SPRING COMES AT LAST

The ship canal yesterday outside my office window
Dave at work sending out safety award t shirts, I got slagged off by female staff on my folding technique, ( or lack of it)

My car broke down last night and today I'm still waiting to get it picked up, thankfully its a works car and I wasn't far from home, Mandy rescued me as the work side had a problem with the lease company and Vauxhall re business recovery, this came about as I was the first to have a car under new arrangements, fun being a learning curve. Still the garden looks fine, I hope to have some nice spring photos on by the weekend. An order yesterday for Crich 2002 wasn't on DVD yet but I did it as I thought it would be a popular choice and its already on You Tube. The list still being updated on the web as I go, aren't I good? Mandy is off to Ireland today so I'll be in charge of PMP for the next week and thus very busy.

GOOD NEWS ON MANDY'S KNEE

Last night was taken up with visit to hospital to see consultant Mr Geary , good news was that the MRI scan on Mandy's knee showed little permanent dam,age from the fall last December ( remember on our return from Boyle St in the gales). Some serious physio is still required and more time for healing.
We didn't get back until late and spent a bit of timer catching up with the soaps on telly. Hopefully tonight I'll get the Hull truck DVD wrapped up and on the You Tube site. I did manage to get Buses and TUT adverts placed before we went out. The next Target is to finish copying John Bishops L Country 70s hirings cine for Best Ever London Country which I hope to finish over next weekend while Mandy is in Ireland. Next door but one was burgled night before last, very worrying.
People who rented house opposite for a while, super rich , loads of flash cars but very nice all the same, moved short distance to their rebuilt house, held at gunpoint with robbers pointing shot gun at their 3 year old, they ended up stealing just £10, the only cash in the house.

GOING SOLO IN DERBYSHIRE

Castleton today Sunday 18th Feb 2007, a sunny midday cruise without video but couldn't resist a few bus shots
Buxton, early afternoon today
near Macclesfield on the way home in Cheshire, not bad 3 independents with Solos, other operators seen were First and Trent. Edited the Hull truck programme and hope to get adverts ready for Buses mag etc.

HARROGATE KEIGHLEY JOHN BISHOP RENOWNED AUTHOR

Today we had the company of John and Maureen Bishop, John renowned Ian Alan transport author of many books accompanied us to explore Harrogate and Keighley.
Keighly, the light was failing but lots of new route branding in evidence

Harrogate, nothing really new but still impressive.
Blessed with good weather but winter sun always a bitch for shadows

TRUCKING IN HULL

Today I rattled over the pennines in a Transit van for work, after dropping of some urgent parts I had my lunch time a bit late filming the trucks near thedocks, it was cold and windy and dull until nearly time to leave. Made it back to pick my car up at Bolton about 5 then got stuck on M6 near home! Nothing New.

NORTH KOREA VIETNAM

Typical Vietnam
Hanoi Tram, they didn't last long
North Korean Gold mine loco
North Korean Trolleybus ( show model?)
En route to North Korea voa Pakistan

No not a day excursion but a trip to Vietnam by Martin Rickitt in 1989 amongst the first to see post war Vietnam and then in 1992 he went with a group to North Korea. Both out now on DVD. Tomorrow I'm over in Hull for work, hope to get a few trucks filmed.

WREXHAM BEGGARS BELEIVING

Today I popped out to Wrexham, the light looked good and I wanted to test a camera which had been playing up at the weekend. The snow had all gone and it was bright but no shadows. I got accosted by a beggar within seconds of arriving by the bus station, very friendly drivers though. A few head bangers, drug addicts etc but then that's Britain today.

PDRNK NORTH KOREA

A busy evening, now released on DVD Martin Rickitt's coverage of North Korea 1992 and his trip to Vietnam in 1989, the latter caught the last era of the trolleys and trams in Hanoi. I sussed out how to reduce the amount of pages displayed on the blog which will make it quicker to open, the archive has all the back postings. I'll put some pics on tomorrow

TRUCKING SUNDAY

guess what I've been doing, yes the covers for recent truck releases covering the mid 90s, here's a taster selection. A cold sunny day, cars washed, Swiss Tram / Trolley DVDs made.

SNOW SUN A FUNERAL AND A VISIT TO WALES

Dinner at the Olde Bull, highly recommended
no snow here, sunshine all day at Aber thingy
Newtown, where are the indians?
Well I got a couple of snow shots eventually, not a trace of white at Lower Peover
Pudding at Bull, even better than dinner, bit drunk to really enjoy it, but did our best!!

A great send off to Mandy's auntie Amy down at Beaumaris on Friday, super stay at Ye Olde Bulls Head where with family we drank and chatted until the early hours then rose somewhat fuzzy headed and after a hearty breakfast headed through the mountains to Portmadoc and on to Aberystwyth. No snow on Anglesey at all, a bit more heading south west and loads coming back through Newtown, the wild west of central Wales, hasn't got any better since our enforced stop one night amongst scenes of debauchery and drunken lasciviousness, ie drunks spewing in gutters and wandering all over the roads.

FRIDAY ICE SNOW AND A FUNERAL

Ballarat and Melbourne 1971 courtesy Alan Mortimer and last night i started on truck covers for our new Brit Truck range, they look very brash I'd say. Well what snow we got came late and not much of it, I got my hair cut on the way home, any chances of snowy bus scenes dashed again. Family funeral today in Anglesey.

