Bills Posts

Actually, the picture is from earlier this week. The Commodore Clipper, inbound passing the Spinnaker. It was a misty, drizzly morning hence the top of tower missing. Apart from Wednesday, when it was raining in the morning, it’s been quite a good week for walking. There have been three days when I haven’t been able to get a full complement of miles in, which has left me about 13 miles short for an average week.

There is of course, nothing I can do about the weather but the intention is to get in a full week. Let’s see how it goes.

On the photography front, I didn’t realise at the beginning of the week that I would later on have done my first photo story on Project 365, about the tunnel Queen Victoria had built through the ramparts. It was quite interesting. I’m now looking for the next story. I think I’m going to do one around Clarence Yard. I can get that done at lunchtime.

The frustration I had was that I didn’t take all the pictures I needed in only one session, so I need to plan this a bit better. Sorry about last nights post, it was pretty pathetic. Tonights isn’t really much better, but it is an improvement.

I quite enjoyed putting together a sequence of three pictures to illustrate a railway story on project 365. It was a relatively easy story to illustrate.

I would quite like to find another story to illustrate. I’m sure there are plenty around.

I’m sorry, tonight’s post is going to be brief. I’ve left doing tonight’s post too late. Sat in front of the TV we have over the last couple of hours both drifted in and out of sleep and now I am just summoning the energy to type this.

Avenue 141 is a bit of a special restaurant. An annex of Fareham College, it is run entirely by the students who are on various courses. Chefs, waiting staff, managers. There are usually three or four choices on the menu for starters, mains and desserts. I had halloumi with salad, followed by steak with the cheeseboard as dessert. The food was really delicious, and the staff (students) were meticulous in their service. A delightful experience that I expect to repeat before long. What then is the link between that and the header picture?

Absolutely none.

The picture is of the tunnel that around 1844 Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband had punched through Gosport’s defensive ramparts. I have no idea what the Navy must have thought of that, but seeing as it was for the ruler of Britains empire there’s not a lot they could do about it.

The iron work of the railway line extends forward of the tunnel by only a few yards until it reaches the roadside fence line. Up until after the war it went across the road to Gosport railway station and was very important to the navy allowing as it did the conveying of bulk resources to one of the navy’s main victualling facilities at Clarence yard.

Part of the iron works extends for about 40 yards out behind where I was standing take this picture. Here’s a picture of that;

Elayne had gone out for a meal with friends. I had watched an episode of The Orville, and had started thinking about tonight’s blog. I went and looked at what I had written last night about want to vlog and “just doing it” I was thinking about the setup. Would I want to use multiple cameras, of which I could potentially use four.

I have a tripod, and bracket that I use for videoing the net I run on Thursday nights. It occurred to me that I didn’t need multiple cameras, I just needed to set up each shot. I also wanted decent sound so wanted to charge the wireless microphones. The problem here, I can’t find a usb-c cable. I’ll have to order one.

So I had reached the point where I was going to do some practice shots, and then Elayne came home and we finished the episode of Bones, the American TV box set we are watching at the moment.

I have this thing say, for example, Vlogging that I would really like to do. So, I rush about making sure that I have everything I need to produce a vlog of actually quite good quality. There are three fairly major problems.

I had this thing about speaking and videoing in public, actually getting out with the camera probably my phone mounted on the tripod or on the gambol. I was extremely self conscious, really embarrassed to speak if there was somebody about. Plus I wasn’t speaking in what I’d call my normal voice, it was very artificial.

What to video? My thoughts were to produce some videos talking about the history of Gosport. Now that should really have been easy because there is a lot of it about. So what is stopping me from doing it? So part of it is preparing to produce the video. What do I say? How much time is needed to prepare to shoot? Time for post production, so many things to think about and how often would I do this? Did I even have the time?

I did come up with an idea, indoors with some videos I end up with the same problem; actually getting out and doing it. Setting up the kit for indoor really doesn’t require much, what I want to film is straightforward (this is the the indoor thing), and my talking will be mostly ad-lib. Now this should be really easy, so why can’t I do it? Now outdoors is a bit more complex especially in terms of what to say. I think that it is the amount of effort required to prepare for the act of videoing that is putting me off. It’s a bit more than that though, I haven’t done it, so how do I know how much effort is required? It’s just the thought of the effort, which really isn’t good enough.

As they say, just do it.

The day started with a dead badger. As soon as I saw the pathetic looking heap in the middle of the road as I left the house I knew what it was. With a degree of trepidation, I took closer look firstly confirming that it was badger that was deceased, and there was no blood or sign of injury.

I sent a direct (private) message via Twitter to StreetScene and as it was just before 6AM I wasn’t expecting a response. The walk went OK. I subscribe (free) to a website called Project365. All you can do is post one photo per day, and then people who follow you can comment on the photos. Quite straightforward.

Some of the people who I follow on P365 give themselves projects. One chap I particularly like is photographing his home town of Edmonton in Canada. I quite often think that I would like a project. So, I decided that I would think about taking pictures of things that are old in Gosport. I thought about a window frame on North Cross Street it is quite dilapidated and worn, almost rotting. I thought great, I’ll start with that.

