Bills Posts

A couple of things; I know only a little bit of the history of Dorset. I know even less of the history of Hampshire. I wonder how different it is between the two counties. I am sure that Winchester Plays a big role in that history. I am sure that politically Hampshires history is as interesting as Dorsets but in a different way.

I should spend a little bit of time on Hampshire. I’ll do that. But as far as I am aware there appears to be one significant area where the two histories do I presume diverge massively – earth mysteries.

Dorset is loaded with such things and other romantic stories. I have no idea if there are similar stories for Hampshire.

I am very keen to explore Dorset. It seems reasonable to at least put a little effort in to explore Hampshire.

Last nights post arose from a thought I had. What I wanted to do was to paint a moving vibrant picture of a major geological event that ended up giving the people who visit Lulworth Cove a visual feast.

I don’t think it worked very well. Strangely, I had the thought that I would try again, but this time with the formation of an oxbow lake. Not tonight, sometime in the future. Perhaps I need to plan what I was going to say. T

he trouble is I have thoughts and images in my mind and I am too eager to get the words down, and my brain says that what I’m thinking is what I am writing I become over confident and rush to publish and of course, when I read it back I find all the mistakes, plus what I’ve written really doesn’t match what I had visualised.

If I want to even try to write well, I can’t rush, but it will take time. To me that implies that I may need something other than this blog (in addition to, most definitely not instead of) where I put a bit more thought into my writing, and a bit less rush. The thing is though, I do this blog every day, and it can be a bit rushed at times.

One thought I suppose is to plan my posts, I tend not to know what I’m going to write until I sit down with the iPad. If only I could plan a week ahead, perhaps even longer. I’m probably partly my own worst enemy as I don’t really have a focus for the blog.

Thirty Five Million years ago, in the area of what we know as the Mediterranean it was getting very hot and heavy. The African continental tectonic plate is heading north. In the way, and waiting for it is the European plate, as big and as solid as the African.

The two plates collide and the African plate burrows underneath what will be Europe. The pressure and tension on the surface are building to levels we can barely begin to comprehend.

The surface of the European plate buckles and melts, and we are now into what is called an “orogeny” a mountain building period. All that energy is going to produce the Alps. But it doesn’t stop there.

The impact of the contact between the two plates sent out ripples. The effect of those ripples spread out from the southern edge of the plate. Those ripples are felt in the rocks of the Purbecks softening them and moulding them into the spectacular formations that you can see when you visit Lulworth Cove. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purbeck_Monocline That’s a new term I’ve learned this weekend.

The Purbeck Monocline, the vertical bending and levelling off clearly and spectacularly visible at the cove have been described as a ripple in the building of the Alps. A ripple! I suppose that’s one way of describing it. Don’t you just love Geology? Although, the forces that can be unleashed can be terrifying.

It was one of those days, we didn’t have any plans, had a late breakfast and seriously considered just sitting in the lounge and snoozing.  The problem was that it looks a really nice day and it seems churlish to stay in.  So we decided that we would head over to Titchfield Haven.  My better half sat in the car with a flask of coffeee.  I decided that I wanted to do some pebble hunting.

It turns out that doing pebble hunting on a beach that is comprised mostly of gravel.  One of the things that did surprise me was the amount of sea shells.  It makes me think if there is some sorting going on, because I recall when we visited Warsash, the shore of Southampton Water was nearly all seashells.  I’ll look in to that.  In the meantime moving down to the waterline the seaweed was a rather spectacular green – I don’t often see it like this.  

Considering the it was October, the weather was lovely.  The sea was a beautiful blue and there were lots of Yatch’s on the Solent. The airspace was busy with light aircraft, presumably flying in and out of Daedalus and probably Bembridge as well.

Titchfield Haven is a Nature Reserve, there’s a fee to be paid for entrance, so we didn’t go that way this time.  We did cover the few yards to the harbour where the ducks and the swans were looking for food, luckily there were people feeding them, so they seemed to be OK.

Is it possible to have too many books? Even if space for them is running out? I have no more bookshelf space to give and have resorted to having a couple of piles, plus I have several books on the go. I am lucky that audio books only take up storage, not physical space.

The problem I have is that I’ll go into a bookshop, I like Waterstones and other similar chain stores, but also like a good 2nd hand shop, because you never know what you are going to find.

But then you get them home and you have nowhere to store them and disposal is considered sacrilege. The pile gets larger, and the only thing you can do is keep on reading.

Can’t think of anything to write about? You end up with either a really feeble post, such as a couple of nights ago or sometimes a bunch of waffle that, just very occasionally turns in to something interesting. At this moment in time, I have no idea which way this post is going to go.

