GETTING BACK TO NORMAL MANDY HOME TONIGHT

Greeting from the heart of PMP Films as we resume normal service after a week on the road in Sri Lanka. The last couple of memory cards are being unloaded as I type and with that task completed I hope to get the first volume of our bus coverage done before Many arrives home with Sue later this evening after their stay in Ireland. I'm looking forward to hearing how the Dublin Port rally went, although as she hasn't been mentioning it I expect it fell short of expectations but we'll see. Our next rally will be this coming weekend up at the annual Bridgeton depot running day  in Glasgow, the stock was packed before I went off to Sri Lanka so just these very latest films to add and we are raring to go once more. We got the quotes through today on the February flights to Dhaka via Dubai and stop off on our way back at Calcutta where the tramway is at long last mainly open with the majority of main routes working, for a time it looked as if it was all on a slippery slope lets hope that they have a great future as India looks at clean city transport options. Talking of which the traffic in Colombo was anything but clean but everywhere they have emission testing stations, perhaps they just test but then do nothing as my flannels were black when I washed.

It was inevitably a hard day back at work catching up on things and my trainer's wife had been taken ill and thankfully our operations manager stood in at the last minute. One of our longest serving engineers lost his wife over the weekend after a fairly lengthy illness, managed to sort out a sensible sympathy card, so many are just OTT. I managed to get a lot of stuff sorted as tomorrow I'll be out interviewing apprentices at Birkenhead, there seem to be a rush of meetings coming up this month plus I've some trips to site to make for safety briefing, this may prove fruitful for some stop overs with the camera if the weather is kind. This morning the weather was nothing but bad with string winds and heavy rain, this seemed to have a knock on effect with the traffic which was grid locked throughout much of the North West of England, it's a bit better now and I've been out to feed the birds who must be feeling neglected.

There was a small bundle or heap is a better word of parcels from around the globe parked in our greenhouse with Atlas EBay orders being delivered whilst Martin and I were living the high life in Sri Lanka. It's certainly one of the most humid of destinations and sweat running down your face and into your eyes makes filming a bit of a challenge. I'm going to give you another series of taster photos from the trip this evening. I'm quite looking forward to seeing the results especially as it was often challenging. The people on the whole were much better than in 1980 when begging from adults and most children was rife, things have changed a lot in that respect. There are large shanty areas in towns but this is now more the exception although I read that the railway into Jaffna due to open soon will have few if any Tamil speakers on it's staff. A feeling of inclusion for all their people will be hard to realise with that attitude. Interesting to see the towns picking themselves up but a lot of hidden scars besides the minefields and bullet riddled buildings.