Bills Posts

We walked in to town today. We popped in to the new cultural centre had a quick look around which was interesting, and did make me wonder if they change parts of the display every few days? The cafe is quite pleasant.

The British Heart Foundation has quite a good book section. I like to take a look occasionally. They had a book about Samual Pepys, not his diary, more a biography. If it is still there next time I go in, I may get it.

Even though there was a chilled breeze blowing (actually, it was very cold) but it was very pleasant to take a stroll to the end of the pier wall. The small cargo ship, the Musketeer was sailing out of the harbour. Nice to see.

We watched a cormorant it was diving for fish. I was surprised at how far it travelled under water and how long it stayed under. I don’t know if it was pleased with itself, or frustrated it didn’t come up with anything in its beak – hopefully it catches and eats underwater.

There was a seagull on top of a lamp post at the end of the pier. It seems we had somehow upset it. It seemed to be really quite angry.

As happens on quite a few occasions the header picture has nothing at all to do with what I intend to write about except to say that I haven’t been to the waterfront for a couple of days, and I thought that The Mary Mouse 2 was due back on her berth in November, but had not returned as of the last time was there.

A few posts ago I mentioned the Aurora Borealis when I was writing about Gilbert White’s journals. I asked the question sbout what people from times ago would have thought sbout them when they appeared in the sky.

I would have thought that there would be comment about what the impression was of this phenomenon. I’ve just done a very quick google search and unsuprisingly there stories of lost spirits, portents of momentous or disastrous events.

I wonder what records there are? I wouldn’t have thought that unlike known comets the re-appearance of which can be predicted with relative ease I wouldn’t have thought that Aurora can either be predicted (which we can only do, at best about two hours ahead of the event).

I shall keep looking.

It has been a very cold few days. Several times the cold haas been below zero. The frosts, and this mornings frost, have been very heavy. One thing I was concerned about was giving our outside tap some frost protection. Luckily I found the frost cover in the garden shed as we couldn’t find any new ones in town. I was also concerned about the hose, but that is under cover now.

I am on the last few pages of the History of Hampshire. The reading of it had been delayed because of the arrival of the monthly round of magazines. All finished now apart from a couple of pages which I can finish off slow time.

I have three days worth of weather stats, the graphs are building so Ian happy with that, they are also being recorded at the back of next years journal. The journal is actually an A5 week per page diary. I wonder how long I will use that before I decide I am not happy with it. We’ll have to wait and see.

I am on the last few pages of A History of Hampshire. This chapter is covering Local Government in Hampshire from 1066 to 1976. That the author can do that in about 10 pages speaks volumes about the amount of history there is here. I am of course down playing this. Much more went on than is written about in this book. For example there have been only two very brief mentions of Gosport and no mentions at all of Gosport’s role in the civil war or of Palmerstons Follies.

As I started reading the history I think I speculated that Hampshire’s history wouldn’t be very exciting. I think that has been born out. I have a book on order – the history of Dorset. If the focus is right, I expect it to be an order of magnitude more exciting.

I have two days worth of data from my garden weather station. I am missing two sets of data; wind speed and wind direction the wind speed I can partially fix that one by taking my handheld anemometer out with me and taking the reading. I’d want one that gives the highest gust since last reset. Wind direction would be a bit of a guess.

I’d like to buy a wind vane, but one that gives a reading that is more accurate on the other hand, it’s the lack of digitisation and associated accuracy that I’m after.

So I have two instruments that I want to look for, and I don’t want to spend a huge amount of money on them I don’t even know whether what I am after exists.

The same applies to Galilo’s instruments. I’d like a set of them. What is going on inside my head/

I put the new barometer up on the side of the shed fairly early and then left it for an hour to settle down and I then took a set of readings and fed them in to the new spread sheet I’ve set up using the apple app Numbers. I’ve set a chart for each index.

I’m fairly used to using excel, but I wanted to use numbers. It is (and remains so) a bit of a learning curve, but that’s ok. This all goes back to my desire to have a traditional weather station.

I’ve only recorded one set of data, so no lines yet. I’m not planning to put it on line. I am looking forward to the graphs developing.

M&Co is one of the clothing stores in the high street. As I was out for my lunchtime walk I walked past the store, and I heard a couple talking. The lady said “Oh no, M&Co is closing.” I hadn’t even noticed the two big signs in the window.

This once again triggered a slew of thoughts about the state of high streets in the UK (and anywhere else in the world?) I’d quite like to do a bit of counting;

• How many ‘Establishments’ are there on the street?
• What types are there?
• How many are open?
• How many empty units are there?

