It seems that I have accumulated rather a lot of emails in gmail. Google has been sending me a lot of remiinders that I am running out of space, and suggesting that I buy more.

To be honest, I think I will just delete unnecessary emails, I seem to have a fairly efficient method of achieving that.

Unfortunately, monitoring the process and making sure that it doesn’t delete anything I need is a hands-on activity, so time has slipped by me. Meaning that this is a rushed post.

I haven’t seen a starling for quite a while. I’ve heard them on occasion, and not very many.

We were sitting at the bottom of the garden, enjoying a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits, when I heard what sounded like quite a few Starlings.

I looked around, and there were literally hundreds of them on the roof. I really can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many of them, let alone on the roof nearby.

The temptation was too great, and I did put some food out. They dived on the bird table.

The Butterflies have been very frustrating this year. A few years ago, we did the Big Butterfly Watch. It was almost like they knew we needed to photograph them, and they stayed quite still, allowing several shots. Today, a rather glorious peacock butterfly settled near to me. I grabbed my phone, stood up (it wasn’t that close) and off it flew.

We’ve had quite a few small whites in the garden. I counted 5 at the same time. They are aggressive little beasties; either that, or it is a love dance. It certainly looks like they are fighting.

Also, the small whites are fast; they zip between locations. Absolutely fascinating to watch.

I’m at a stage of planning the Portsmouth video where I can almost think about drafting the prompt cards. I pretty much have the locations sorted; all that remains is time. Not yet, though.

In the meantime, I need to come up with something that can fill the space between those moments, and yet not require a lot of effort, and the videos themselves don’t need to be too long.

YouTube has two different video formats: long, where the images are recorded in landscape and short, where the images are recorded in portrait. The thing is that I don’t really want to do the portrait format.

Also, I have a tendency to make things too complicated and end up not doing anything because it really is too difficult. I need to accept that sometimes, the simplest things can make perfectly good videos.

Elayne likes to keep a lovely garden. I am really pleased that she does, because it is a project to be proud of, and I do like to see it.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve appreciated nature, but retirement has changed the nature of that appreciation. One example of this is the seed pods of the passion flower bush that grows on the fence line between our neighbour and us.

Six months ago, I would not have thought of taking a pod apart to see what it is like inside. Now, I’ve done it twice, at different stages of maturity. I’ve just had to publish, it’s two minutes to midnight, and I didn’t want to miss the count.

I haven’t finished with the passion flowers, but there are other things in the garden that interest me. On the other hand, I don’t intend for what’s in the garden to be an obsession; it is merely an opportunity. Next, though, I might take a look at the olive tree. Apparently, it has olives growing.

A few posts ago, Actually, it was 2072 I talked about going to the library and researching an aspect of Portsmouths invovlement in the Civil War. It’s worth giving a little bit of a back story of the Portsmouth Papers.

Started in the 1960’s as an attempt to revive interests in the history of the city. There are 80 papers. written by some prestigious authors.

The good thing is that it appears that the papers are being revised, including the existing series being digitised and possibly new papers being written. Here’s a link to the website.

I’ll keep track of it.

First time I’ve done this, and I think it’s appropriate. This is a “Recruitment poster” for the group. We had our second session today, and I think i can say that it went resonably well.

The thing though, is planning. I’ve never done this before. What I want to do is keep the members of the group engaged. There is a danger of focussing on fiction. Given the number of people in the group (10>), I need to make sure than any plan includes a good mix of fiction and non-fiction.

I have to confess, that AI has been very useful here. It has given me a framework which I think is practical and doable.

The office has been driving me up the wall. I hate to think what it has been doing to Elayne, and she doesn’t have to come in here unless it’s to get something off the printer. It’s not often she says something about it, but I see the look she gives me if we are both in the office at the same time.

I had to do something, so a bit of re-arranging, and making decisions about stuff that can go to charity. It’s harsh, but necessary.

One of the benefits, having cleared some desk space, is that I am able to get the stereo microscope out. With the passion fruit seed pods getting very near dropping (I’m not forcing them), letting nature follow it’s course, I’m looking forward to having a look at them under the scope.

The job of clearing the office has only just begun. There is a long way to go. One of the big problems is lack of book space. I have a literal pile of books, which were in danger of toppling whenever I made the air move. I had a bit of a revelation, I had space for a couple of boxes (on top of where there were already a couple of boxes). The books have been moved in to a box. At least the floor is clear, and I am not forever picking up books.

The desk, and the temporary table that was going to be my trainset (I’m not doing that anymore, I’ve realised it’s not practical). are both loaded, and I need to make space on both.

Not sure how I’m going to do that yet.