Bills Posts

I’m sat at my desk. I have a set of minutes to write up from the Annual General Meedting of the RAYNET group of which I am secretary. The meeting was last Wednesday, and this is the first chance I’ve had to do it. I’m going to do this post first though, because I always do the post on my iPad, the battery is getting low and I have to get the post published before midnight to maintain my running streak.

I was considering what to write as I sat drinking the cup of tea that I brought up stairs and eating the hobnobs of which are three left. It occurred to me that I should write briefly about the dunkability of biscuits and their relative merits. Perhaps I should say the tea is PG Tips, with milk – but not sugar. I stopped taking Sugar in tea on Augusta 15, 1985. I had slowly been weaning my self off the stuff and on the day I decided to stop I was using less than half a teaspoonful and was probably thinking this is ridiculous. Anyhow back to the biscuits.

I think from the outset, the preferred choice was Rich Tea, there’s something about the way that they absorb the tea and just melt in your mouth that makes them the perfect dunking biscuit. Ironically, this remained the case until 1985 – there’s something about that year. This time it was the introduction of the HobNob.

Today, Rich Tea retain the crown of dunkability, but only just. Hobnobs are very close behind. This is the plain hobnob, I’m not talking about the chocolate version which is a diet-crisis in its own right. The hobnob also dunks wonderfully, retaining the tea and making it so moist when you eat it. The biscuit is a little bit more substantial than the Rich Tea, so you probably tend to eat fewer of them perhaps? At the moment they are a contender to the crown, but I don’t think that they really will grab it.

Now, I was delighted and very surprised to discover just how dunkable are Custard Creams. It’s not the custard centre, it’s the quality and texture of the biscuit, that again, just melts in your mouth. Just delicious.

Now, bourbons can also be dunked, I do quite like them, but they are not as nice as custard creams.

Ginger nut biscuits are also delicious, coupled with that ginger flavour make them very dunkable.

I think I need to conclude by saying that my scale of dunkability is;

• Rich Tea
• Hobnobs
• Custard Creams / Ginger Nuts
• Bourbons

What’s your scale of dunkability?

Last night I talked about trying new things in photography, and posted the above picture. I’ve had, not surprisingly, questions as to “What is it?” Well;

It’s a milk shake bottle, I had opened the clasp pointed the camera down in to the spout and got as close as I could. The yellow/white part in the centre is the remains of a milk shake. Sorry, not very savoury, but it did produce an interesting picture. Continuing the search for new photo opportunities in Gosport, I thought I would have another look at the structure of White Lion Court as I walked past, giving me this one, where I’ve tried to bring out shapes, lines and colours;

Now, it’s not perfect, but there are some interesting things there. What it has shown me is that I have nowhere near begun to explore opportunities in the town. I just have to find them.

A bit of experimentation doesn’t hurt. I acknowledge that I’m not very adventurous with my photography, mainly lack of ideas really. I have thousands of pictures like this;

It’s fair enough that every picture taken from or near this spot is different, unique in its own way because of the sky. Some of them could be said to border on the spectacular (in my eyes). It’s also fair to say that I recognise the sameness of them, and whilst I am not bored with it, in a way I am. I won’t stop though, A spectacular sky is still that. So I will take the pictures

The thing is to get in close, so you get the detail. I’ll have to try doing more of this.

I went out for my lunchtime walk today. I was walking over the Forton Lake Millenium Bridge, when I had one of those moments. It wasn’t quite like de ja vue, but it was a strange feeling. I’ll explain.

In my life there have been four films that have had what I would class as a profound effect on me, they are;

• 2001 A Space Odyssey
• A Ring of Bright Water
• Aliens
• Great Expectations (I think – I’ll explain that, it’s the important one for this post)

I’m going to ignore 2001 because it’s effect was positive – Perhaps I’ll write about it in a future post.

A Ring of Bright Water was just basically traumatic. I think it was one of the first films that I would have seen on my own. I was enjoying the film so much and then when Mij was killed, I was so upset I had to leave the cinema. That I haven’t watched it since and that to even think of the film over fifty years later still causes me distress I think is sufficient for me to qualify as a traumatic experience.

Aliens – the second film in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed the first film and the second film very much. I haven’t watched the second film (or come to that any of the Alien films – in fact it’s one of the few Science Fiction film sets that I don’t own) from beginning to end since that first time I saw it at the cinema. I can’t recall any other film having given me such a graphic nightmare. I recall very clearly waking up to see one of the Aliens leaping at me from the window in the bedroom. I just don’t want to watch any of them again.

On then to the fourth film, you might think that I have to be honest and say that I am not sure that it’s the right film. I think it was though. It involves a young boy who meets a convict and helps him, so the plot fits the film I remember. The thing was though wasn’t the story as much as the location. There was something just so utterly bleak about the scenery, what I couldn’t match though was the industrial landscape, which looks as though it was Chatham Docks and Romney Marsh and Durness. It was the foreboding structures of the dockyard, and the bleakness of Romney that both frightened and drew me. To this day, I have always wanted to visit this area.

