Bills Posts

It was early, but not as early as I normally have been getting up in the past. I needed to go for my morning walk, but still couldn’t face getting up at 0535.

I left the house at about 7AM. It was still dark. It had brightened a f air bit by the time I had reached the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall and there were people working on the barge in the header picture, the crane is lifting one of the legs, presumably in preparation for a move. A while ago, I learned that the legs are called spuds – I have no idea why. I had though been wondering whether each spud had a motor to lift it, so that’s another question answered.

I didn’t get home until about 20 past 8, all of this has reminded me why I was getting up at 0535, plus of course, I am missing the #Breakfastclub, which I really do need to get back on to. Elayne had suggested doing it from home, but did warn that if I talked too loud I would have to stop.

The 0535 time is the only practical time that I can do everything I want. I seem to recall that when I first started doing my regular early morning walk I worked out that it was pretty much the only time I had when I could do what I wanted. As much as I like staying in bed, I need to do the exercise and this is the only time I can do it. I think I may have to start gain – especially if I am going to sign up for walk 1000 again this year.

It has been quite a while since I have written about Vlogging. Have I done anything about it? What do you think? Absolutely diddly squat! Why’s that then you might reasonably ask. And I would answer because 1. I don’t have the time or 2. It’s too difficult. 3. I haven’t got anything to say. In reality, they are all excuses.

Is it because regardless of what I am Vlogging about, it will very quickly show up my ignorance? Why do I even want to do it? I think that one is probably the easiest to answer; I just want to play with the gadgetry, and the possibility that I might at some point in the future have something that somebody, somewhere, may consider interesting.

So I do have an idea as to what I would like to vlog about, and it is a subject that I really don’t know a lot about, and I know the style that I would like to create. I also have pretty much all of the kit that I need. This is not something that I need to do every day, I can take a month if I want to.

I have been going on about this for so long now. It is obviously something that I have a minor obsession with. Just do it. That’s what I say.

It has been several weeks now since I stopped my morning walks. I am enjoying not getting up too much at the moment to resume.

What I am not enjoying so much is an increasing sense of frustration that I am not getting out as much as I did, I feel that I am missing out on photography even of stuff that isn’t very exciting.

I watch. A YouTube channel, created by a young chap called Teo Crawford. I think he is Austrian, but typically, his English is excellent. He loved getting out and about using both film and digital cameras. Now the thing about his photos are, and I am going to be honest here, they are not spectacular. Not bad, just not exciting – sorry about that but what I love about his channel, is the way he describes what he likes about the pictures he takes.

Coupled with his voice which is really quite calming. Here’s a link to his channel; https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=teo+crawford I like the music he uses as well. His videos are good, quite professionally put together.

Teo’s style is one that I’d quite like to copy. I say that a lot. What I need to do is get walking again, and actually do something.

In November, we had an unseasonably warm spell. I’m not sure if our central heating fired at all. Apparently it was warm air coming up from Africa. Why would that happen? Anyhow.

We are almost back to normal. The only thing missing is the snow. Yesterday in particular it was really cold. I wrote in yesterdays post about the walk along Ryde Pier. I’d reached a point along the pier where I was suddenly taken with how bleak the scene was.

The picture really doesn’t do justice, you can’t feel the wind, it wasn’t driving but it was a reasonable breeze, and it wasn’t just cold, it was bitter. The clouds looked low and heavy. I have been wondering when it’s going to snow. They really had that look about them.

Are we heading for a white Christmas? Wait a few more days, and we’ll find out.

It’s a long walk from the shoreside of the Isle of Wight pier to the ferry terminal at the end, and the weather was bitterly cold. But that walk was well worth the effort.

I had made the journey across the Solent to Ryde to be picked up by Jan and John and taken to the Eight Bells pub in Carisbrook, Newport for the Isle of Wight Radio Society’s Christmas meal. My first Christmas meal of the season.

I haven’t been to the eight bells pub before, but I would most definitely go again. It was lovely to see good friends, some of whom I have only ever spoken to on the radio and others whom I have met before.

The food was excellent, there were nice sized portions and it tasted delicious, as I said I would definitely go again.

