Bills Posts

The rest of this post is a bit disjointed. They are the notes I dictated as I was walking toward the midway point of my walk. The dictation tool isn’t perfect, it is pretty good but just needs a little bit of editing. Sorry it’s a bit disjointed – good practice for improvisation.

There’s just a very slight chill to the air and I’m trying to call which way the day is going to go. There’s a bloke walking down the middle of the road that’s two people that I’ve seen doing it over the last couple of days. Now admittedly it’s early and there isn’t much traffic around but nonetheless why do you walk down the middle of the road?

The morning chorus chorus is not very intense at 0536. I wanted to get out of the house by 05 33 and I think I beat that by three minutes heading then down to the waterfront to do a little bit of videoing and capturing a couple of pictures on the way. The air gives a freshness to the morning and there are quite a lot of clouds actually but the day could still go either way. There is the promise of a warm day but we also need rain.

There’s the sound of a jet flying overhead I wonder where it’s going, not even sure of the direction of travel. I check flight radar to see if it shows up anything. There are two jets going overhead a 747 going to Campinas from Amsterdam (I don’t know where Campinias is) and what looks like a 737 going to Agadir. I see a nice new gate next to the Masonic Hall. I stand for a moment, relishing the freshness in the gentle breeze.

Something’s been having a bit of a go at a rubbish bag. There is liter spread all over the car park. Presumably somebody left the bin liner out and either seagulls or foxes found it. I think they’re the two most likely, although pigeons might have had ago as well.

So just approaching white lion walk it’s a 1970 structure Gosport’s concrete city. There are a couple of limited photographic opportunities here. Some angles to explore; the flight of steps, it goes nowhere and what sort it looks like a waste disposal chute.

Burnhams walk seems to be quite a friendly little community just walking under the concrete pillars in morning

Into the domain of the screaming seagull North Cross Road and will be joining the High Street within the minute, 5:48 which means just under half an hour before the #Breakfast club starts.

So I’m walking past Greggs about 15 minutes earlier than I normally do. No cooking smells this morning – probably too early. Getting close to the waterfront now approaching the ferry terminal. Time to fully extend the tripod after I’ve cross the road. The Sun is getting bright.

Pepe who the first person I spoke to this morning as he was coming off the 0600 ferry

Just walking onto the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. St Clair is just making her turn out of out of the Camber.

I am very aware that my writing is a bit dry. In an effort to inject some feeling I did an experiment by using the dictation mode on the iphone and dictating what I felt about what my senses were telling me;

The sounds of the Morning Chorus, the noise of four squirrels playing in the trees at the top of Spring Garden Lane trying to get an artistic picture at White Lion Walk, the smell of cooking coming out of Morrisons and Greggs, the sounds of the huge flock of seagulls chasing the shoal of mackerel in the harbour all fed in to my notes.

The dictations weren’t perfect, pig instead of pigeons, here instead of hear, and the brief conversation that I had with Bob outside Greggs, the Egrets at the cockleponds, I had it all.

I spent about half an hour doing an edit tidying up. Then last thing I’d was ready to copy it from where the dictation is being done in apple notes to wordpress, two button presses and its all gone. Disappeared never to return. How annoying is that? I have to say in a most polite way – very annoying. Extremely annoying. As you can imagine, I was slightly less polite when it happened.

I’d been awake since about 4AM. I had been thinking that I would take advantage of being awake to get up early, no not that early, 0520 instead of 0535, not too mad. But it would give me an opportunity to do a bit of videoing before the #Breakfastclub starts.

Getting up that 15 minutes early meant that the morning chorus was different. The birds were singing away very enthusiastically, unfortunately just those few minutes meant there were a surprising number of vehicles driving around.

The only movement in the high street were the birds flying around and the few pieces of litter that there were drifting being blown around in the gentle breeze. The smells of sausage rolls coming out of Greggs were making my juices flow, I could almost taste them.

The only sounds I could hear as I approached the waterfront were the shouts and screams of a huge flock of seabirds out in the middle of the harbour, it looks a shoal of fish might be tempting them.

The pond weed in the cockle ponds is really quite bad. It makes a disgusting looking mess on the surface. It’s having an impact on the model yacht club. A lot of weed was removed earlier in the year, so it would be interesting to find out what is going on in the pond. It does make me wonder what has happened to the jelly fish, which seem to have disappeared, pretty much over night.

There are many articles and books that I have read where I have thought, I really wish I could write like that. Even down to the latest issue of country walking, I’m only on page eleven and the author of the article is waxing lyrical about the waves of flowers he is seeing.

I sometimes think that my writing is dry. I think that whilst I know the words, my brain for some reason lacks the emotional feeling to express those words in a way that makes pleasing reading. Which is frustrating. Can I learn to write like that? Is it back to the creative writing?

I have taken the header picture of the wild patch in our garden, which this year is dominated by daisies. The plan was to make an attempt to write about the daisies, and as nice as they are, they don’t really inspire me. Of course, that begs the question what does?

Yeah, I’m thinking about that there are definitely things that cause me a lot of pleasure; Seeing a lovely night sky, the birds in the garden, rough weather, all sorts of things. So it’s back to the brain again.

