Bills Posts

Until today, I had never heard of the Solent Protection Society until today. A picture of a plaque erected by the SPS was posted on the 365 project website.

As soon as I saw the picture of the plaque, I got quite excited. Does the society still exist? A quick check of the WWW shows that it not only exists but is very active.

The frustrating thing is that from my initial look at the society it covers the area with what I had defined as the current version of my hobby project “Locality” which you might have guessed from the SPS’s name, the Solent from west to east.

Why is something which clearly aligns with my interests and only costs £20 per year frustrating? Because by the end of the year I expect to be redefining the parameters of locality.

Nonetheless, I may join the society anyway. It also makes me wonder what societies there are in the area that we are moving to. Some research is warranted I think.

The weather over the last couple of days has been glorious. Brilliant pretty much cloud free. We spent a bit of time working on the garden and the front of the house. The front has come up nicely. Not perfectly, but not bad.

It’s two days now, where I had the opportunity to take a walk but didn’t. I may not have time to go tomorrow as we have a family thing on. So I’m hoping to be able to. Get out on Monday, my last day off.

What a glorious day it has been. Barely a cloud in sky, brilliant sunshine and t-shirt weather. We spent a good part of the day in the garden both working and being very lazy..

Whilst we were being lazy, I watched the birds. I’d put the food on the table, and we took up residence on the garden seats. Luckily, the seats are far enough away from the bird table that the starlings are only slightly more paranoid than normal. Pigeons? Pigeons don’t give a fudge where we sit, they just want food. It didn’t take either set of birds long to arrive. Sadly, I hadn’t seen the sparrows for a while. I wonder if it’s the food I’m putting in the hangers.

The first starling arrived. Turns out it was just a tad possessive and didn’t want anybody else to partake. It ran continuous battle with any bird that dared to land on the table. Of course, where it was off fighting with the latest intruder that allowed the other twenty birds to dive in and gorge themselves on mashed peanut, mealworm and mixed no-grow seed.

The great thing is that the birds come and go several times during the course of the morning, which tapers off. Then comes the time of the pigeon. at one time, I counted twelve of them on the roof. I don’t know why they didn’t come down.

The crows were very entertaining, being very brash and noisy on nearby roofs. They’d fly around very fast shouting at each other. Then there was the thing.

I noticed two birds calling and wheeling around the sky. It took a few seconds to realise that one was a crow, and the other a sparrow hawk. The crow was really having go at the hawk, wheeling around the sky. It was most impressive to watch. The crow was very persistent. I think the hawk must have been getting very fed up with the hounding. I gave up watching when they disappeared out of view. That’s the header picture.

This is the Contentin. It’s the first time I’ve seen this one.

Nearly every morning that I do my morning walk, and end up at the waterfront I end up seeing one of the Brittany Ferries. Regulars that I am quite familiar with are the Normandie and the Mon St Michel, they are the real regulars.

Other ships that I have seen include the Bretagne and I know of the Galicia, which I think I may havce caught the stern of, but haven’t seenm in full. The main route from Portsmouth is to Caen, which we have done, there are other routes from ports such as Poole, not sure the destinations.

What I would really like to do is to walk down Gosport’s High Street, but the key thing is – with a historian. Now this is the awkward bit, I’d like it to be someone quite well known, perhaps Prof. Alice Roberts (ok, not really a historian, but she is good), Lucy Worsley or Simon Schama.

What would it be all about? Well at the bottom end of the town, a time linne has been laid;

• 948 First reference to Alverstoke & Rowner
• 1204 Manor of Gosport created by the Bishop of Westminster
• 1348 The Plague devastates Gosport
• 1417 First fortifications built at Blockhouse
• 1540 Gosport described as a little village
• 1642 Roundhead bombardment of Portsmouth
• 1678 Gosport fortifications and ramparts started
• 1683 Charles II visits & tours unfinished fortifications
• 1696 Water piped to town from Forton
•  1717 Gosport granted two market days a week
• 1746-1762 Haslar Hospital constructed.
• 1776 Grand Magazine Priddy’s hard completed
• 1802 Ferry Service from Gosport to Le Havre
• 1840 Floating Bridge chain ferry to Portsmouth
• 1844 King Louis Philippe of France visited
• 1844 Queen Victorias railway station opens
• 1850’s Construction of Palmerston Forts
• 1917 Seaplane training established at future HMS Daedalus(TBC)
• 1922 Gosport Borough created
• 1944 D-Day embarkations from beach Stokes Bay(TBC?)

Some these would be interesting, because Gosport itself didn’t exist for a good part of the time line, so what would my historian be doing?

I’d have them describing what life was like here at that time. What was happening in history? How was Gosport established what was here before. And then, as God’s Port became a garrison town, with defences all around, what was life like inside the walls, and I’m willing to bet it was a bit salacious, I can imagine Lucy describing those times with relish. Where was the Mary Rose launched from? And what happened in the town when she went down?

