Before we get to Letter to Steve, I just want to apologise for the 1-day delay to its publication, which was due to the post I really wanted to do last night about the visit to Powderham Castle, and Dawlish.

Having said that, here is Letter to Steve VIII:

Hi Steve,

Before I start on Letter VIII, I just want very quickly to pop back to Letter V, where I talked about Hollow Lanes (our Hollow Lanes are very different from Gilbert’s).  Well, The Staff at Gilbert White’s house have started doing a fortnightly series of video podcasts.  The Presenter of the podcast is Kimberly James, the Collections Manager at Gilbert White’s House.

The Podcasts are up to Episode 6, and I wanted to tell you about it, because in this episode, Kimberly leaves the office to go for a walk around Selborne, specifically to look for today’s examples of Hollow Lanes, and she definitely finds them.  

I don’t know how close the tracks Kimberly shows us are to Gilbert’s Hollow Lanes, but they really did look authentic.  The YouTube Channel currently has 302 subscribers. I’d love to see that grow. Here is the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxdbxFVf-cQ

With me being on Letter 8 and the channel being on Letter 6, I did consider changing so that we would be in sync. But, actually, where I get ahead, it’s lovely to have the opportunity to have a look back.

Unlike a couple of the previous letters, as I was reading Letter VIII, I had a good thought about the direction of my next letter to you, and was eager to get a draft started, no procrastination this week!

Gilbert started his letter by talking about what he describes as “three considerable lakes.” One he focuses on, Bean’s Pond, he describes as being of interest to naturalists. I had a look at Google Maps to see if I could identify Bean’s Pond – nothing.  On the National Library of Scotland (what a gem that is for old maps), I looked at maps from between 1876 and 1910. There were some lakes, but nothing labelled Bean’s Pond.  Oh well, not to worry, but interesting to look back.

I imagine Bean’s Pond to be some lake heavily edged by reeds in the middle of the woods.  It won’t be the same as the most well-known lakes here in Gosport – The Cockle Ponds.

The ponds have been here since the 1600’s, but Model Yachting really started in the 1890’s and after the First World War, they were significantly refurbished by men under the Unemployment Work Programme, giving them a concrete path around the edge.  

The popularity of Model Yachting probably reached its head in the 1920’s & 1930’s when Gosport hosting international championships, where hundreds of people would turn up.

The ponds are much quieter today, but are still heavily used by modellers.

I went through a phase of early morning walks, which would always feature a walk around the lakes.  There were regular people whom I would stop and have a chat with and sometimes throw or kick a ball for their dog.  But it was what was going on in the ponds that really interested me.

I have mentioned the Canada Geese in previous letters. A few of them would usually congregate on the grassy bank, and the remainder would gently cruise about on the pond, occasionally dipping their head to grab a piece of weed.  Always a lovely sight.

It has been a challenge to see how close I could get to the Egrets.  One had its back to me and was focused on finding breakfast. I got to within about 5 yards before it realised I was there and took off in a long sweeping glide over the pond.

The raucous laughter of the Gulls always makes me smile. A fair few, 30 – 50, would gather and shout at each other.

But my biggest favourites are the JellyFish.  Moon jellyfish may be poisonous to something, but is it so mild that it doesn’t affect humans.  You can tell that they are Moon Jellyfish (see the header picture), named after the three sets of glands that are visible across their back.

The area around the ponds and the shores of the harbour are both areas of Special Scientific Interest, and when you see them, you would understand why.

All The best

Bill 

Today’s trip out was to two locations, the first of which was Powderham Castle, which to my shame I had never heard of before this trip was organised. Whilst travelling to the castle this morning, I heard one of my friends describe it as a fortified Manor House, so I had no idea what to expect.

As a castle, it was not an imposing building, nowhere near on the scale of say, Arundel – which is huge. But, as a fortified Manor House, yes it was interesting.

Like many of these places, I could not imagine my self living in them. But there were some areas which I did like. I have to confess that the drawing room did look quite comfortable, and I could see myself resting there with one of the books from the library.

For the size of the house, the library was huge, there must be a couple of thousand books and what I really liked was that whilst many of the books have been caged off, there were whole shelves which weren’t and we were quite welcome to take a book out and browse. Lovely.

One of the information panels I read, mentioned damage done to the house during the civil war. I spoke to one of the guides about it, and she took great delight is telling me how the house with 400 royalist troops inside had been besieged by the parliamentarians for 6 months. The Roundheads taking full advantage of the livestock from the local area. The guide took me outside to see the different brickwork where one of the two towers at each end of the building had been destroyed when the house was bombarded.