I was going to write about me being embarrassed about making a fool of myself by trying to write emotively in public, but of course, I don’t have to.

The book by Richard Bach was published in 1970. I’m not sure when I read it. But I can remember that the book caused a bit of a stir. I also recall, that having read it I recall not really understanding it. Perhaps it’s time to read it again.

We’d had a lovely and productive weekend in Dorset. I have to say that it looks like in a fairly short time, the EV charging position has improved significantly. I recall our first trip to Dorset in the EV – there was only one place to charge, Rownhams Services on the M27. There are now at least four locations. The Starbucks near Wimborne is particularly good.

The situation has even improved in Swanage. Admittedly, the new stations aren’t rapid units, but at least they are there.

We paid a flying visit to Swanage today. We didn’t do much more that just sit in the car and watch the sea. But, we were absolutely fine with that. You might think what a waste of a trip, why didn’t you go and look and around, and even worse, why didn’t you take any pictures? I would normally expect to at least see the seaside.

To be honest, I never even thought about taking any pictures. It kind of demonstrates our familiarity with this wonderful seaside town, we have literally spent years there. It was just so nice to revisit, and sit and contemplate without rushing around taking pictures.

We had lunch in a pub called The Silent Woman in Wareham Forest. It’s been quite a few years since I was last there. The name is a variation of the name given to the pub “The Quiet Lady” in the Thomas Hardy novel The Return of the Native. Before then, it was called The Angel. It seems to me that it was entirely sensible to change the name.

I had the smoked belly pork. It was quite simply delicious. It’s always nice to have a good pub lunch.

In a small barn, in a place that I know and love, a family of swallows have set up home. These incredible birds have flown all the way from Africa, to make their home here.

That they destroyed part of the ceiling to build their mess, and are leaving a pile poo on the floor is irrelevant, we are so fortunate to see these incredible creatures.

I am delighted that we seem to have a couple of magpies adopting our gardens, and a swarm of sparrows and starlings, along with the usual pigeons. I must admit I would like the wagtails to come back, but you can’;t have everything. We are fortunate to have what we get.

Just spending a few minutes appreciating these wonderful animals is just so relaxing. It fills me with delight.

I did my usual morning walk, which was fine. I even took the header picture not really expecting much of it, but really I quite like it. I think it’s better in B&W. It’s the lines, the textures and shading, all seem quite pleasing to my eyes. There’s even a degree of symmetry in the windows.

I also managed to get out for my lunchtime walk. As I was walking along the esplanade, I can remember thinking “Yes, I think that’ll be a good subject for the blog tonight.” The trouble is that as I am sat here, I cannot for the life of me remember what the “It” was. Now, I am wondering if I need to start carrying a pen and notebook.

Part of the problem is that I have been here before, then I forget to take the notebook with me. I think that I need to start carrying my man bag with me whenever I go out, and get in to the habit of writing down, not my thoughts, just ideas.

The weather for both walks was lovely. The high street was busy at lunchtime, and there were quite a few people on the esplanade, clearly having a good time. Perhaps the thought I had was around just how pleasant is that part of Gosport. I know there are some changes afoot particularly around the bus station, I have previously thought that more should be made of the Esplanade, but with these lunchtime walks I am having a bit of a re-think. I think it is really good that we have a place, close by where we can just go an quietly contemplate, life and Portsmouth Harbour entrance.

You might have noticed that my posts tend to be non-controversial. That is quite deliberate. The last thing I want is to get stressed over my writing, and stressed about the effect it has upon my readers, I don’t want your blood boiling. It’s all about relaxation.

Having said that I do mention some issues that could be the source of discussion. For example, I find myself distressed about people who sleep rough. The really frustrating thing is that the authorities paint a picture such there is no need for people to sleep out of doors.

But, I speak to people, there are two or three that I see on a regular basis; I’ve bought food for them, and on one occasion (even though I disagree with it) I bought a pouch of tobacco for one after I’d seen him picking stubs up to smoke. Doubtless he is still doing that, but it distressed me to see it. I acknowledge the hypocrisy in my actions. If I am that concerned about it, should I be doing more to ensure that they get support. that is assuming of course that they want that support. In some cases, they most definitely don’t and become offended when you offer.

What to do?

I have a sense that my blog entries of late have been posted only to maintain the running count. Whilst you see the thee sequential numbering in the posts, and that I am at 670 is personally amazing, there is also another count, which is internal to WordPress. If you post each day then the count increments, but if you miss a day, the count resets to zero.

I really don’t like it when that happens and it has done so at least three times. I don’t think I have actually achieved a count of 365. Which as you can imagine is immensely frustrating.

I haven’t lost my desire to write, it is very much still there and reasonably often I produce a post which is of a number of paragraphs, and so a reasonable length. But quite a few of the more recent posts have been just a few lines, as I say just to maintain the count.

As you can imagine, I am not very happy with this. It seems that during the early days of the blog, which I was bubbling with ideas. I think I need to revisit some of those posts and revitalise the ideas. I very much want to keep the blog going, and have no intention of stopping.

OK, this post is a little bit inward looking, but I’m OK with that. It really is my intention to get back on track, and produce some more reasonable posts, heading toward 1,000 (and a 365 internal count)!