Bills Posts

Ok, that is really annoying. For some reason, the post I wrote about the histories of Dorset an Hampshire didn’t save. It has gone. I’m not going to write it again – sorry.

For the last three weeks I have not been motivated to get up at 0535 and follow my normal morning walk. It appears that the walk is one of the few forums of exercise that I do to keep me anywhere near fit is not sufficient motivation. This is really not good enough.

I need to do something to give me that extra “Ooomph” to encourage me to get up. I like the idea of a project. I thought about something to do with urban life, and have been doing a bit of digging around. What about the number of bins in town, and their fill state? No, perhaps not.

What about tracking the number, types and locations of closed units on the high street? I think that might involve some initial research and effort, with an ongoing update conducted every few weeks, or whenever a change is detected.

I might need something that I can track that changes more regularly . I’m still thinking of what I can do.

I have to confess I felt more than a bit disgruntled this morning. I have no idea why, I thought that perhaps a stroll in to town might help. I took a very slow cruise down the high street.

Whilst I didn’t take any pictures on the high street I was looking for interesting people, either on their own or in interesting situations. I did see two or three but held off taking pictures. Why? Not sure, probably nervous about it.

The high street wasn’t particularly busy, that was perhaps down to it being a bit closer to the regular November temperature, colder. I went into the works and had a browse of the books, but didn’t find anything and then made my way down to the waterfront. The gull in the header picture is sat on Lord Fieldhouse’s bust. It was very nervous, as I tried to get as near to it as I could.

I spent probably about 20 minutes in the gardens, just people watching. There would be a wave of people coming off the ferry and then a disjointed gathering as people waited to board. Fascinating watching individuals and groups. After that, I took just as gentle stroll home. I felt less off than I had. Perhaps I just needed to get out.

I am only touching very lightly on the histories of these two famous counties; Dorset and Hampshire. They both have similarities including invasion by different groups; Romans, vikings & saxons, Wareham is a town with Saxon built walls surrounding it.

There is a point though where I get an impression that the characteristics of their respective histories diverges quite a bit. After about the time of William The Conqueror Hampshire becomes almost sedate (I’m probably doing the county a massive disservice here, put that down to ignorance, I’m still learning) by which I mean it becomes the county of the monarchy, the new forest occupying much more of the land than it does today for the pleasure of kings and queens, towns with high cathedrals and seats of Government.

Dorset on the other hand is wild and untamed. The haunt of smugglers and cider brewers. Much more romantic with an air of mystery and romance. With the Jurassic coast just waiting to be discovered and the story of Corfe and Maiden castles to be told.

The two histories are different, and waiting to be explored. I shall spend Av bit of time exploring the story of Hampshire. But the story of Dorset has a massive appeal to me, and the county is drawing me to it.

No, not the starlings, they never left, and annoyingly, I don’t have a picture. The grey wagtails, well one of them, which has reappeared in the garden today. We frightened them off when we put the garden furniture out earlier in the year, and now that the table & chairs have gone from the patio, there they were bouncing away. I can’t tell you how much that pleased me. Lovely to see.

I’ve started a thing each morning, where I read a page of three books; a nature calendar, todays page was about Moorhens, and in particular how big their feet are in relation to the rest of their body. Then there is Gilbert Whites Journals, not mind you his natural history of Selborn, a different book, from 1768, he was commenting in January on the foul smelling blue fog that was invading the county from London. It must have been dreadful, then there is Ian Dales’ 365 days of politics. Todays piece was about John Turner Walton Newbold, the first communist MP to be elected to Parliament. He was elected in 1922.

Once again, I didn’t get up and go for my walk this morning, although I did manage to get out for a short walk at lunchtime. It’s not enough though. I do need to do more exercise. At the moment though, I just can’t summon the energy to get up. I will have to I try better. It’s just not good enough.

Once in a while, a ship from a foreign navy visits Portsmouth. Thia is the USSN Gerald Ford. It’s 25,000 tons heavier that either of our carriers, and is one of eleven that the US has. It’s quite an impressive sight and is staying for another day or so. I hope her crew are having a good time visiting the hostelries in the local area.