One of my friends 2E1PHW Pete took me back to Ryde, he offered to take me to the end of the pier, but I wanted to walk the length even though it was a bit cold. Luckily the Wight Link Fast Cat (Catamaran) service is quite flexible, and even though I was catching a ferry at a different time to that booked, that was fine.

It really was a lovely day out.

You get to the end of the day, and you look back and you realise that it is not just a case of writers block, but a day of such utter inconsequence that there is absolutely nothing inspiring to write about.

Ok, I did go for a bit of a walk, but that was only to the chemists and then Morrisons. This evening I went to my radio club. It’s really good to not be on the committee anymore. I think six years is enough.

I started writing this at about twenty five to midnight. I had to stop and publish to prevent the day count from resetting.

You can tell it is getting close to Christmas. For a start you can walk down the street and fine groups of people singing carols. Churches with their doors open offering coffee and mince pies. The smell of mulled whine wafting down the street and Storm Troopers boogying on down to the carol singers.

Stokes Road had a thing going on. All along the street there were different things going on. I went with a walk with Elayne and it was really nice. The carol singers sounded good. There were several music bands, all pretty good and quite a few people which was nice to see.

Crowds like this are good, because you can do street photography. The two storm troopers were enjoying themselves, as was everybody else.

I don’t like driving on Stokes Road. Parking is allowed at places on both sides, and the road is really too narrow for free flowing traffic in both directions. I watched an episode three drivers were clearly not thinking about what was coming towards them – two of the gosport busses. How they ever expected for both sets of traffics to pass at one of the constriction points I’ll never know. They ended up just sitting there and staring at each other, hoping that that thee busses can get past without scraping their cars. It was quite comical really, if only it hadn’t been so ridiculous.

I went home.

Don’t ask me to go all philosophical on you, because I can’t. I think somewhere in the last 800 odd posts I’ve written about this. Probably about Sophie’s World – an intriguing book about a young girl’s exploration of the topic. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I’d really recommend reading the book.

I’d first read it not that long after it was published in 1991, so clearly my interest in the topic goes back some years. I really don’t think like a philosopher though.

The subject is another one of those interests of mine that goes in waves, the last time it got really intense was about six months ago. I spent a fair bit of time studying, this time I downloaded the audio version of Sophie’s World and listened to it on my lunchtime walks. I enjoyed that.

I’m not really sure why I’m writing about it now, the topic isn’t surging within me at the moment. Give it a while though and it may re-surface. We’ll just have to wait and see. I have something else that is bubbling away at the moment.

Pretty much every day since the beginnings of lockdown in 2020 (March I think it was, so we aren’t that far off three years ago – unreal anyhow, back to facebook) I have been doing a post on Facebook. It would be a bit of a daily diary, what I saw on my morning walk, something silly about the cats or the birds, just little bits , the fantasy holiday. Like this blog, I tried to stay away from anything difficult or controversial – I don’t want to upset people or make them angry, for me both this blog andd my facebook timeline are happy places.

Well, I stopped going on my walks in the morning about three weeks ago. I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of people that have commented that they miss my posts, and saddened that I have let them down by not posting.

I have had a couple of false starts where i have started to do a couple of posts but they petered out – I’m really quite sorry about that. As daft as it sounds, I’m kind of running out of photographs – of course I’m not, but I like to keep ahead of my posts. Perhaps if I started my walks again, I would have morning pictures and content for my facebook posts. The trouble is, I am not yet ready to get out of bed at that time, although I did almost feel like it this morning.

Here’s another post that I’ve left too late in the evening to do a good post . I usually get stuck at this time of day and my brain goes blank. Today though, I at least had a partial idea.

I’d reached the point in the Hampshire history book where Gosport is “born” Even to the civil war, where Portsmouth no less was bombarded from Gosport’s Waterside – not one mention, no acknowledgement.

Gosport may not in its own right be very important, but in it’s role with the military, it is has had a vital role. I was very surprised that it bore no mention.

I’m just over halfway through the book. We still have things like Palmerston’s Follies. The book is fascinating in that it only goes to reinforce what I wrote a few posts ago; Hampshire does have an interesting history, but it is nowhere near as romantic as Dorset’s. I haven’t read anything yet to change my view.