The house surrendered after six months, and the occupants were allowed to leave on the understanding that they would take no further part in the conflict. I don’t like to think what the state of the house was inside, it’s quite big, but not huge. Having 400 people trapped inside for that length of time would have meant it would be pretty gruesome.

After Powderham Castle, we moved on to Dawlish. I’ll admit thati wasn’t really bothered about visiting the seaside town, but I will also advise that I was mistaken to have that feeling. It turned into one of the most relaxing times in the tour.

Disembarking from the coach very close to the railway station, we walked under the line to the seafront. It was interesting to look along the line to see the aftermath of the damage done by the 2014 storm which demolished the line. The bulwark looks impressive, but even with that, I wonder how long it will last with the seas unrelenting hammering?

Lots of seagulls, generally they are quite aggressive unpleasant birds, but oh my, their grace and dexterity in flight is an absolute delight to behold. With there being a fairly stiff breeze, their Acrobatics was as entertaining as any TV programme.

We moved back to the landward side of the railway track and found an ice cream parlour. I had a triple tub – mint chocolate chip, funky banana and carribean coconut. Elayne had a triple cone with vanilla, coffee and chocolate. We took these to the brook, so that we could watch the swans.

There was a pair of black swans with five young cygnets. They were just so lovely to watch, but I would worry about them, I am sure one moment of inattention would have meant the ever-present gulls would be in to grab one.

We paused at a local bar right next to where the coach was waiting for use to have a drink before boarding. Followed by a ride along the coastal road with some amazing views.

It was a delightful day.

One of themes for an upcoming evening at the camera club is humorous pictures. Now, I immediately have a problem with this, my sense of humour can be so dry (I was going to say that a desert is like a lake in comparison, but’s probably totally inappropriate, but you get my drift – hopefully) that spotting a humorous picture is practically an impossibility.

Then we come to the header picture, in which the tulips are all leaning towards the front of the boat. The alignment of the boat with the prevailing wind means it must have been done by a person of the sea, offers an opportunity of great humour to a good photographer.

That’s the other nub of the matter isn’t it? I not only have a nearly non-existent sense of humour, I am also not a good photographer. I’d like to be, but sadly that skill took one look at and said “you’ve got no chance.”

So, the the question I’d like to ask, given the likelihood that you are a much more skilled person with a camera than myself, and acknowledging that there is very limited context to the picture, how would you manipulate the image to have them rolling in the aisles?

Oh, we had a very nice day out by the way. With slightly hair raising coach drive to Totnes, a lovely river cruise along The Dart, a pleasant few hours in Dartmouth (where I took the picture), any ride on a heritage steam train is always a pleasure this time to Paignton and a very short ride to the hotel all was most enjoyable.

The River Frome, the lesser photogenic western side. Showing itself to be more than just memories. Today, I could if I were inclined to, and to be honest if I’d had the time I could have hired a rowing boat for an hour and just gently pootled (actually, I’m surprised that is recognised as a valid word) along the river seeing the flash of wildlife scrambling to get away from my clumsy attempt at rowing, and really annoying anglers as I snag their lines with my oars.

But no, we were only passing through, taking the time to meet one of my sisters, and having a laugh at how the whole coach had waved at her as we passed her stood at the bus stop, with the other people waiting with her wondering why a coach full of people was suddenly going crazy as it went

We had a nice cup of tea and a snack in Nellie Crumb, which as a young boy, I had considered far too posh for me to even consider entering it’s hallowed rooms (ok, that perhaps is over doing it a bit).

We said good bye to my sister, leaving her to her Friday afternoon session of knitting and nattering, and had a slow wander around and along the shops, each one bringing back a fresh set of memories.

Much to my annoyance I now realise that I didn’t notice what film was on at The Rex cinema, where I once spent a very brief period as a projectionist under the strict supervision of a serious cricket fanatic called amusingly, Rusty Irons (yes, genuinely that was his name). Where I Learnt the trick of knowing when a reel was about to finish, and so to start the other projector without customers noticing the changeover.

We boarded the coach, and continued our journey.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visits with the Gosport Shed to the Greenwich Maritime Museum, and the Fleet Air Arm museum at Yeovilton. On each visit, I felt that I had a good amount of time to look at the exhibits.

The next trip is being planned to the Swindon Railway Museum at the end of the month. I can’t say what it is but there is something about trains that has always appealed to me. Perhaps it’s the feel & smell of the steam. But that is to ignore the attraction of diesel and electric trains, and it is certainly there.