I think I’d like Alice and Simon to be talking about life in the high street during the 18th & 19th century, whenn the navy really was at its height, the press gangs were in action, but there would also have been a fair bit of culture in town as well, having as it it did a renowned theatre. Then there were the pubs, The Indian Star I believe where you can read reports of auctions where ships were sold, quite openly to brigands, and for that purpose.

The construction of the Palmerston Forts was taking place well outside the towns bounndary of hte day, but I can’t imagine that the workforce didn’t come in to town to swell the population. Whgat was life like?

I’d like to think that it would be quite interesting.

There are plenty of online services that will take an audio file and transcribe it. Most of them are paying, but there might be some that are fre, probably though, with limitations. I don’t want to pay.

A good friend suggested using Siri on my iPhone to record a note. The mistake I made was to try it without any practice whilst out for my walk. It didn’t work. I could get Siri to open the app, but I had to unlock my phone myself. I could open the notes app from Siri, but I had to enable dictation. To be honest, I found it too fiddly. There’s probably an easier way to do this, but I need to practice.

One obvious route is pen and paper, which is fine (perhaps) if the weather is ok but just no good if raining (I don’t walk if it is already raining, but it sometimes start midwalk). Reporters pad or a small notebook? I’ll have to try that.

Does there have to be a technological solution to my problem? I have no problem if there is but I won’t discount a traditional method. I like the way my paper diary and I still have a Filofax which I have only recently stopped using.

There’s obviously some research needed here. I shall carry on and report back.

What I am after is a way of taking notes whilst I am out walking. Quite often I find myself in a poisition where I want to record an observation. It could be anything from something I’ve seen, a feeling I have, a comment made by somebody on the #Breakfastclub to which I want to respond.

I wonder if it would be more efficient if I had a method of making notes whilst out and about is there an app on the phone? Perhaps the notes app and dictation would work? On the other hand, I prefer written notes. But I need a way of doing it outdoors, perhaps wearing gloves? with a pen? anybody have a solution? I’m thinking of people like travel writers, surveyors, people who work outside. Bearing in mind, i’m walking and need to find the pen and notebook quickly, or habve it conveniently to hand – how do I do that?

I guess it should be obvious really. I’ll have to do a bit of thinking about that. It sometimes gets a bit frustrating. there will be an easy convenient way of doing it – I just haven’t found it.

Sorry about last nights post – it was pretty feeble. I don’t think this one is much better to be honest, but at least there’s more than one paragraph.

I’m really sorry for this but no time for a post today. We binge watched all the episodes on Netflix. Most entertaining.

Today wemade a decision that we would go to Southampton. Really, there are only two shops that I am interested in at West Quay, shopping Mall at the centre of town. That’s the Apple Store – and to be honest, there is little point of going there unless you are going to buy something. There is nothing that I really browse for. The other shop I almost always enjoy visiting is Waterstones (or any other similar type book shop, or large second hand) bookshops.

I think I spent about an hour in the shop, looking at the The various sections. I have to admit that I tend not to look at fiction – perhaps I should? The new politics section is always interesting to look at, but there was nothing that grabbed my interest today. I had a good look at the science section, and there were quite a few books that I had a bit of a browse through, but nothing inspired me.

Moving across to the writing section. The trouble is, I don’’t really know what I’m looking for here. Even before I started this blog, I wanted to write, but I haven’t been able to focus on a single thread or topic that could turn in to a book. Hence you’ve ended up with 950 fairly random posts. Nothing coherent. It’s almost like I’m looking the book entitled “How to write the right book for you”.

Perhaps the travel section might do it? I quite like the Bill Bryson. His books are both informative and funny. A really good read. I’ve also enjoyed reading Tom Fort’s Channel Shore book. I was talking a lot about Gilbert White’s book, a natural history of Selborne I have the book and have been reading it on and off. It’s a really interesting book, but my attention span hasn’t let me read it in one go. It’s like a number of books I have, I’m slowly working through them.

I’m finding that I am spending a fair bit of time looking at the history section. Back many years ago, when I was at school or college, History was one of my favourite subjects, but like most of the things I was interested I wasn’t very good at it. I’m still not. But that doesn’t stop me from being interested.

The picture has nothing to do with today’s post. Just to set a bit of context.

The Met Office got the forecast right. Rain & high winds. I didn’t go for a walk this morning. It was to put it mildly, chucking it down. I wasn’t complaining. Sometimes it’s nice to go back to bed. I didn’t feel guilty because I wouldn’t have gone anyway.

I did get out for a walk lunchtime. It was raining still, so I wore my proper raincoat. It was the normal walk, a quick dash down to the waterfront. I think the gust of wind that very nearly knocked me off my feet, was the one that knocked the plastic greenhouse over in the garden. It was certainly upright before I went out.

Last night, I went out to make sure the car was locked. It was windy, and a bit drizzly. Sometimes I get a real urge to go for a walk, but it was late and I was tired so I resisted. Perhaps the next time I feel like that.