Bills Posts

Tomorrow is the last day of the four day extended Jubilee Weekend, celebrating HM’s 70 years as the head of state. The last three days have been exhausting – good, but exhausting.

It was nice to see the movie Maverick on the big IMAX screen in Chichester. We won’t go there for every film, but certainly some of the big spectaculars will be well worth seeing there.

Yesterday, we had a lovely BBQ with friends and neighbours who are friends. It seemed to go well, and everybody enjoyed themselves.

Today was a birthday celebration of two family members. A bit of travel was involved, but the EV did very well. It was lovely to see everybody, and as usual, the spread was delicious. I haven’t been on the scales for two weeks. I will pay the price for that on Monday.

There was no #Breakfastclub this Friday morning. I’m not at work. I didn’t have to get up. We had a busy day ahead of us. Lots of running around and setting up in the morning. We had a neighbours BBQ. We had a lovely time. But it has been a long day, and I am glad that it’s over.

This four day weekend is turning in to a busy time. Even though I didn’t have to get up I did and went for a walk. I didn’t take my radio with me. I thought I would take the opportunity to go unencumbered with the headset, which whilst it it is very comfortable and keeps my ears warm in the cold weather but they are a bit bulky. As it happens, I wish I had taken the radio with me with a more discreet earpiece.

I want to do some videoing whilst I’m out in the morning. But I don’t want to video with me wearing the headphones. But when? I have a brief period before the club starts. Of course there would be time after the mornings walk, but by by then I am eager to get a cup of tea. I did a clip this morning where I acknowledged that I didn’t have a message.

What point is there in videoing, if there is no message? Does there even have to be a message, perhaps some kind of diarying? I am thinking about this.

Well, not for a walk anyway. I could have got up at my normal time, 0535. I could have got up at 0300 because I was awake, and couldn’t get back to sleep. In the end, didn’t bother. We went to see the next chapter in Tom Cruise’s Top Gun series – Maverick. I have to say that I was pleased that this film kept the original theme, Kenny Loggins Danger Zone. It was a very enjoyable film, and well worth seeing – especially on the IMAX screen at Chichester.

It’s the Queens Platinum Jubilee weekend. I wish her well, and think she has done an excellent job. She has a life that I would not want.

It’s only a short one today, sorry about that. My brain has dried up I’m afraid.

It has been a lovely day. Bright sun, little wind, some lovely clouds in the sky. The wind did pick up up a little but I was still very comfortable in t-shirt on the lunch time walk.

The sun was glorious first thing, no wind at all and comfortably mild, very little, practically no cloud. I changed my route to walk down the High Street again. One of the people with whom I exchange pleasantries was sat outside Greggs with some friends. We had a brief chat.

I took a fleece with me on the lunchtime walk, but I didn’t need it. There was a chap at the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall with a tripod mounted gimbal, he was doing a slow motion Panorama of the harbour. We got to chatting and found we had some life experiences in common. He showed me the end result of the filming. It was very impressive. I may have a go.

It really was a lovely day.

When I was giving my weather report to the #Breakfastclub it was very noticeable that was not a breath of wind. My handheld anemometer showed 0 knots regardless of the direction it was facing. I carried on to the cockle ponds.

At the ponds, the lack of wind gave a surface that apart from the odd ripple caused by insects or the small minnow like fish. At the western end of the pond I paused to look down in to the water. As I did so, I was talking to my friends on the radio. They heard me say “Oh Wow” and then they lost the signal as happens.

The “Oh Wow” happened when I looked over the edge, down in to the water. The lack of movement was giving a three dimensional view. I felt as though I was stood on the edge of a ten mile high precipice, way, way above the clouds. The exclamation was well deserved. The 3D effect was very pronounced.

I have started doing a regular little bit of video each morning. I’m not posting these to YouTube (although I may start doing so). Here is today’s effort;

It was a really lovely moment.

Either this ship is just berthed next to the platform that is dealing with the old Isle of Wight Ferry, or it is berthed there because the old ferry is being worked upon. To what end, I don’t know. The old ferry has been there for years. I would imagine that at some point it will go for scrap. There have been some problems with the replacement ferry. I wonder if the failure to scrap is related to that?

When I was out this morning, I took a few video sessions. I just want to get used to talking to the camera. The thing is I haven’t really worked out the message. I have a kind of an idea, but I am working on it.

I went to the dentist again today. I expected them to do something, which in fairness they did, but not what I was expecting. But, we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the 1800’s and the 20th century, this building housed one of the Royal Navy’s victualling centre. At its height, the bakery here (under the arches towards the middle of the picture) will produce 10,000 loaves of bread per day which were ferried out to the ships berthed in the harbour, and at anchor out in the Solent.

