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No idea. We left quickly and no-one died...

It flooded the forecourt at the Shell... 😳

We have arrived in The North. Dinner.

Train three achieved and our collective first visits to Wigan.

Carlisle has been achieved. The authorities are so far unaware.

Also as it is official SVM business...

Train one. Then there was a Greggs. It didn't last. Train two's one of these new fangled BLT trains. Poo count so far: nil.

A train has occurred.

645 steps later...

With Covid having massively disrupted the repatriation efforts, today officially marks the resumption of The SVM's mission - to move all of the Volvos north of the border. We start the day on foot.

I always swore I'd never sell my blue Cavalier SRi I had when I was 21 but life got in the way and a sudden storage loss meant it left in 2017. That stung a bit. On the other side of the permanence coin, after my first Volvo (a grey 740GLE saloon) was an absolute disaster and completely unreliable, I swore I'd never have another Volvo ever. In June 2012 the Council Estate arrived with the intention to run it only the six weeks til it's MOT expired. Almost a decade later it's still here, pre-dating my marriage and both my kids. Unless there is a really huge change in circumstances it'll never leave.

Being punted about more than normal this past fortnight; today's chariot was former Lothian 626, a Dennis Trident still carrying East Coast Buses livery.

Gibson Direct, Renfrew; doors closed April 4th, following Henry Crawford on April 1st. Crawford was a retiral, Gibson collapsed.

Morning all. I've been getting about the last few weeks... also some new* kit joined the fleet, four Plaxton Leopard bodied Volvo B8Rs from the recently collapsed Gibson Direct fleet.

I can't lie, even I've upgraded this year's accomodation from a Volvo estate...

Second in four days; Henry Crawford Coaches at Shillford ceased on April 1st though Jim Crawford had been winding things down for a while; his last school contract ceased on that day. Gibson collapsed suddenly on the 4th; I used to keep a couple of my preserved buses there when I was freelancing and eventually I did a year there in 2013/14. Most of the drivers have been found work thankfully.

I'm in depending on leave, quicker we get a date the quicker I can sort it. Any date suits.

These F-FDV Mercs were a staple of my early spotting years; together with the similar F-KOD and F-EJO batches these little dual purpose 25 seaters cemented my continuing love of the Mercedes T2 range. Second one in here is F740 FDV which I knew well, at least as a regular passenger; Gibson Direct operated several of this batch, with 718, 729, 740, 745, 763 and 764, along with F412 KOD, being long standing fleetmembers. On a sideways note, Gibson Direct ceased trading last Monday after 26 years with the loss of around forty jobs. F740 FDV pictured here at Govan bus station in happier times.

I never normally sleep that well in B&Bs but the bed was outstanding, blackout blinds and nice and cool... think I went up about 10am and woke up about 3.30. Teachers said it was snowing through the day. Oh dear, how sad.

0145 sign on, 0200 out the depot. School picked up at 3, 30 minute break at Charnock Richard then into Alton Towers for 8.45am. Tacho out, 9 hours day rest in a fantastic B&B with breakfast on arrival, dinner before departure and transport there & back included; tacho back in 1745, quick walkround, 1750 departure. Just arrived at Gretna services at 2110, so back on the road north at 2155 after a 45min break, into the school maybe 0030, depot for 0115, fuel & adblue bus, drop and recharge the toilet, run it through the wash, sweep & mop. Finish maybe 0200, home for 0220. Tomorrow is 1115 sign on for a midday pickup in Troon (Marr Rugby to Currie RFC for anyone into that sort of thing) and return after the match, Sunday is 0500 sign on for the Greenock shift bus into the base then a football run into Ibrox. Off Monday & Tuesday thank fuck!

6.30am at Charnock Richard services on our first Alton Towers of the year. Today will be A Long Day.

They can be a mixed bag; in a previous life I was responsible for four, a 16-plate MD9 (the little ones) and 10, 14 and 16-plate Safari HD12s (the big ones). Of those... the 10 plate was hopeless. The 14 plate was absolutely 100% reliable and more or less fault free, and at one point it was the highest mileage Temsa in Britain. Buoyed by the performance of the 14, the two 16-plates arrived. The little one continually jettisoned pulleys and leaked like a sieve from the day and hour it arrived. Some of the fit and finish was pretty grim but it went like the hammers of fuck and was a popular little bus. The big one was a pig in a poke and ended up on it's side over the crash barrier on the M9 of an evening and that was the end of that until Caledonian got their hands on it. At Marbill we've got eight, five big (2x 67-plate, 1x 68 and 2x 20s) and three small (2x 19-plate 34 seaters with toilets and a 20-plate 39 seater). Can't say there has been any major issues with any of them, though electrics can be flaky and the 67-plates are VERY soft riding - they bounce and pitch alarmingly when you're not used to it. Fit & finish, especially in the cab is poor but mechanically they're about as simple as can be - DAF/ZF auto in the big ones, Cummins/ZF auto in the little 'uns. My biggest complaints on the Safari as a driver are visibility - the door and cab window could be doing with being maybe four inches taller - and the brake pedal sits almost vertically and a good inch and a half higher than the accelerator, a real pain in the arse in traffic. The little ones are fantastic things.

In sunny Skelmersdale this evening on a hire from Glasgow, still waiting on parts for the toilet on my own bus so slumming it today with a Temsa. Parked up next to a fairly unusual Plaxton-bodied MAN; I asked the driver if he'd come far today - "about four miles; you?" "226 miles each way... "

If you squint really hard at that you can almost see what it morphed into...