AUSTRALIA 1971 ALAN MORTIMER

I promised some photos, I scanned these tonight, Australia back in 1971, Alan worked for the Brighton Bus Co in Melbourne suburbs. See it isn't just trams in Melbourne.

LUGANO TROLLEYBUSES

Hi everyone, its been a bitter cold morning temp around -5 when I got up, snow forecast tomorrow. Last night I managed to edit 1995 Truckfest. This ends my run of truck films as I'm getting bored. I dug out my 1991 footage of Lugano trolleybuses, one of the very attractive systems which folded shortly after our visit , there's about 20 minutes, I returned to Switzerland at the end of 1992 and have several other systems covered, it should all extend to a couple of volumes at least.

We are staying at the bulls Head in Beaumaris on Friday after the family funeral. An outside chance I'll have time to get down the Welsh coast on Saturday. Heavy snow permitting, goody snow scenes.

Sorry light on photos this week so far, I'm sure I'll rectify before week is out.

cheers
dAve

AONTHER BEREAVEMENT, A CHILL START TO THE YEAR

We heard yesterday that Mandy's auntie Amy down in Beaumaris in Anglesey has died, the funeral will be Friday. This follows on from her aunt Kath who dies just after new year.

The weather was snow and ice this morning. I'm posed with the camera bag in the car ready to capture any decent snow scenes, Thursday looks best for this.

I've booked a long weekend in Hong Kong at the end of May, three full days there should enable a good look at the island, Kowloon and New Territories. Staying on Nathan Rd in the thick of things. This replaces the polish trip which wasn't good value at Whitsun with high Easyjet fares. Rum do when HK is cheaper than Poland.

Yet another programme on trucks from 90s finished last night and today should see the 95 Truckfest reissued on one volume. Remember video only has an hour, the DVDs often run much longer.

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE

HI everyone,
the web site is still getting record numbers of hits, is it providing what you need. Last night I finished yet more truck DVDs, we are trying to boost stocks so we can cover some commercial rallies this year. I was particularly impressed how cheap a stand was at Truckfest at Peterborough compared with say Showbus.

The truck clips on You Tube are getting many more hits than busesc , next are trams, then trolleys, buses third place so far.

I'm thinking of doing a few Manchester compilations ready for Boyle St in March.

We had to revert to the older more simple blog format as the other one we tried wouldn't support a counter. Did anyone notice.

We had a rare night out in the local on Saturday night, The Crown, it was almost empty, shrouded in fog although a few more people from the village rolled in after 10pm. Our landlady is a little strange to say the least, not exactly mein host.

GARDEN SPRING CLEAN AT PMP

Mandy completes a rush order for Ian Allan London, last night. All orders cleared and today Sunday I had a session spring cleaning the gardens although the temperature hardly crept above freezing all day. I've also managed to edit yet another two truck films from the 90s, did a bit of family history and even read the paper! Trip wise , the first trip to France with Mandy has gone back to September, another trip will take it's place in May.

VISIT TO HULL

The diminutive Enviro family member in East Yorkshire fleet today. A very sunny day about 12 degrees, foggy back in Cheshire and 4 degrees. We called in at Selby on way home but couldn't find anywhere for a brew so didn't bother stopping, looked as if Abbey was worth looking at. Hull was full of idiots and football 'fans', police everywhere. Which is worse the police or the dick heads they look after, seem to breed off each other. After a period on the up the city seems to be sinking into the mire once more.

Slipped this in to keep maritime flavour, the boats still pass my window in the office.


nice scenic one for those who want to see the finer sights of the city, a huge telly blares our around the corner

MARK ELDER GIVES IT SOME WELLIE

Its been a quiet week for orders, hope you'll be inspired to remedy that but it gave us time to get to the Halle last night despite a smash on the M%^ which caused Mandy to go into divert mode around the back of the airport. A Wagner evening interspersed with Elgar's Sea Songs, all very pleasant, inspiring and stunning. He certainly gets the most out of an orchestra.

We are still working on the truck archives, a couple should be ready this weekend. The You Tube and blog don't seem to have produced any contacts so far, is it a waste of time. I know at least one of you is reading the blog as we have discussed scanning negatives. Anyone else out there, I used to get loads of feedback from the newsletter ( well more than now).

Family history, researchers now contacted for Ireland re my natural father, fingers crossed.

Autobiography, a local publisher in Sussex contacted re my early Sussex days as a stand alone.

TRUCKING BACK IN TIME

after all that modern Australian stuff a couple of Victoria scenes from 1971 courtesy Alan Mortimer, these are actually in preparation of our titles from Alan's cine footage long time in the pipeline, still a way off getting done
Mildura
North Melbourne

anyone take part in the big bird watch last weekend, we did as usual and had a pretty poor showing of species other than one gold finch which added variety to the chaffinches, tits and sparrows, oh and of course the pigeons.

Everything now updated on e bay and the list on the web site now has separate DVD and video section.

Also started work on truck archives UK in early 90s to start, I'm going to try and re do all the truck stuff as I think it now has potential archive interest.