Bills Posts

Normally, when I put the bird food out I layer it in the plastic pot I use. Ground up peanuts at the bottom, mealworms in the middle and no-grow birdseed on the top. i then just upend the pot on to the birdtable, andd let them get on with it.

The birds waste a lot of birdseed, a lot. I’m asking myself if I should ditch the bird seed and just stick with the other two? To try and work out just how popular are the three elements I put on the table I did a little experiment this morning.

Having cleaned the birdtable off, I prepared this morning’s food in three separate containers, and with a little bit of fiddling to get around the anti-pigeon-measure-that-doesn’t-really-work control I deposited each food in a different corner and retired, working on the premise that I would be able to go out later and check what has been eaten. It almost kind of worked, but I will have to repeat it. So, what went wrong then?

Well, I wasn’t able to get out to have a look at the table until lunchtime. As I approached the back door I could see a guest at the table and realised it was the squirrel. Now, he was definitely focussed on the corner where I had deposited the seed. Now, was he there because the starlings had cleaned the table elsewhere? The other problem was that the wagtail was bouncing around, running in after a seed, and dashing out again. I didn’t want to disturb it, so I had to wait until it was gone.

When I was able to get out in to the back, the only thing I could say for certain that the only food left was the birdseed, of the worms and peanuts there was no sign. I could conclude that the peanuts and the worms were more popular than the seed. I need to have another go tomorrow.

I managed to get out for a walk today at lunchtime. It was a bit nippy, but nice. Usual track down to the waterfront and back. HMS Queen Elizabeth was undocked and looking at Marine Traffic (AIS) she’s not back in her berth.

The High Street reasonably busy, with the usual Tuesday Market set up. A few posts back, I made the comment that a different camera won’t make you a better photographer (namely don’t blame the tools). It has been quite a while since I’ve thought about street photography.

Now, I didn’t walk down the street with my phone poised, in fact I think even if I had I wouldn’t have taken any pictures. Simply becasue nothing had attracted my attention. That only tells me that I am looking wrong. I am fairly sure that if I had paid proper attention, I would have found something worthy of photography.

Perhaps I’ll take a dry run tomorrow, and pay a bit more attention.

Just to comment a bit I something I did see today and usually see regularly, is what looks like a family of four pied wagtails. They are always there and they always seem to be in front of me as I walk down the steet. I love seeing them. It reminded me of the gray wagtail that has taken a liking to our patio. The pied wagtails obviously get something out of it. Lovely to see.

The No morning walk situation is getting a bit dire. Today, it would have been the only exercise I had. I wasn’t able to get out at lunchtime, which was frustrating.

I woke up in time to go for the walk, but I just couldn’t get out of bed. I am very aware that this is hurting me. Let’s see how this goes.

I’ve put some fat balls out for the birds, I got them as an offer with the peanuts I ordered. I think I’m going to have to change the hanging feeders, I have had them a couple of years, they really don’t cost that much, so it is about time they were changed. Of course it may be that the birds either haven’t discovered them yet, or even just don’t like them.

Because the last few mornings have been cold and frosty, I have tried to get the bird food out as soon as I could. This morning, I saw a flash of yellow in the tree. By the time I had got the milk out of the fridge, the grey wagtail was bouncing around getting its fill of seed. It didn’t take the starlings long either. As they usually do, they dived onto the table, demolishing the pile of food. Lovely to see.

Elayne was going with Sian to a Wedding Fair in the Paulsgrove area. Elayne asked if I wanted to go. I didn’t really want to go to the fair, but it occurred to me that I could go there and walk down to Gunwharf. It couldn’t be two far. Google maps said it was about five miles, add another mile the other end and that would be about right.

Turns out it was just over eight miles. Part of the walk was along a path called the Tippernora. It was quite interesting. It Turns out that Tipper was a Saxon ruler. There were information boards along the walk. There was one which explained the origin of the term Tippernora. In the Saxon language possession was indicated be appending the letter n to the end of the owners name and the word ora means port, therefore, Tippernora means Tipppers Port.

The pathway along the 1waters edge was very popular. There were lots of people; families’ people with dogs, cyclists, joggers. Understandable, it was a lovely area for a walk.

The lagoon in the picture is followed by the pathway. The lagoon itself seems to be a bit of a nature reserve, there were a lot of sea birds there. The rest of the walk was quite normal.

It was very nice to walk somewhere different.

Whenever I go for a walk during shop opening hours, I always try to walk past a certain hardressers on Stokes Road. That’s because they usually have a little board outside, with a saying or something. Today’s made me smile;

It’s like winter is mad, and keeps storming out. But then it comes back in yelling “And another thing..”