Talking of visiting (oh my, this is a tenuous link), I am about to start reading the next chapter of the history of Hampshire, Medieval towns. I wonder what towns the book is going to talk about, I am hoping to visit some of the modern day equivalent.

It rained again today, heavily and quite abit, around mid afternoon I had to put an office light on, it was getting so dark.

I didn’t go for my morning walk again this morning. It looked as though it had been raining, and it did so before I would have finished the walk. But, my frame of mind is that I would rather stay in bed. This is something that I am going to have to sort myself out of.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. It rained. The rain had started before I awakened, when I came to I could hear the water being thrown on to the window by the wind. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to go out, actually, it was quite nice to stay in bed.

The rain persisted until about midday, when not only did it stop, but the sky mostly cleared and I was able to walk to the end of the high street. A feature of this time of year. Are the fallen leaves. Pavements can become covered, and on occasion quite slippery. There were people out and about with leaf blowers, something they must be quite skilful at because in the couple of minutes we were in view of them, they brought a big pile of them together.

There is a gentleman whom I see quite often at lunchtime he feeds the birds at the waterfront. Mainly pigeons, but also a lot of starlings, gulls and sometimes small birds. The birds have come to expect it, because they started gathering before he had arrived. He told me that he does this every day.

I stood for a couple of minutes at the waterfront, next to the ferry terminal. The tide was in, there was no slope on the ferry ramp. There was a small, slightly strange boat black on the body, yellow superstructure. Very small, I don’t know if it was an official craft. Or just colourful.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. It rained. The rain had started before I awakened, when I came to I could hear the water being thrown on to the window by the wind. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to go out, actually, it was quite nice to stay in bed.

The rain persisted until about midday, when not only did it stop, but the sky mostly cleared and I was able to walk to the end of the high street. A feature of this time of year. Are the fallen leaves. Pavements can become covered, and on occasion quite slippery. There were people out and about with leaf blowers, something they must be quite skilful at because in the couple of minutes we were in view of them, they brought a big pile of them together.

There is a gentleman whom I see quite often at lunchtime he feeds the birds at the waterfront. Mainly pigeons, but also a lot of starlings, gulls and sometimes small birds. The birds have come to expect it, because they started gathering before he had arrived. He told me that he does this every day.

I stood for a couple of minutes at the waterfront, next to the ferry terminal. The tide was in, there was no slope on the ferry ramp. There was a small, slightly strange boat black on the body, yellow superstructure. Very small, I don’t know if it was an official craft. Or just colourful.

For the first time in nearly three weeks I managed to get up and go for my morning walk. I didn’t do the normal three miles, just two and a bit. It was a pleasant enough walk. Although it was very good to get back on the #Breakfastclub again.

I followed my normal route. Not much has changed. The light ship is not yet back on station. The Cockle Ponds were very quiet.

The weather has been extremely mild for November. I think though, there may be a cold patch on the way.

Just want to say Thank you to Mark for last nights guest blog. He’s been itching to do it for a while, and last nights effoerts was a worthy result.

Windsor castle is a very active institution. The Coldstream Guards are on duty 24 hours and the King was in residence for part of our day – we think he was probably getting ready for today’s remembrance ceremony in London. He’d gone by the time we were leaving the castle, sadly, we didn’t see him.

We did get to see a fair bit of the castle. We particularly wanted to visit St Georg’s Chapel to pay our respect to Queen Elizabeth II, and it was an honour to have the chance to do that. We had to queue, but it wasn’t for long perhaps 30 minutes at the most. It really was quite moving to see the marble slab covering access to the vault where she is interred.

From the Chapel we moved to the State Apartments, these are not as lived in today, by Kings and Queens through time. I was particularly impressed with St George’s Hall, which was destroyed by fire in 1992. If not told or aware, you would not know that. The room was immaculate.

Queen Mary’s Doll House, if a fascinating piece of engineering, for a dolls house it is huge, and is well worth seeing. and for the 1920’s a masterpiece of engineering.

It really was a fascinating day.