ENGLAND WATER STILL RISING

It has been a far from wonderful Christmas for much of the north of England as the focus of the flooding reached down from the Lake District and Cumbria to Lancashire, Gtr Manchester and Yorkshire. Mandy and I thought it weird a couple of weeks back that no mention had been made of the floods we witnessed in Yorkshire and indeed of the widespread flooding in the East Midlands. I can't remember the Irwell in Manchester / Salford ever flooding before, it has been canalised over the year to freshen it up, once a dirty, foul water course it now features wild fowl and fish. The destructive power of water is as bad as fire, pervasive and unrelenting in it's destruction. We are luck as we are on a slight slope with our land runing down so our water drains away from us. Although wet forever and a day this December it's never been out of control and I topped up the bird feeders this afternoon and it wasn't that bad even on the lawn. I was really out trying to set the new flood lighjt at the back, I used Martin's trick of taking a photo then took the setting of the one at the front and transfered them to the new one, now its later afternoon and dark the proof of this little pudding will be if it only turns on when required, first attempt it just kept coming on all the time.

Not surprisingly there isn't a lot to report with the Christmas holiday period extending seemingly forever with yet another holiday tomorrow, Monday. The shops though will be in full swing and I've no desire to witness the sales. I have taken a peep ahead in preparation to normal filming duties returning and note that Tuesday should be 100% sunshine, lorries should be out in force so I'll try nearby Middlewich and thus won't be too far away if it doesn't work out. Wednesday should be cloudy but bright so I'll keep tabs on the forecasts and hopefully get some buses recorded. We travel down to Hampshire for New Years Eve with my sisters and will perhaps be able to take in Oxford on the way if the light is suitable and who knows perhaps even stop off on the Saturday before returning home. Then we shall be focussing on Colombia which I found with some really nice shots on Flickr taken 2010, the photographer did buses as well, I attempted to find him on Facebook to send a message but the name seemed common in latin countries. There did seem to be a great variety so fingers crossed.

Work has continued on the cine films and I've a few more hours worth on Youtube and reels of cone listed on EBsay albeit quiet there at present. I'm recording more films right now with some interesting material passing through from Greece, to Morroco, Fiji to Norway. We had a very pleasant afternoon and evening with Phil and Emma and the children down on the farm yesterday,  a traumatic year ahead for all diary farmers as they must face the prospect of more years working at a loss or leaving the milk business.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/culturabus/albums/72157614442195351

you could copy and past this link to go to the Flickr page which has the lorry photos for Colombia some interesting stuff, surely 5 years on much still remains to be seen.