Every establishment closed is a sadness, and addds to a feeling of being run down, as if the town is losing energy. What can be done?

It appears that one type of shop that does appear to be doing well, are those that serve drink and food. What about turning empty shops in to housing units? Would that even work?

It’s just sad to see.

I bought this today. It gives atmospheric pressure, relative humidity and temperature. Why would I buy something like this? I’ve written not that long back about the weather station in Swanage and the old devices that were there. I’d love to have something like that in my garden. Why would I?

I’m not at all sure I can answer that I just like it.

I have a perfectly good & technical weather station. But I like the idea of having to check every day, and manually record the figures. I’ve bought an A5 week to view journal. I am planning to make very short notes, and record the figures. I’ve also bought a very basic rain gauge.

I shall record the figures and put them into a spreadsheet and chart them. I suppose I should get a traditional weather vein as well. We did have one, but I didn’t maintain it, so it rusted up and stopped working. I’m not so sure if I’m bothered about wind direction, but speed would be quite good. I wonder if I could get an analogue anemometer?

The other thing I would like is a set of the same astronomical instruments that the likes of Galileo had. I think that would be botth quite good fun and quite interesting.

Ah well, it’s nice to have a dream, and you never know.

I’ve just been through a fair few of my archive looking for a picture of a car, this is the closest I could get.

We went to London today to visit family. We had a very nice day. I was stressed though. I started being stressed about a week ago. We were asked if we could drop some books off at a place which was about 30-40 miles off our normal route home. Of course that kicked off worries about range. Normally we take about 66% of the battery for the journey each way, so we do have to recharge. Which we do at a very good charging station. this time, on the journey we used the heating much more and arrived having used 75%.

We left london with 98% on the battery, 158 miles on the clock. The first stage was 40+ miles. We arrived there, have taken one of two possible routes (the long one, which I really didn’t want to do) and the short one. Guess which one we took. It was about 15 miles longer than the shorter route.

We left the delivery point with 61% on the battery and 50 miles to do. I realised at that point all my stress had been utterly unnecessary. I knew that we could get home. We might have to be a bit frugal with the heater, but that would be no problem.

We arrived home with 34 miles, 23%. The main thing is that the car didn’t let us down. Might not be ideal, but it does work. I was very pleased to get home.

It was that time of day just after noon, when the sun was shining straight down this alley way on Gosport high street. This picture seems to be appropriate when I want to talk just a little bit about light.

In the first instance, it’s about light pollution. I am reading just two pages a day of Gilbert White’s Journals. Not the history of Selborne which he is famous, just his normal day to day notes.

On one of his daily jottings, he commented on seeing a giant aurora borealis. To see the northern lights this far south today is a very rare occurrence, and it seems that this might be partially at least due to the light pollution generated by our society.

I didn’t make a note of the date when I first read about an aurora in Gilbert’s notes, but I was going to remember that it happened and note the next occurrence if there were one.

Which of course there was, and not just one. Two not that far apart, Gilbert recorded; 25th Oct 1769 A vivid borealis and was also visible for a few evenings around the 29th. And then again on the 18th January 1770, Gilbert reported a vast aurora east to west.

That is quite a number over that period, more than a coincidence. It seems that aurora were visible quite far south as a matter of routine – cursed light pollution. Which begs another question;

I’ve read about comets and how they were viewed until they were understood, harbingers of doom. But I don’t ever recall hearing anything about how auroras were viewed. I think a little research is warranted.

It was early, but not as early as I normally have been getting up in the past. I needed to go for my morning walk, but still couldn’t face getting up at 0535.

I left the house at about 7AM. It was still dark. It had brightened a f air bit by the time I had reached the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall and there were people working on the barge in the header picture, the crane is lifting one of the legs, presumably in preparation for a move. A while ago, I learned that the legs are called spuds – I have no idea why. I had though been wondering whether each spud had a motor to lift it, so that’s another question answered.

I didn’t get home until about 20 past 8, all of this has reminded me why I was getting up at 0535, plus of course, I am missing the #Breakfastclub, which I really do need to get back on to. Elayne had suggested doing it from home, but did warn that if I talked too loud I would have to stop.

The 0535 time is the only practical time that I can do everything I want. I seem to recall that when I first started doing my regular early morning walk I worked out that it was pretty much the only time I had when I could do what I wanted. As much as I like staying in bed, I need to do the exercise and this is the only time I can do it. I think I may have to start gain – especially if I am going to sign up for walk 1000 again this year.