Bills Posts

I managed to do posts to FB over the weekend, quite pleased with that. They were a bit diary-like, as I hadn’t gone in to town. But that was OK. I’m going to see if I can keep it going, doing the posts in the afternoon certainly helps, but I still think I would prefer to do them straight after the morning walk – provided I have time of course.

We had a delightful Fox encounter today, I’m not going to reproduce his antics here. But it was clearly enjoying our garden and seemed quite relaxed. I died comment that the fox seemed quite healthy, which was nice, but I know that they can suffer badly from mange, I know our neighbour feeds the fox – I’m assuming that it’s this one as I think they are quite territorial. I may look into seeing if there is a powder or something that can be mixed with the food to stop the mange – should it appear.

The birds are ignoring the food on the table and in the hangers again. I’m hoping that they will pick up on it again, as I think we are moving into that time when natural food isn’t quite as abundant.

Looking ahead, I’ve bought a new shoulder bag. It’s a bit bigger than the NASA bag, but I don’t want it to get too heavy. I am playing with ideas.

The week ahead promises to be interesting what with updates on the high street and the bus station, but Thursday in particular will be a focus – it’s the day of Gosport’s TEDx event, I have a ticket and a day off booked. Really looking forward to it.

I am not used to doing regular weekend posts on Facebook, which is why I feel that today’s felt a little bit “forced” or artificial. I do hope that it didn’t come across like that.

Weekends can go in several directions, frantic or lazy. I confess, I tend to prefer the latter. I find it almost difficult to believe that I will finish work in just under 10 weeks now. I’m sure that I will very quickly find things to do (even if that doesn’t involve volunteering, I think I will have things to do.

I have previously written that it can take 21 days to form a habit, I have pretty much got the habit of doing posts here, I very much want to do the Facebook thing. Don’t ask me why, I just enjoy doing it, and when I don’t I am continually humbled by friends who tell me that they miss my posts.

I am going to try and do this.

I’m having a bit of a mind block. I wrote a reasonable post on Facebook this evening. What I want to do now is write a complementary post here. I’m not going to just repeat the post, but I just can’t think of a link that is robust enough to lead to a full article.

My route included the Cockle Ponds, they were very calm this morning, I could have done another reflection picture, but I’ve already put one of those into a competition. I could have gone out along the Haslar Marina Pier Wall, but there was little point, as nothing big was moving in or out of the harbour.

The next obvious thing to focus on is the bus station. I’ve written a fair bit about the progress of the demolition,, and included two video clips, if I go into the planning application in a bit more depth I might be able to work out what comes next.

I’ve managed to get up for two walks this week. I’m hoping to get up for a walk in the morning, it will be another one of the “late” walks.

It’ll be interesting to see how the bus station is progressing. None of the other projects that have planning permission have started.

We’ve had a busy couple of days, so ready for bed now.

Things seem to be on hold at the moment. I am walking, but not every day. I should really have gone this morning, and I had every intention, but it just didn’t happen.

I’ve stopped thinking about vlogging, this bit of writing and the occasional facebook post are pretty much it. It’s like I am just waiting for retirement to happen and then we will see how things go.

We have iPhones which are approaching end of support not there yet, at least a year to go, but we are thinking of upgrading, we can at least get something back on trade in. When I heard how much the top of the range iphone 17 was going to cost, I was put off, and seriously considered the 16, but having looked at it in a bit more depth, I think we can do it – we really don’t need the 1TB version (the most expensive). The low end has twice the storage of my 12, and I have only just worked out how to free up enough memory to do the latest update (Sorry Meg, it has taken me a while to get there, I will call you).

I was looking at the demolition work. Whilst most of the bus station infrastructure has gone, and will probably all have gone by the end of the week, the huge pile of rubble needs to be ground up ready for re-use (as detailed in the planning application) there is also the pan which is quite big, and probably a couple of feet thick. So there’s still a lot to do to clear the area, and then we are into the rebuild.

