It's A Great Life On The Buses

A couple of weeks ago, the Old Market Square resembled a seaside, complete with sand, slot machines and donkey rides.

Now it has taken on the role of global market, especially with food, as there is all sorts available, French crepes, Thai street food and various curries. Local superstar butcher Johnny Pusztai was there too, offering his famous sausages and burgers to hungry passers by.

Drink wasn't neglected, with a Pimms tent, and this novel use for an old London bus. Quite a good idea, and nice to see this example of the world famous Routemaster get a new lease of life after spending years running up and down the streets of the capital.

I see this musician is wondering whether he could get a gig on board, as maybe the upstairs is a cosy seating area, where you can sit, chat, drink and watch the world go by.

Considering today is the first day of autumn, it was lovely and sunny at lunchtime when I visited the market. Plenty of people were milling around and looking at the things to buy. There was even a stall where you could obtain a mortgage, and another that was selling a special peeler for making vegetables look decorative.

Music didn't go amiss, as when I was there a singer was entertaining everyone with some reggae tunes.

We're All Going On A Summer Holiday

I bet you can all remember the 1960s film called Summer Holiday, which starred Cliff Richard and Una Stubbs?  The one where they converted an old London bus into a motorhome and drove it to Paris, and had adventures on the way.

So I was intrigued to see this old London bus parked in the Old Market Square promoting Virgin Holidays. What's even more intriguing is the fact that it has been painted a torquoise blue, rather than in the usual Virgin corporate colours of red and white.

Maybe if they had had done it in red and white, then it would still be mistaken for a London bus, and people would be holding their arms out at bus stops, as it went by!

Off The Rails

Besides the visit yesterday of Prince Edward, another important event that was taking place in Nottingham, namely a wedding at the Council House.

The wedding party were using this old London bus as the bridal transport and were just climbing aboard when I arrived in the Old Market Square.

While I was taking a photo or two of it, a tram just happened to be rolling by, and I managed to take a couple of shots just as it was passing the bus. Lucky eh?

You may have realised that the photo is lacking in colour, except for the bus itself. That's because I set my camera just to record anything that was red in colour, the rest would remain in black & white. A neat trick. Partial colouring can of course be done in various software packages, but this is much quicker. And anyway, I only know how to do it in Lightroom.

On The Buses

I don't know, you wait for ages for a London bus to appear and then two turn up at the same time.

Only, I didn't take this picture in London, but this morning in Beeston.

They were being used as transport for guests at a wedding that had just taken place at the local church.

The bride and groom left in a more traditional mode of transport. Namely this rather grand Rolls Royce Tourer from the 1930s.