Bills Posts

Does it seem macabre that I wanted to get as close as I could to the place where in 1963, at the age of six I found my dad, laying on the ground, either dying or dead? I couldn’t to the exact spot of course. Not only would there be no markers, but the place had been built upon since that date. But I did try.

The ticket machines of the car parks in Wareham are not as sophisticated as those in Gosport. They don’t have contactless payment. I ended up going to the ATM to take out £10 then popping into the shop and buying a bar of chocolate (actually a duo bar of biscuit & raisin Yorkie) which I ate later, on the way home). I bought a ticket for two hours. Would that give us enough time to do what I wanted?

We walked over the causeway, pausing to chat to chap working to lay broadband fibre. Seems to be happening in a lot of places. He was happy to talk.

We walked past my old primary school. Strange, but I don’t really have many happy memories of any of the schools I attended. Actually, I am hard pushed to recall any happy memories, but I am sure there must be some there…somewhere.

We met a chap who says he remembered be from the estate where I used to live. We talked for a bit about names from the past. He got on with repairing his frost-fractured bricks. We walked back the way we came.

I spent a few hours with my family. People whom I love. If my wife had been there it would have been perfect. She wasn’t able to today. Still, it was lovely. I ended the day happy/sad. More happy really. I had done what I had set out to do.

There’s this thing. I am curious about the Neolithic period and megalithic sites. I bought a book about the celts. It’ll be a reference book which I will dip into. this book was updated as recently as 2019.

I am also curious about the Saxons, and have bought a book about the Saxon chronicles. I didn’t think there was much written evidence about the celts, but it appears that there’s a fair bit, produced by the romans, who I think thought they were barbarians. It’ll be interesting to read the book and find out what I don’t know.

There’s a lot of material about the Saxons, the written evidence kind of brings them alive.

The megalithic sites predate both of those periods easily and it looks like they fall within the Neolithic period. My understanding of this is woefully inadequate.

Every so often, I find myself wondering where rascal is, of course, he’s not here.

Sorry, another feeble post.

Rascal came to us in 2003, a little black bundle of fur, along with his two brothers Droplet and Tinsel. Elayne said “you can’t call him Rascal’” I said “why not” Rascal he became.

Today, Rascal left us. At the end he was a frail shadow of his earlier self but the love we had for him will never diminish. We miss him.

Love you Rascal, goodnight my dear.

All day yesterday, I had a post in my head that I was going to do, and then I went and forgot it. So that means the post counter having reached the stratospheric value of 76 has now been reset to one as of this post.

The post had been in my mind and so you can imagine my frustration upon the realisation this morning of what I had done. Anyhow, what is done, is done.

Elayne wanted to go to the local garden centre, but had a WI duty to perform beforehand, so suggested that we meet there. Which I have to say was a pretty good idea.

I thought I would walk down Anglesey Road rather than the railway track (which is actually a rather good footpath). A pleasant walk along Stokes Bay’s Golden Mile up Gomer Lane then along to to the garden centre where we had a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake.

I’m wondering if my being awakened by the foghorns sometime between three and four accounted for my feeling really quite stressed. Only superfluous reasons for feeling that way. I did have a choice as to whether to stay in bed and stew in my feelings, or get up and go for a walk. If I got up, at least I would be doing something.

After hearing the foghorns, I thought it might be an interesting walk, so obviously I did get up, and I was glad at that. Visibility a long the high street was getting shorter. By the time I reached the waterfront, it was down to around one hundred yards.

Shorebased foghorns were sounding very regularly and each time were followed by a real cacophony of shipborn horns. The Normandie came in whilst I was at the waterfront. I could hear, and almost feel the deep thrumm of its engines. I couldn’t see a thing, not even a dark shadow as the ferry passed by.

The header picture unusually for me, is related to today’s post. Taken at the cockle pond, the view across the pond gives a good demonstration of the restricted view.

I must confess that it was a relief that my feeling of stress dissipated really quite quickly. Plus, I enjoyed the walk.

Clarence yard, in its heyday must have been a very interesting place. One of two victualling centres for the Royal Navy. The site contains a slaughter house (still called the Slaughterhouse) and the ovens for backing bread for all of the ships in dock.