I hope there is something about signalling there, especially the old mechanical method of signalling, there is something really appealing about that. I used to love when I was younger and these systems were normal watching the wire links, and the arms move as the signalman pulled levers. There was an incredible level of interlocking for safety reasons mainly. That interests me, so as you can imagine, I am looking forward to the trip.

You will know if you are a regular reader of this blog, or even if yesterday was your first visit (in which case welcome, I do hope you’ve returned for a second visit) then you know that it didn’t go stunningly well; in fact it was empty. I simply couldn’t think of anything to write.

Of course, when I woke up this morning, my brain was raging at me “Bill, you numpty, you sat there for an hour writing nothing (probably distracted by social media). instead, I could have written about my trip to a local supermarket mainly to get cash (I need the cash to pay for the next shed breakfast and trip, more on that later).

I could have written about my trip to the chiropodist, that is something I do relatively regularly, but I am fairly confident that you really wouldn’t want me to go into details – having said that, there’s nothing grusome there, but my wife wretches if I talk about cutting my toenails.

Then there is the Camera Club, Tuesday being the day of the club meeting. The night was taken up with a two-part presentation about how the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) makes the decisions to award the various levels of their Awards for Photographic Merit (letters that photographers can use after their name).

So, as you can see, in reality I had a wealth of material that I could have drawn on. If only my brain were working a bit faster.

I’m kiind of a bit stuck tonight. I’ve just spent the best part of the last hour looking at the screen, and absolutely nothing has come to mind. Also, it’s getting close to midnight so i need to publish this to maintain the count.

On sunday, we paid a visit to Butser Ancient Farm. I’ve been wanting to visit this place for quite a while. As the visit got closer, I wanted to find out what we would be seeing. With a little bit of searching, I found a site map. This was interesting.

Going in through the entrance and following the correct route, will take you through pre-history, ancient history and history. Doing it right, means that you see the eras in the correct sequence;
Stone Age – Neolithic. & Mesolithic eras
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Rome
The Saxons

All of the buildings representing these eras are what the Ancient Farm Staff call experimental. In that, we have a rough idea of what they look like, but there are some things that the evidence which remains from those times has many gaps. What Butser does is make logical decisions over what could have been done and then experiment with the application of those methods. I was really looking forward to following the paththat would introduce the areas in order.

You’ll gather from the last paragraph, that did not happen. It is all down to two things; A family who don’t have quite the same interest in history as you do, and tend to operate on either “Oooh, that looks interesting, let’s go there” or following our 18-month-old granddaughter, who is squealing with excitement & delight and is teaching the universe the true meaning of entropy.

So that was it. Our visit was delightfully chaotically disorganised and because of our grandaughter full of laughter, and the occasional bout of screaming after a fall. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But, I will have to go again…on my own.

I apologise for not posting last night. I decided not to do so out of respect for a family situation that I don’t want to talk about here.

Hi Steve,

As I read Gilbert’s Letter VII, it made me think about a land use today that causes controversy, perhaps not as serious as in his time, but enough to make people really quite angry. When we go on trips anywhere near Stubbington, on the by-pass, you can’t avoid seeing the solar farm.  For me, this highlights one of those issues around land use.

I like Pylons. The way they march across the countryside, not really interfering with farming activities, even when they are in the middle of a field used for agriculture, is to me quite grand.

Solar farms on the other hand, feel different.  They don’t give me the same comfortable feeling as pylons.  Solar farms consume agricultural land at the expense of food production.  This jars with me.  But food or electricity, both are essential today.  Do we just have to live with it?

Perhaps someone, somewhere, is pioneering a Solar Farm Appreciation Society?  Unlike the Pylon Appreciation Society, I won’t be joining that one.

All The Best

Bill.

Please don’t think that my having a problem with vlogging is because I lack some wonderful piece of kit, which if I had it would immediately enable me to produce very successful vlogs (Am I missing such a piece of kit..Oh My, what is it? Just kidding. I’m pretty sure I have everygthing I need). Oh, hang on a second, there is something.

And that is a topic. I don’t have (perhaps possibly didn’t have) a topic. Now, that’s a bit of a mystery for you. Because I do have an idea, and it came from a u3a online group that I attended for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Now, whether anything will come from it will remain to be seen. But I am quite excited about it.

I don’t want to say to much about what the topic is becasue, if I ever get around to actually creating any vlogs the subject will become clear very quickly. One of the first things I have to do is review & map a couple of books, and then I might be able to look at a video list.

We’ll have to see where this goes. Gotta post as it’s near midnight again.