Bills Posts

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.

It has been quite a while since I have written about Vlogging. Have I done anything about it? What do you think? Absolutely diddly squat! Why’s that then you might reasonably ask. And I would answer because 1. I don’t have the time or 2. It’s too difficult. 3. I haven’t got anything to say. In reality, they are all excuses.

Is it because regardless of what I am Vlogging about, it will very quickly show up my ignorance? Why do I even want to do it? I think that one is probably the easiest to answer; I just want to play with the gadgetry, and the possibility that I might at some point in the future have something that somebody, somewhere, may consider interesting.

So I do have an idea as to what I would like to vlog about, and it is a subject that I really don’t know a lot about, and I know the style that I would like to create. I also have pretty much all of the kit that I need. This is not something that I need to do every day, I can take a month if I want to.

I have been going on about this for so long now. It is obviously something that I have a minor obsession with. Just do it. That’s what I say.

It has been several weeks now since I stopped my morning walks. I am enjoying not getting up too much at the moment to resume.

What I am not enjoying so much is an increasing sense of frustration that I am not getting out as much as I did, I feel that I am missing out on photography even of stuff that isn’t very exciting.

I watch. A YouTube channel, created by a young chap called Teo Crawford. I think he is Austrian, but typically, his English is excellent. He loved getting out and about using both film and digital cameras. Now the thing about his photos are, and I am going to be honest here, they are not spectacular. Not bad, just not exciting – sorry about that but what I love about his channel, is the way he describes what he likes about the pictures he takes.

Coupled with his voice which is really quite calming. Here’s a link to his channel; https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=teo+crawford I like the music he uses as well. His videos are good, quite professionally put together.

Teo’s style is one that I’d quite like to copy. I say that a lot. What I need to do is get walking again, and actually do something.

In November, we had an unseasonably warm spell. I’m not sure if our central heating fired at all. Apparently it was warm air coming up from Africa. Why would that happen? Anyhow.

We are almost back to normal. The only thing missing is the snow. Yesterday in particular it was really cold. I wrote in yesterdays post about the walk along Ryde Pier. I’d reached a point along the pier where I was suddenly taken with how bleak the scene was.

The picture really doesn’t do justice, you can’t feel the wind, it wasn’t driving but it was a reasonable breeze, and it wasn’t just cold, it was bitter. The clouds looked low and heavy. I have been wondering when it’s going to snow. They really had that look about them.

Are we heading for a white Christmas? Wait a few more days, and we’ll find out.

It’s a long walk from the shoreside of the Isle of Wight pier to the ferry terminal at the end, and the weather was bitterly cold. But that walk was well worth the effort.

I had made the journey across the Solent to Ryde to be picked up by Jan and John and taken to the Eight Bells pub in Carisbrook, Newport for the Isle of Wight Radio Society’s Christmas meal. My first Christmas meal of the season.

I haven’t been to the eight bells pub before, but I would most definitely go again. It was lovely to see good friends, some of whom I have only ever spoken to on the radio and others whom I have met before.

The food was excellent, there were nice sized portions and it tasted delicious, as I said I would definitely go again.

One of my friends 2E1PHW Pete took me back to Ryde, he offered to take me to the end of the pier, but I wanted to walk the length even though it was a bit cold. Luckily the Wight Link Fast Cat (Catamaran) service is quite flexible, and even though I was catching a ferry at a different time to that booked, that was fine.

It really was a lovely day out.