I heard a story about how small boats would collect bread and take the loaves out to ships in the Solent, moving from ship to ship. When you are here, it’s easy to imagine. But, you could have no idea of what life must have been on board ship, especially for those who had been picked up by the press gangs. Horrible life.

I walked around the yard, taking pictures to do a series on the project 365 website. I think I get everything I need.

Again, the picture bears no connection to tonight’s topic. I had a plan where I was going to prepare a meal and video it. Just to get some practice in, both in food preparation and videoing. It didn’t quite work out in the way I intended.

I wasn’t able to get out for a lunchtime walk. I decided that after work, I would go for a walk so that I at least get my five miles in. I managed to. do that. The plan was that after the walk, I would come back, get set up and video the preparation.

What I actually did was come back, get the food ready, and as I was taking it out of the microwave remember that I was supposed to have filmed this. I quietly swore tomyself and got on to edat my tea.

After tea, I got the phone set up as my camera and did a bit of experimenting. I’m fairly confident that the wireless lavalier microphones that I haven’t used for a while aren’t working. I tried a sound experiment and with or without the mics there was no difference

I have this habit of getting set up to do something, and then not doing it. I end up with kit that doesn’t work, because I haven’t used it. I need to be aware of that, and perhaps not indulge my whims quite so much.

Here are the magazines I subscribe to;

• Country Walking
• B&W Photography
• RCTS Observer
• Dorset Life

I’ve been taking the first three magazines for a number of years now, and Dorset Life for just over one year. The things is, when I first subscribed, I would flick through the magazines, and read the odd article here and there. But then the lockdowns came. Once that happened, I made a vow that I would read all my magazines from cover to cover. Right up until the one before the most recent issues, I did that.

For some reason I can’t fathom, I broke the habit. I went back to the old way. I think it was partly because I had a book that I was more interested in reading than the magazines. The book was Gilbert White’s A Natural History of Selborne. I bought it at his house, I was determined to read it. I still am, but a bit slower. The book comprises a series of letters. I’m adopting a practice of reading a letter a day. Nothing to report on the book yet, I’ve read the first twenty letters so far.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do when the next round of magazines starts. The one exception is Dorset Life – that one, I continue to read front to back.

I have an audible account. If you aren’t familiar with that, they have a very large collection of audio books. But I also like proper paper books.

It’s been quite a while, two possibly three years since I read a fiction book I’ve been going through a non-fiction phase. That doesn’t apply to audio books though, those have been heavily SF oriented, so I have by no means given up on the genre.

I have bought a few SF books in second hand bookshops mostly, it’s quite often the case that it’ll be a book I’ve read before and haven’t seen for quite a few years. Have you seen the film 2001 a Space Odyssey, focus on the scene where Hal kills Poole, and pushes his space suited body away from the pod.

Clarke’s book 3001 the final odyssey is the story of what happens when, a thousand years after those event, humanity had progressed to a point where Poole’s body is inadvertently discovered just as it is about to depart the solar system and is recovered and what happens after that recovery. I’m not going to give way any more of the story.

What I found surprising is that I had really got out of the habit of reading rather than listening to fiction, and I more or less had to force myself to read. As it is, I am enjoying the book.

I don’t think I’ve done this before. Sat down and thought about the week ahead. I am hoping that this will give me an opportunity to think about what could occupy this space over the coming days.

There’s always the chance that something interesting could crop up on one of the morning or lunchtime walks. I don’t mind a couple of entries covering that side of things.

I’m going to have the chance to cook my tea at least once during the week. I’m planning to do something with the air fryer. That’ll be an interesting experience that might be worth a post.

Then there’s the book of the week, I’ve got a science fiction audio book by Ben Bova and a paper book which is my current going to bed reading on the go. Perhaps a piece about my reading habits seems appropriate.

Talking about reading habits leads me on to magazines. Now there has been a bit of an issue there, but I’ll talk about that in the piece (a hint to myself; why have I stopped?).

I think next Saturday or Sunday is I’ll try and get out for a walk. That is likely to be worth an entry. I’ll assume at least one random piece and that’ll do me. Having mapped my week out, let’s see how well I stick to it.