I really don’t like producing poor posts. You have the courtesy to take the time to read my posts, the least I can do is put some effort in to producing something that makes it worth while you spending your time on it.

Except where a post is truly pathetic, I’m not going to apologise for my blog, but it is useful to look back on times where writers block has been a significant issue for the evenings submission. When I started doing this blog, gosh, is it nearly 800 days ago? Yes, it is – that is really good going for me, I knew that I would have to contend with writers block.

After one particularly bad episode, I think it was (please don’t ask me which number post – I will try to find it later) I decided that I would try to combat the blockage by writing about it. Here is the result.

As I had no idea which way this post was going to go, you’ll get the picture that my brain was absent of words just a few minutes ago. Nothing was putting itself forward as a viable topic, to give you a return, in payment for you giving me your time – thank you for that by the way.

Once I had got going, it wasn’t too difficult to write this. I’ve found it both useful and interesting. I sincerely hope you did as well.

I have had the distinct feeling that the morning walks are a bit jaded, especially at this time of year when an increasing portion of the walk is done in the dark. I must have thousands of very boring pictures of the Spinnaker taken during the walks between the autumnal and spring equinoxes.

Just occasionally some form of inspiration takes hold and I go out on the morning walk with a goal in mind. For example if I know a certain ship is coming in I will try to get to the waterfront in time to see it. Or, some photographic goal.

Take this morning for example, what I wanted to do was to get some atmosphere in to my photos. I thought that I might have a bit of a problem doing this directly on the iphone, so I ended up manipulating the picture in the iPhoto app. The facilities available are not extensive in comparison to the major apps, they were enough to produce the effort at the top. For comparison, here is the original, I manipulated picture;

I’m not talking about my photographic abilities, but the capability of the software. Which I think is not too bad.

Now, when i have a project in mind I get excited thinking about it and it becomes a real pleasure to get up and get out. One of the things about me that really annoys me is the issue I have with imagination. I’m really not very good at coming up with ideas. I need to have something to prompt me. A good magazine article or a book can do the trick.

If I could go out every day with a photographic project in mind, that would be really good.

I’ve come back to the B&W article (Issue 270, page 62 Abstraction) The article looks at the photography & art of a number of different people. I’ve been taking a look at their various efforts

• https://bit.ly/GabrielleCroppi
• https://bit.ly/GiorgiodeChirico
• https://bit.ly/Frank_Stella
• https://bit.ly/Raymond_Moore

Now there are more names in the artcle. and I’ll post them possibly later, but the names above are a coss selection that I had a look at. If you look at them you’ll see that it appears that Giorgio and Frank are more artistically than photographically inclined.

I really enjoyed looking at teh selection of the pictures across the artists.

This kind of takes me to a point that I have mentionned before. That is that I really began to appreciate art when 1. We visitied the Bilbao Guggenheim, but especially Goodwood House.

What got me was the story pehind the art. Now, I am starting to wonder, which is it best to do; To look at an image and then find the story, or to know the story before or as you are looking at the art? It is the link between the story, and the art that I think interests me.

Just a brief note to apologise for yesterdays spost (No. 778). It was pretty poor. Patheticc actually. Sorry about that. I’m almost too ashamed to put up a link to it; https://localitystories.com/2022/10/03/778-book-of-the-week/

Afew days ago I wrote about the book that my wife had acquired for me at the Alverstoke Michelmas Fair. The books is about the Soldiers of the Queen, the military in Gosport.

It starts around the middle of the eighteenth century. Many of the buildings that serviced the military have gone, but many remain and are still used. There are a couple that I walk past every day.

The book has some interesting maps of the area inclluding St Vincent and the Gosport surrounds. It is really fascinating to be able to walk around the area.

I’ve had the most recent issue of B&W Photography. There is usually at least one article that for one reason or another grabs my attention. This time it was an article y Tim Daly entitled “Abstraction”.

I don’t think it matters where you live, I am sure that there will be lots of opportunities for abstract pictures.

This did make me wonder about abstract and surreal what are the differences between them. Here’s a definition from Google;

Abstract is a style of art where the artwork does not refer to anything outside of the artwork itself. Surrealism is a style where the artwork draws from the unconscious and the irrational.

The way that I interpret this is to say that if I take a picture and manipulate it in any way, it doesn’t matter what the result is because the source is based on a real object, any photograph must be surreal in its manipulation. That it is impossible to take a picture of something and then produce an abstract picture.

Now that’s probably a bit bold to say that. One of those moments when I wish the fine arts forum on Compuserve was still about, I feel it would be a good argument.