Bills Posts

This morning’s walk was quite delightful. There was the threat of rain, but not really much of a threat. Of course, if it did rain I was either not that far from home or shelter, and besides, having had so little recently it would have been quite nice to get naturally wet. As it happens it did rain, firstly just a very few minutes before i got home and so little as for it to be possible to count the raindrops landing on me, but then we did get a bit more of a downpour a while later, which was very nice.

The first part of the walk from home to the high street wasn’t particularly exciting, with very little going on. There is usually at least one person whom I say “Good Morning”. The Mon St Michel came in whilst I was doing my thing on the radio, and then I walked to the Cockle Ponds.

Over the last couple of days there has been a few seagulls on the south pond, the bigger of the two. The crowd of gulls was even larger today. I assume they are there because of the really large shoal of small fish. I took a picture of a crab beside the pond I wanted to see if there were any more.

I was shocked to see not just one crab, but lots of them. There were crabs hanging off the side of the pond every couple of feet. I’ve never seen so many. I don’t know how big crabs normally grow, but these seem to be getting quite big, but it was the number of them that surprised me.

It was a really interesting walk.

I think a slightly surreal self portrait, admittedly taken accidentally is a reasonable offering for the book of the moment.

I wonder how many of you (here I am imagining my millions of non-existent readers) ever used one of the earlier internet (well, I suppose almost pre-internet service offerings; Compuserve? The thing about Compuserve was that it was a bit of a walled garden with different patches doing different things. I am now talking 1994-2000, positively ancient in internet terms. Anyhow one of my favourite areas covered art. I used to have some wonderful discussions there, mainly about what was and wasn’t art. My stance was that something (let’s say the Tate’s Bricks) couldn’t be art. Oh how naive was I? Of course it is. But the thing is that that was my first real encounter with people who knew art, and where I took are with any degree of seriousness.

It took until 2006 I’d say, until I had an experience with art that really stuck with me. We were on our first cruise, a 5 day taster and it was on board the QE2 no less (I am a bit proud of that fact). Our first port of call was Santander, but our destination was Bilbao, and a visit to the Guggenheim. I have no idea who the artist was for the main exhibition hall. But, the exhibition comprised mostly of pieces made out of huge steel plates, curved and fitted together which you could walk through. One of them inside, was so dark, I don’t think I had ever encountered something so dark. I think this was the first exhibition I really enjoyed. Prior to this, apart from my Compuserve discussions; Art? Boring!!

Whooo Boy, was I wrong. Now I’m still not sure what I do and don’t like, but I now formally acknowledge that i am interested in Art. Why on earth would I have read The History of Art last year if I weren’t? I really enjoyed reading that book. It was fascinating.. But I’m not sure that I am any better of appreciating, let alone understanding Art.

Which brings me to the book of the moment. Now, I have only just finished the introduction and one page of the body, but I am really looking forward to reading “How to look at Art”. By Susie Hodge. Obviously not a lot to say about the book at present, but let’s see how things go.

I have no idea if Procratinatic is a word, but the delight if the English language is that it looks as though it should, even if it doesn’t; To be procrastinatic is to have the characteristics of, or tendency toward procrastination. I should know, I’m an expert at it.

But it comes in bursts, I’m not like it all the time, and it is something that I have struggled against it. One of the ways in which I defeat it is to look at what I am doing, or more importantly what I am avoiding doing and why, and then embrace it. Dive in to the task and do so with gusto.

Now, procrastination isn’t really connected to issues that I have had over the last few weeks where some of my posts have been, to say the least, feebly pathetic. I offer no excuses for that, I quite agree they were feeble and pathetic.

Now, to jerk me out of that frame of mind, this morning it was delivered of me what was termed a”Right Royal. Dorset Bollocking”. Actually, the right royal bit is mine. It went along the lines of “Why have your posts been so rubbish?” “Well…” I replied, and delivered a feeble excuse to which the riposte was “It just isn’t good enough, I expect better of you, now get on with it”

Well, there isn’t a lot you can say to that is there? Indeed, the only thing to do is to just get on with it. I type this with a smile on my face.

So we have this soap, Festive Fig and pomegranate. Now I don’t often get passionate about soaps, but this one just smells so deep and rich I love it. As its badged as a festive soap, I’m not sure if you can buy it at this time of year. I’m going to be really disappointed if I can’t get any more of it. Now, there’s another soap; coal tar, now it’s an usual name if you’ve not come across it before, but the smell is just delightful.

