Bills Posts

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.

I have to confess that I am sat here absolutely steaming with frustration and not a little bit of anger, and I can blame no one because it’s my own fault. Of course, it is all about committees.

Today, yet another one has gone wrong form me. This is a hard annoying lesson that I have I think now learned. Actually it is one of two rules; 1. Do not put me in charge of people (a different story that I won’t go in to today) 2. You might be interested in something, and join a club or in some other way become involved. But, whatever you do, do not under any circumstances join the committee. Because, come on, admit it, yes I do not do well in committees.

I am not going to go in to detail, or name people – entirely not appropriate, but what I have done recently is acted in what I thought was the best interest only for it to be pointed out to me that I have forgotten something crucial (which I had). Stupidity and embarrasssment on my part – hence the title of today’s piece, that, or rather lack of it! Damned annoying.

I very nearly accused somebody of being immature when they did something which I thought was a bit petty, only to remember I had done something very similar about three years ago.

See, I want to be involved, but of all of the committees I have joined, something somewhere has gone wrong. By all means join the club or society or whatever. But do not, ever under any circumstances join the committee. I really, really do need to listen to myself in this respect.

Around 1972, probably for my birthday, my sister bought me a dictionary (I think I may have said I needed one for school). I was given a very nice hardcover Oxford Dictionary.

I got the mickey taken. out of me quite a bit over the dictionary. I’d be looking up a word, and that was me gone for 10 minutes, just looking through it. What are you doing my friends would ask, “Reading the dictionary” I’d reply. Fall about laughing they would.

For me though, “reading the dictionary” was a delight. I had to do it again today. But I got to thinking a little bit. I was reading in the latest edition of County Walking a piece about Hedgerows, and how some are very ancient, on the order of thousands of years, and how a lot of hedges had been destoyed in the name of increased food production (which in its own right is no bad thing, but was there no other way of doing it?

The author of the piece used a word, and I reached for my phone to get the definition, but then thought no, I’ll use the dictionary, the same one I was given back in the early seventies. It’s looking a bit battered now, but it was no less efficient in serving up the definition of the word “bucolic”.

The trouble with words, you think you know the definition; why was the author of an article about hedgerows writing how damaged their lungs are, me thinking that bucolic was some form of lung condition. Oh Dear, how wrong was I? Quite a bit really. relating to the pleasant aspects of the country side, and farming is the correct version.

I don’t have a dictionary on my desk, but looking at my dictionary reminded me that I really would quite like one. I’m not very good at describing paper, but I don’t want a dictionaryh with that thick, rough paper. I want a dictionary with the really thin, I think it is rice paper? I think I may get one, so that I don’t have to damage my dictionary from school.

The thing is, I like to be involved. I join a group, I find out what’s happening, and want to be involved. How? Usually by joining the committee.

I’ve been Treasurer, Secretary, and Company Secretary when I volunteered with a charity.

That’s all very well, but things happen, Covid was one, moving was another. A lessons has been learned: time limits on committees really should be enforced.

I was so proudto get my Nikon D5300. By no means a top of the range camera, the 5300 is an entry level device, but is lovely to use, but I am finding it so bulky that I am using it less and less, wheras I should be using it more because of the quality of the glass as opposed to the digital zoom available to me on the phone.

The phones though are ubiquitous, and they are nearly always there, unless you forget them, in which case, if you are anything like me you almost go in to withdrawal. So what do I do?

At one point I had an offer set up on MBP to sell my nikon kit, but I didn’t follow up on it. The thought was to sell the bulky kit and buy something a bit smaller and lighter. I don’t really want rtto do that, but I am upset that my kit is sat in a bag not being used. Sometimes I get motivated get the camera out, I have a macro lens that I have barely used. I even have a (admittedly cheap) ring flash – I have no excuse.

If I had a different camera, would I use it to do more photography? One thing I have always said its the user, not the equipment. Perhaps I really should try harder.

I’ve been taking the readings from this rain gauge since late December. For January so far, we’ve had 64mm fell in to the cup.

We had an intense thunderstorm this afternoon, only two claps and lightening came twice. Both were very loud and close. I’m quite keen to look at the gauge but will leave it until breakfast tomorrow.

At about 4PM it got so dark I had to switch on my desk lamp. The wind has been blowing a fair bit as well. Not gale force, but fairly consistent. I reckon force 3-4 on the Beaufort scale.

It being only January, we still have the potential for cold weather, in fact it is surprisingly mild. From what I’ve seen of the weather charts on the TV the shapes of the weather fronts sweeping over Northern Europe and us, is drawing warm air up from North Africa, which accounts for the warm weather.

The one saving grace of that is that we haven’t used the central heating much, saving us money.