Tonight’s picture is not one of those entered in the print competition, nor is it in the PDI competition in a couple of weeks. Just thought I’d say that.

I put two prints in, the scores I got were 8 and 8 1/2. I’m OK with that. One of Elayne’s got held back so it could have been considered for an award, but at the end it didn’t quite make it, so as far as I am concerned, a reasonable start to the seasons competitions.

If you follow me on facebook, you’ll notice a bit of a change. Today’s post was made after work, It’s strange, isn’t it a difference of only a few hours, yet the timbre of the post felt different. Almost less spontaneous, The frustrating thing is that I have more time at the moment in the evenings, so writing the posts should be easier. I was humbled again today, when a friend told me that they are missing the posts.

Luckily, in a few weeks time, this should ease, once I finish work. Regardless of when I go for a walk, if I can do the posts in close to then it will feel fresh. Of course, I may end up enjoying doing the evening write-ups. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, they just don’t feel “fresh” – silly isn’t it?

We were busy getting things ready for the camera club tomorrow night. Whilst it the turn of prints, PDI’S (Projected Digital Images) have to be submitted for the competition later in the month.

I went for a walk this morning, mainly to see how the bus station is coming along I must admit that I was surprised at how much of the structure remains standing.

Not much else going on except for the departure of the Guillaum de Normandie, one The Brittany line’s hybrid ferries.

Perhaps I should say that I marked today as I did, by following the process at work to “resign with pension” my path to retirement is becoming clear.

Everything, vlogging, facebook, the quality of the posts to this blog (OK, never massively high, but better than I have been doing), have all taken a bit of a hammering recently. I think I need to re-focus myself. and try and get the little bit of mojo that I had back to work again.

So let’s see how things work out this week. I really will try and do a little bit better. I am going to try something, I’m not going to talk about it yet as I want to see if it works. I’m playing with ideas.

One thing I am very keen to get a look at is the state of the bus station, which I believe has pretty much been reduced to a pile of rubble. I’ll have to see what I can do about getting something down.

Tuesday, will depend on Monday, I’ll try and do a bit of videoing if I get the chance, and provided the weather stays OK, I intend to create that chance, and then on Wednesaday, I h’ll see if I can do something that I should had have done last week – I may even have a bit of video for you.

Todays picture, is the evening skyline looking west across Alverstoke Creek with St Mary’s Church almost in the centre. Unlike yesterdays picture which had nothing at all to do with Whitely.

We went to Whitely this morning. Partly to get out of the house, but mainly because I need a new pair of casual shoes. As it happens one particular shop met those needs.

The shopping centre at whitely seems smaller than what I remember. /i have to admit, that my tendency has been towards not going there, as mainly, there’s nothing that interests me.

At least, that was a case until a branch of Waterstones opened there. Now, I am happy to go because I can alwaays spend a bit of time there having a browse. One thing I was surprised and pleased about, was that the shop was busy. I mean not just people in having a browse,, there was a queue to buy books, and evgerybody seemed so cheerful.

Now, there were two books that caught my attention; One was The Hidden Seasons by Tristan Gooley, which having had a flick through, does look quite interesting. The other was A Year with Gilbert White by Jenny Uglow, which looks more interesting every time I look at it, I am very tempted to buy, but at £25 as a hardcover, even with the £3 off deal by Waterstones, still seems a bit expensive. i note the Amazon price is £19, but I am still inclined to wait until the paperback v ersion comes out before even considering buying.

Elayne was happy to casrry on browsing, but my needs met, I was happy to go back to the car and wait.

Storm Amy has been blowing a bit – only a few spots of rain today. But the sea was rough, every wave on the Solent had a white top, with a bit of spray coming up on Stokes Bay. We stopped and took a few pictures.

Storm Amy is blowing its path across the country.

I had to go out and check the car. It wasn’t heavy rain a fine drizzle and the wind was blowing well. It’s the first storm of Autumn (not necessarily across the year.

It wasn’t that unpleasant out, and I was reminded that given the right coat. I quite like being out & walking in rough weather.

Should think about that.