Apart from a brief foray to the post office for a return and a quick trip to the shop I haven’t been out today. It has just been too hot. Now, I could have gone for a walk before it started getting hot, but it’s the weekend and even if I don’t deserve a lay-in, I feel like having one, so that’s out.

The alternative is to go for a walk in the evening. Now ordinarily I would be delighted to do that, except on Saturday evenings, I do a regular zoom.

It’s a bit frustrating as it means no miles walked today. I’ll see what happens tomorrow.

OK, that didn’t go well. I kind of ran out of steam last night. It was a pathetic post – sorry about that.

As this blog has gone on from Post No. 1 onwards, I’ve always tried to have a goal in mind. As time went on, would I get to 100? 250? 500 All of these were reached with the occasional hiccup. I am very aware that the quality of the last few posts, apart from the odd one one really have not been up to scratch.

Is it a case of I am now only keeping the blog going for the sake of it, or because I am losing the will to write? Well, to be honest, I don’t think that is the case. I know that part of the problem I have had is having some time pressure over the last few weeks. That has slackened off.

Hopefully, I will have an increased opportunity for some better posts. I’ve not really been paying attention to things. I will try to do better.

I managed to get out for a morning walk. Not the usual three mile walk, but I did get a couple of miles in. I also had to pop out at lunchtime, only to the shop to buy a couple of things. It was very warm, showing 31C. But actually, it wasn’t too bad.

The most obvious and self evident thing that I can say about an evening walk is that the light is completely different to that of the morning, coming as it does from 180 degrees away.

I thought I would go for an evening stroll, rather than at lunchtime as the sun was a bit fierce. It was a nice change to walk down the high street as there were quite a few people still around and even several shops still open, although mostly closing, I saw a friend that I stop and chat to in the mornings, he’s normally on his way to work, so it was nice to see him relaxing at one of the bars on the high street.

I hung around at the waterfront just for a few minutes, one of the Brittany Ferries – The Bretagne was coming in, and then this pilot cutter came in just ahead of it. The Cumbrian Fisher wasn’t at its berth, but there was a ship out in the channel that I thought for just a couple of minutes might be it, but a check of Marine Traffic confirmed that it wasn’t. A returning Gosport ferry disgorged a surprising number of people, presumably returning from shopping expeditions to the Portsmouth side.

Really though, it was just an opportunity to get out for a bit and just enjoy being outside.

I guess the photo above is a kind of street photography.

The thing about street photography is that just sometimes, you can get away with street shots with no people and of course, I am an expert in Street Photography aren’t I? I think the lighting, the architecture shadows or some other aspect should be right. That even I am sure could turn in to a good picture.

To me though, I think the majority of street photos should include people. I walk down the high street during lunchtime. The street is surprisingly busy almost consistently. “Normal People” Just going about their normal business. These aren’t, with all due respect to them, what I call people of interest. I think what I am looking for are characters, and I am afraid I am just not seeing them.

If I am serious about doing any kind street photography it’s like anything it means time and dedication.. It’s not that I don’t want to give either of them, I would like to. I’d like to think I might possibly even try.

Here’s a thing; after being stuck indoors for three days having had an adverse reaction to some medicine I’ve been taking, I think I am prepared to forgive myself the two rather pathetic posts of the weekend and the one that I missed because i just didn’t feel up to doing anything, if I am genuinely interested in writing, and am at last now beginning to feel something approaching normal, then surely I must be able to produce something other than a very short paragraph demonstrating my pathos.

There are of course any number of topics that I could, in theory write about not least of which is the latest issue of B&W photography. At the moment I am about a third of the way into the the issue and haven’t yet found that “wow” article. Certainly there have been a couple if interesting pieces. South America seems to be a very popular place to catch that feeling. To be honest, I can’t see me heading down that way.

I’ve been listening to an audio book; The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer. Now, I know that some of you will be rolling your eyes and thinking “Really?” But I’ve read several of his books, and I thoroughly enjoy them and these chronicles are really quite gripping. I’m on the second book.

I’ve really missed walking these last few days, even if it is only just walking down to the water front. I’m looking forward to getting out again.

I was a little bit more than tired. Had a really rough weekend. Hopefully fully back to normal in a couple of days. Another pathetic post. Sorry about that.