It was one of those days, bright but cold. I took as stroll down the high street. There was a market on, but very limited stalls. Quite a few people out though. I had the intention of trying to look for interesting shadow or lighting and angles to take some artistic (or at least, what passes for artistic in my eyes). I didn’t have any success.

The walk though was very pleasant. I went down to the far end of the esplanade and back. I saw the Victoria of Wight go out, and was hoping that there might be some other ship movement, even one of the bunkering ships would have been nice. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant walk.

It’s the weekend. Friday evening. I should have gone to the radio club, it was partly I thought we were going to have a zoom meeting about RAYNET, we didn’t and partly because I just didn’t feel like it. So, we’ve ended up watching the original Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. A 1979 TV series. I can’t remember if I watched it the first time around.

I don’t have anything on tomorrow except the possibility of a trip into town I am going to look at cardigans, I like cardigans, they are very comfortable and I have several of them. I think they are all at least twenty years old. I think elayne hates them with the same passion with which I love them. I have to admit though, the one I have on at the moment is misshapen, and far too short. So, I could do with one or two new ones.

I should go for a walk. I’ve had few photographic opportunities. It’d be nice to get out for a bit.

Just to be clear, the picture has nothing at to do with today’s topic.

I’ve been putting on weight, and I really don’t like it. So the only person who can do anything about it is me. There are two things I need to do; eat less & properly and exercise more.

The first one is, in theory easy. I have been a long proponent of Weight Watchers. Following that programme enabled me to lose 35kg. I’ve very sadly put quite a bit of that back on. I’ve been subscribed to the digital version of WW for quite a while, but I haven’t been following it. I’ve cancelled the subscription.

That sounds counter intuitive doesn’t it? I know how the system works, I can follow it without paying £20 a month. All I need is; a set of scales to weigh food, access to the internet to work out calories, and determination – a lot of determination. The first two are easy, I’ve got them. It’s the third that’ll be the real test. I’ll report back here every so often.

You’ll note that I haven’t talked about exercise. I’ll do that in another post.

We are watching a couple of episodes of Call the Midwife. It is one of those BBC series which really is a pleasure to watch. At the start of each programme a famous actress who stars in the show, Vanessa Redgrave does a brief narrative to start the show.

This evening, she said some words that quite rang home; “Every day is a blank piece of paper, we write our story as the day grows”. That is so true. A large part of my weekdays is work. I am going to say nothing about it, except that for many of the jobs and roles that I have had I have enjoyed them. I have been lucky in that respect.

It is difficult to stress how much I enjoy the morning, I put food on the bird table, sometimes I see the birds having breakfast. A couple of times over the last week there has been a bird. We only get a flash of it, before it disappears; grey, red and a flash of black and white. We think it’s a Jay. We will keep trying to catch a better sight of it.

Lunch time provided the weather is ok (that is, not chucking it down), I’ll try and go for a walk. Only a couple of miles down to the waterfront and bak, with the occasional diversion in to a shop.

I’m trying to control my eating. Nothing between meals except a cup of tea and fruit. In the evenings, it’s a nice meal, with a bit of naughtiness occasionally with some fish or sausage and chips. Very nice.

The only link between the header picture and the title is the bird. It’s not on the bird table. Sometime between 8 and 9 in the morning, I will go out and do my bit.

I am using up the supply of peanuts, which takes a minute to ground up in the cheap food processor (it’s only small – and that reminds me, I need to get some more. Then there is the cup of mealworms, and a cup of no grow bird seed. We had lots of trouble with germinating birdseed that they threw everywhere, don’t expect birds to be tidy eaters.

I check the hanging feeders, which have been full and untouched for the last couple of weeks. I commented to Elayne that I was going to get rid of them as they were getting a bit manky and not being used. Of course, I came down mid-morning for a cup of tea, and the sparrows were going nuts on the hanging feeders.

Then there are the squirrels, a few days ago, there were two of them. They both ran off when they saw me. I do wish I could make them understand that I wish them no harm. can’t say the same about the attitude of the starlings towards the squirrels. They were having a real tussle.

The magpies put in an appearance again, which I do like to see. The grey wagtail was there as well, bobbing around. It must use up so much energy with that constant bouncing. I really do love seeing them

When ever I head towards the waterfront, it is always with the hope that there will be something going on. That was the case today for the lunchtime walk.

The Colombian Star, a Reefer (a ship carrying refrigerated containers) was being escorted in to Portsmouth Harbour by two tugs. Like many of my pictures, the header shot is a grab shot. It was nice that there was a dramatic sky behind the ship. Whilst a blue sky is nice, this adds character.

The water in the foreground brings in a sense of isolation, almost loneliness. I can imagine a scene where the ship is being brought in to a safe haven saved from a violent storm. I don’t think it was that rough.

I like the picture.