I was getting ready to look at where I would frame the picture as I approached the location, but then was dumbfounded. The window had bee repaired. Not just a reair though not even a refurbisment. It looked as though it had been completely rebuilt, I muttered a swear word under my breath. I got put off my thread and will have to come up with either a new place to the start the project, or indeed, an entirely different project?

Walking around the Cockle Ponds, I was gvery sad to see, opposite the round cafe, that someone had dumped a shopping trolly in the larger pond. b Triggering another message to streetscene.

Fair dues to Streetscene I did get a response from them. They were aware of the badger and would task a team to recover the trolley. It’ll probably take them a couple of days.

What we thought would be quite nice was to take lunch over to Titchfield Haven, the nature reserve just a little way along the coast from Lee-on-The-Solent. We prepared our tuna mayo rolls, a piece of fruit and a drink, took books and magazines and were prepared for an afternoons relaxation.

We like to take a drive along the Stokes Bay to see what is going on. As we approached the bay, we could see a container/cargo ship and it looked huge. I don’t know if it was because of the big superstructure, it just seemed very big. It turned out to be The Maersk Bahama, I was surprised to find that it massed only 28,000 tons. Not really that big.

It’s always a bit hit and miss as to whether or not we get a parking slot, as it happened today there were quite a few slots we were able to get one where we had a clear view of the water. we parked up and bought a ticket. Lunch was verŷ nice.

I thought I would go for a walk. I found a path that I hadn’t walked along before. There were plenty of signs declaring it to be part of the England Coastal Path and a bit further along was another sign showing that this area was part of the Solent Way. I was walking towards Warsash, I wouldn’t get there though. I’d allowed myself about half an hour outbound. I was surprised to find myself thirty plus feet above sea level, following the path along a cliff that was obviously inclined to crumble. There was deep undergrowth. I wonder how much that impeded the erosion?

Anyhow, it turned into a very pleasant couple of hours. Quite satisfying.

This morning I went over to Portsmouth using the Gosport ferry. I have to admit that the whole process is very smooth. I wanted to purchase a multi-journey becasue each journey is cheaper. The ticket office was closed, presumably becasue I was too early. Not to worry, the machines were working, do they dispense multi-journey tickets?

Yes, they do. Not only that, you can pay wirelessly! Excellent. I will give Gosport Council their due (not actually anything to do with the Ferry company but commenting as an aside) As much as I hate paying for car parking, the ticket machines are up to date and take contactless payment. I do think they have also come to their senses be allowing an hours free parking. That has to be good for the town. Ok, back to the main story.

Ticket in hand, I proceed to the ferry terminal. Now, we do have to wait a few minutes for the next ferry, but that’s OK. It’s saturday, and its off peak. The ferrry comes towards us, and really does look like the gates on the ferry won’t align with the doors on the terminal, and then almost literally in the last second the ferry swings around the things line up perfectly.

I have to admit that I can’t help be impressed with the skills of the captains of the ferries I have seen them get it a little bit wrong, but it is very rare.

I was going to breakfast with a group of amateur radio operators. We speak regularly, but we rarely see each other face to face , so opportunities like this are always appreciated. We went to the Royal Maritime Hotel. They do a buffet breakfast for what I thought was £9.95, but turned out to be £9.50. The breakfast was very nice, and was felt by all six of us to be well worth it. We all agreed that we would definitely do it again. Now, I have it in my mind to set a date, say three months hence, but I will confirm it with the #Breakfastclub on Monday.

Several years ago, well before Covid I did a course at the local college. In fact I quite enjoyed the course, so I did it twice. It was a course on creative writing. The teacher was a local author June Hampson. She was very good and supportive, and was quite clear that her goal was to get us published. It might only be in a local magazine, but that was the aim.

When we started the course, I told June that I wanted to focus on non-fiction. She advised that I go with the flow, which I did. It quickly became clear that I have no talent for fiction. I did try, but it just didn’t work. I have to say that amongst the other people on the course, every week we would read out our homework. I really enjoyed hearing their work, some were very good.

I do confess that I haven’t really associated creative writing with non-fiction which is a bit daft because really it’s just “flowery” writing, and that can very much be part of non-fiction. I can’t help wondering if it’s worth having another go at the creative writing course? But this time having a different focus. The only problem with that is the course was on a Thursday. I couldn’t do it if it is still on the same day.

On this mornings post on Facebook, it tried a bit harder to write something a little less prosaic than I normally do. For example instead of say the there were lovely colours in the morning sky, I wrote something along the lines of the sky brightened to the east, the muted grey on the horizon gradually rose to a glorious pint before turning to the brilliant azure blue. Just a little more descriptive.

My father-in-law paid me a compliment about my writing, and knowing his book related background, that meant a lot.

I need to practice that style of writing more often. I think a lot of the things I write about could be more interesting if only I put a bit more effort into it. I can honestly say that with over nine hundred blog posts behind me, writing more creatively should be easier, and perhaps posts between 1,000 and 2,000 I should really work on developing that skill. Did I really just write that? It seems I did.

It’s all very well writing, when it is just putting words on paper or on the screen. They really should mean something, and make you feel something. I quite think I would like to achieve that.

At the end of my Facebook posts I usually write something along the lines of “and whatever you are doing I wish you a lovely day” I like doing that. I would like to feel that message comes through in my writing, without me having to say it.