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.

I think it is onne of those days where movement, or lack of it has been a priority. I’ve spent most of the day in the office, apart from the odd interval like lunch and tea, oh and 20 minutes in the garden chair with a good magnum ice lolly.

I’ve managed to reduce the shredding pile from an overflowing box to empty, and done a few things on the computer, and really, just had a very lazy day. I’m sure we will pay for it later – there’s a growing ironing pile, but that isn’t too painful. We’ll do that tomorrow morning, and then we are getting together for a nice lunch.

Not really much else to say. It was a good day. A bit hot though.

I do Friday afternoons in a local charity shop. If I am completely honest, the main reason why I volunteered is because i was upset that the British Heart Foundation (BHF) shop in the high street had closed.

The BHF had by far the best 2nd hand. book section of all of the charity shops on the high street. It was well maintained well stocked with both fiction and non-fiction,and most of all interesting. Admittedly, I didn’t buy something every week, but i did look,.

So, my thoughts were that if I voluntered, I could do something to build up the book section to something approaching the BHF standard. This is where I hit my first problem; ii don’t control the books; their arrival into the shop, their temporary storage before beiing displayedl what is displayed and how.

I’m thinking about how I could influence the shop managers to allow me to manage this aspect, and telliing them “Please put out this part of the book shelf over each week.

There is no point in my stressing about it. I guess the word is “Spontaneous”. the Facebook walks arise from the immediate experience. It provides the material for the post. If I don’t walk, no material, no Facebook post. It sounds a bit blunt, but it’s the way my brain works I’m afraid.

These blog posts, on the other hand, can appear to be a bit random. That’s because, apart from The Letters to Steve, which appear every Sunday, my posts might be varied. I don’t think there is any kind of pattern to them. If you read regularly, you’ll see that every so often I get a bit of a bee in my bonnet.

Good examples of this are vlogging and the various u3a projects. If you are a really long term reader, you might (quite reasonably) have detected almost a sense of desperation at a fairly big desire to produce vlogs, conflicted with absolutely no idea what to vlog about.

Things have changed a bit over the last few months. I still don’t really have a defined posting schedule (should I)? But, I think that is because it doesn’t really fit in with what I am using the blog for.

This then, becomes the crunch; what am I using the blog for? Well, I blog because I enjoy it. You could also say, I vlog because I enjoy it. Ok perhaps not so much vlogs as blogs. There is one other reason I blog, and vlog: that is because it gives me the opportunity to indulge and share my curiosity, because that is pretty much what it is all about; curiosity. So, there you go. Thats why I do it.

The solar eclipse wasn’t total in the UK. The picture above was taken at around 19:12 hours local time, here in Gosport. The coverage was supposed to be around 93% I don’t think this is far off it.

Whilst I didn’t see first bite, I did catch early engagement. Knowing what was happening, how the bodies were lining up was just awe inspiring, it really was amazing. I had bought observing glasses, so was able to see very clearly what was happening.

I can’t remember when or how I first heard the phrase “Celestial Dance” but that is it, a beautiful dance.

This is the setup I used. It’s a bit basic. I would move the sun on screen take a coule of shots, and move it off again. I didn’t want to expose the phone camera too much. It seemedd to work quite well.

If you don’t know Larry Niven’s work, it might seem strange to link a science fiction author to a nice, but innocuous plant like a sunflower.

In his “Known Space’” series of stores, the kind of sunflowers he writes about are not the cute innocent plants that we know.  Instead, their mirror like surfaces reflect sunlight very efficiently. One such flower may be harmless but a field of them all focussing their light on one spot, produces the lethal heat of sun-driven furnace. Designed billions of years ago by an alien species now extinct (mostly).

I’m writing about Larry Niven, not just because he is one of my favourite authors, but I was reminded of him by the sunflowers we have in the garden.  Elayne had planted a lot of sunflower seeds, as she wanted to grow blue ones. As an attempt, it failed miserably,but we do have a lovely hedge of yellow sunflowers.  Two of them in particular make me think.

One is looking very intently at me in the kitchen, in the morning, when I come to make tea.  It is most disconcerting, I have the distinct feeling I am being watched.  The other sunflower has grown to such a height that it is well above the fence, and now it is starring directly into our neighbours lounge.

Jackie, our neighbour probably isn’t aware of Niven’s sunflowers.

But I know.

I know that they are watching us, and the minute we become a threat to them…