TODAY I HAVE BEEN TO HELL OOPS HULL AND BACK

Another year has passed and there has been little change in the degeneration of Hull, it was a speculative visit albeit I set off or at least got up that is at 5.30am to get through the Bradford,Leeds bottle neck. The traffic heading back towards Manchester is a solid queue from 6am so even worse than heading east. Once past Leeds it grinds on through the inevitable road works before finally clearing past the M1 turn and then you can sail on over the remainder of the motorwar and glide past the Humber bridge in time to meet the commuter traffic heading into Hull, yes that' two cars, the rest are just trying to get out. I would say there are lots of very friendly bus drivers there, often the case I think it is solidarity, like the police waving as they pass, a fellow traveler who is only trying to do a job and not hurt anyone. I managed to get a reasonable deal on the parking, they should actually pay people to visit not chargh3e them but I had breakfast at Neros opposite the station, avoiding Costa like the plaque should be zero rated. Actually the cafe we were going to use at Llandudno was closed and rated one star, you get that for putting your name on the form, last saw something like that in Whitstable in Kent. The promised cloud all day never happened, I went through sleet on the M62 then the sky cleared, I made the best of periods of cloud, mainly shower bearing but with that and some over by the BBC and garden I got my quota of film. Had a nice chat with an amateur photographer, he agreed getting stuff done early in Hull avoids some of the worst elements although I found walking across the empty wilderness which passes for a centre that the yobs were going at it hell for leather mid morning.

Next was back to the car and move up over the bridge to the roundabout which is so good for filming the trucks, oh no they are converting it to have two lames for dock traffic avoiding going round the roundabout itself, another good spot ruined. The light had really gone over to sunshine but I stuck with it and there was plenty of interesting lorry traffic although it did quieten down a lot after lunch. I'm sure that I can use many of the other possible locations especially the outbound side of the bridge so will return in the summer to see what I can make of it. Yesterday we saw our first primroses of spring and the first daffodil, how appropriate being in Wales was that, I was also spotted by Mandy's cousin Dudley and Ann who had noticed me filming from Debenhams. I think I'd moved back to Mandy at the car park and we missed one another. I did forget to take my still camera, so much going on, anyway I took some still one the video camera, which by the way is playing up, another job I must get a replacement, perhaps I'll check Ebay in the morning, like the model I have, will try for a good condition used one, few people hammer them like me! I'm still working on the St Oswald flower show, church 750th anniversary 'history', trying to find suitable stimulating bullet points in its long history. Had a chat with John Bishop, brought him up to speed on the situation re deposit of cine films in the Online archive and later Martin Rickitt rang re the Asia trip which he is up for so will start booking when he gets back from a wildlife trip to the Carribean. Photos tonight from Bangor yesterday. Working on the DVD masters from Hull and have several to load as digital download options and need to update Amazon and Ebay shops, it never ends does it.