In some ways, this grand facility is a little bit forlorn today. Attempts are being made to bring some life the area, there are a couple of rather nice restaurants and bars here. Along with space for retail units on the southern side of the central unit. Other than for the people who live in the converted barracks and buildings nearby, what is there to attract people to this area of Gosport? It’s a work in progress.

It Began about three weeks ago. I noticed that when I bit down there was a twinge of pain on the left hand side. It didn’t really affect me massively until last Wednesday, when something clicked and biting down became really quite uncomfortable. On Thursday, I phoned the dentist and was lucky to get an appointment a couple of hours later. I explained that it felt like the pain was on the lower left side. The dentist had a good poke and prod and took a couple of x-rays, couldn’t find anything and so gave me a prescription for antibiotics and booked another appointment for two weeks hence.

Well, it only took a day or two. By Saturday morning, any contact with a tooth on the upper left hand side brought instant and intense pain. I embarrassed my self whilst phoning the dentist,leaving a voicemail saying that I had visited “the vet” – why on earth I said that I have no idea, but I am cringing about it.

Eating since yesterday morning has been very problematic. Doubly frustrating is that this afternoon (Sunday) I cooked the meat for a family barbecue, the results of which I could only eat by nibbling away at everything using my front incisors, like a rabbit! Following the advice to eat on my right hand side resulted in frequent collisions and agony. It’s another call to the dentist tomorrow hopefully.

One of the Pilot Cutters coming in to harbour.

I have had a couple of goes at producing a vlog. Apart from the for, and the complexity of the production process, I’m having a problem delivering the message to camera. It is the actual talking to camera that I have problems with. But, I don’t think it is talking to the camera. It is the message.

My basis for saying that is that I can talk to the camera. If you are on Facebook, look for the GB3IW page, you’ll see dozens of videos of me running the Isle of Wight Radio Society Thursday Night Net. I usually start the FaceBook Live session about a minute before the net starts. In that minute, I talk script-less to the camera. I feel relaxed, not bothered about what I’m going to say, I just talk to the camera. No specific message, weekly ramblings. Most importantly of all, my voice sounds normal, not artificial.

Perhaps for Vlogging, I need to get to a state with what I want to say, but that obviously is going to take a bit of effort. I haven’t given up.

I’m drawn to this photograph because of the fresh & straightness of the contrail heading almost directly along the high street. I suppose in some remote kind of way it is a street encounter and so germane to today’s post.

Whilst I am on post 653, and therefore rapidly approaching the two year point of doing this blog, I have been doing my morning walk for quite a bit longer than that. Over those times I have had a number of encounters with people. Of all of those, only one has been what I would say was unpleasant. I’m not going to write about that one, because I would much rather be positive. Having said that though, inevitably some are sad.

I had an encounter yesterday, it was on my lunchtime walk. There was a chap whom I see fairly regularly, and I know to be a rough sleeper. Sadly, I don’t know his name. But I have spoken to him in the past. I think I resonate to a very, very limited extent with the rough sleepers because in my past times, being homeless was a fear that I had. Of course, it never came to pass, but it was there. This chap said hello to me, and I stopped to talk to him. He told me a sad tale of How all of his earthly possessions had been stolen. I bought him a drink and a sandwich. Asked him if he was seeking support, and suggested some people from who he could seek support.

In complete contrast to that was this mornings meeting. A chap was walking along with his two labradors, one golden, one black both off the lead. They came over to me for a sniff. As usual, I had my “gadget stick” and had to pass over a contact on the radio – he was clearly interested in what I was doing. We had a good ten minute chat. Exactly the kind of thing I enjoy.

On my walk this morning, I saw that someone had been liberally sprinkling Liquorice alsorts around – don’t worry, I didn’t pick it up, but what a waste. Strangely, that’s the only time that I eat liquorice with all the other bits wrapped around it. Very nice. Liquorice on its own – yuck.

These last few mornings have been very quiet, very few people out walking around, certainly several of the people that I normally exchange pleasantries with haven’t been about – apart from Pepy walking up the high street.

There was a seagull sat on the roof of a building on North Cross Street. I did wonder if it was the screaming Seagull. But it just sat there surveying the seen. I didn’t even detect any animosity from it.

Even the Jelly Fish in the Cockle Pond have been hiding from me. Mind you, there were a few more this morning than there have been. I don’t think they’ve escaped – at least, I hope not (not that I wish them to be captive, they just are).