital downloads as well as dvds offering a tremendous saving.

We had Christmas eve at seashekls restaurant at hythe and then came bacj to yvinnes andacaught up with the soaps before bed. Then a lay in  until mid morning and up start helping with operation Christmas dinner which Graham leads. I started the blog early enough but a couple of hours have slipped by and the table has been laid, the capon is cooking, the roast spuds papart boiled, the gammon sliced and the other vegetables when cooked will go in special warmers warmers whiwhich can be rushed up direct at the table. I've got my special flashing Christmas tie on and around two pm peolle may start arriving. Margaret myself and yvonne will go down to the cemetery about two pm and put a posie on pats memorial stone. It won't be that stressful there are seven of us for dinner but tomorrow it's a buffet with still hit of around fourteen family. Presnts are opened in the afternoon
We head home on thursday and clear the dvd orders before new year celebration get under way, I did get enough film yesterday for a dvd on soutsouthampton dock traffic perhaps I'll sandwich something else in at the end of the week.  We will start working our way through the annual filming round next week with some of the major bus centres early on including Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. I'll try and get some more bus spot ultra programmes completed over the winter. I'll also start booking the first of my film trips overseas starting with Asia in march visiting Hong Kong then taiway and on the the Philipines a and finishing off in Brunei returning via kl in Malaysia. Our best wishes to all of you who celebrate this time of year.

I'm not sure if there will be much if any dock traffic at Southampton this morning but if it stays dry I may have a run down it's not far from our Yvonne's place at Hythe. A trickle of internet orders is still arriving on our shop these will be cleared on our return at the end of the week. My brother in law grahan is working today but will be back to join us for dinner at seashells restaurant tonight. We are hoping to get to the afternoon service at st John's in Hythe later this afternoon. Nothing much else to report from here

I really can't be bothered to type it all out again so suffice to say we are settled in at Yvonne and Graham's in Hampshire , we went shopping late last night and had a sleep in this morning and are about to go out for breaksbre to Lyndhurst in the new direct. No editing or dvds for a few days back home Thursday night. We will be seven for Christmas dinner and fourteen boxing day. Chilli con carne by Graham tonight, eating at seashells restaurant Monday night. We hope you all have a great christmas.

I'm going to start discussions with other archives re the future safekeeping of our film archive and the possibility of having interesting material released for copying, more next year. Well that's pretty well it from us before Christmas, hopefully we'll all keep in touch over the holiday period when we are with my sister and family down in Hampshire. We are nearly ready to start making arrangements for our 2019 trips after receiving feedback today on Mandy's lung ct scan. It seems that nothing has changed and they will just monitor it on an annual basis. Thus with the two of us having the all clear but both under observation we can at least resume normal life and feel free to book events and travel. I've made good progress with the Bus Spot Ultra Stockport with just 45 minutes of 120mins total left to compile. There are some nice shots, I've resisted the temptation to throw in all the archives I can find as I know that a lot of viewers prefer to see material they can relate to or at least their dads tell them about!

We had our friend Emma round this morning with young Sam and Daisy, Sam has an interest in all sorts of vehicles and together with his younger sister both are coming along well with horse riding. Here we are all packed and ready to go and I'll put the Amazon shop on holiday mode as orders are coming in after we declared closure, we have suitable stamps to put them in the post en route but don't expect anything in the post now until a week today. I got a DVD back from the Isle of Man with a very rude note, they ordered it in June and it was sent by return of post by the Manx post office only delivered it this month, strange they never contacted us about the non delivery, I know I've a finger in many pies but I really don't run the post on the Isle of Man. Thanks to all of you who have sent cards along, we have too many to put them all up I think it would be a fire hazard.

Anyone seen the new bus Magazine from Kelsey 'On the Buses', it costs nearly £8, based on Commercial Motor photo archive and published articles say 40s to 60's. Lawrence at our village shop got on on SOR and let me do a preview. Buses in now out but I'll knock our Amazon shop off until next week - if you are ordering online please do it on the PMP website ie you are looking at it now unless you are reading on Facebook. Here are the covers for our recent DVD releases all with digital download on the shop at just £8.