Ironically, I have been to Hythe, nearby. But it was as part of a RAYNET Team a few years ago, where we were on an event with the Long Distance Walking Association. Sadly, I was a passenger so I couldn’t take the next day to explore the area, which I would have loved to have done so. Perhaps one day, we will get there.

So, this all came from my lunchtime walk, as I crossed The Milenium Bridge, there was quite a brisk, cold breeze blowing, the tide was well out, there was a quite oppressive grey cloud overhead, and there was just this feeling of utter bleakness. Interesting.

At the moment, I’m reading a book about how preparations for D-Day was affecting the local area. It’s fascinating and it prompted our visit to Warsash the weekend before last. I’m about halfway through the book, and am looking for mentions of specific locations, rather than “just” towns.

I have several books lined up, one of them is a history of photography, and I’ve also started reading “How to write Non-Fiction” by Joanna Penn. I had started reading the book, and whilst I am always a bit sceptical about books like this when I started reading this one, I just liked her style of writing. Reading it now will be as much as for pleasure as for anything I might get out of it.

I mostly suspend book reading whilst I have a magazine on the go, at the moment it’s Country Walking, nearly there and then I can go back to D-Day. Once I finish that, I’m not sure if it is the Penn book or photography. I also have the follow on book to the village life that I was reading, one about life in the big house a’ la Downton Abbey. I do have a little bit of a dilemma as to the order to read, but I think that will settle down in to a natural order.

My desire to write, I think remains as firm as when I started the 366 project 543 days ago, even that was a fair time after lockdowns had started. I had no idea at the time whether I would complete that project (I was delighted to do so) and when I extended it beyond the end of 366 I wasn’t sure that I would be able to maintain the commitment.

I have been troubled; no, that’s too strong a word, perhaps bothered with writers block more frequently than I would have expected. Under 366 I had a very simple programme of writings that would only occasionally cause me problems I think. But then. I would fix it by writing about it. Perhaps some of my posts are a bit short, and not up to the quality that I would like.

I would like to be in the position of knowing some time in advance of what I am going to write about (with the understanding that sometimes I would be otherwise “inspired”, perhaps a week. I might go back to the original list as that served me quite well.

This is the wood for the baseboard for my model railway! I have it now, and I can start work on building the baseboard. I have a particular person top thank for this, I don’t think they read my blog, but I know someone who does who knows them, and they will pass on my thanks.

All I have to do now is actually start work on constructing the baseboard. Now, I know what to do, I just have to do it. There are some other bits and and pieces that I need, like I need two stands to support the board. I am going to have a look for those, and I need wood glue and screws and clamps, and I need to learn how to use my dremel. So it will be a little while before I start construction. But, that will happen.

It isn’t a very big baseboard, 0.5mx1.5m and it won’t be my main layout. This is what I am calling my Proof of Concept (PoC). This where I can practice the drilling and building and if I mess it up, I won’t be too upset.

Once I have the baseboard set up, I will be able to practice track laying, including points, and I want point motors, and then wiring which is going to be for power and Digital control. I think I will be happy with things once I can get to a point where I can run shunting puzzles, so I’ll need automatic de-couplers as well. There’s a lot of anticipation here. But today’s acquisition is a massive step forward.

I can honestly say that I do not go around Gosport digging 4 – 5 feet deep holes, as much as I might want to – and why is that, you might quite reasonably ask? Simply to explore the geology of the area. Quite a long time ago I did my Geology O’Level (a now obsolete senior school exam) at the time, I did the exam, not because I had to, but it seemed to be an interesting course.

One of the books I have read in fairly recent months is The Story of Gosport by Leonard White. The book is mainly about the historic and political development of Rowner, Alverstoke and Gosport. But the last chapter of the book is about the geology of the area and whilst I have never fully lost my interest in geology, it hasn’t been a priority since I took the exam. Since this is all about my Locality project, it is reasonable to include the topic.

I don’t know if this is strange behaviour, but if the road workers are digging holes, I have always had the urge to go and look in to see what they are up too. I think this is for some electrical work and whilst I am pleased to know that, it is not the reason why I have placed this picture at the head.

The Gosport Story Chapter 21 includes a map of the geology of Gosport Peninsula, the hole in the ground is in Walpole Park, near to The Cockle Ponds. It is even on a bank, so in terms of a hole with geological value it is pretty much useless. The map in the book isn’t very detailed, and it is small, so impossible to be precise, but the best I can work out the bedrock of Walpole Park is Terrace (valley) gravels. Now, I think I know what gravel is – stones. But the significance of terrace & valley aspects is lost on me at the moment, and merely goes to demonstrate the learning curve (yet another) that I could easily embark upon.

Interesting though.

There was a point on this morning’s walk as I was on the promenade where the only thing I could hear was the lapping of the water. There was no vehicle noise, no generator noise from any where, no bird noise. It was, just for a few seconds quite strange, but really quite pleasant.

I put a picture up yesterday showing rough water today it was flat calm, I have taken quite a few pictures like this, because I really like it. As the sky starts to brighten as dawn approaches, we will soon be in the blue hour.

I have a book that talks about the geology of the Gosport area. I’m not sure that I am going to have an opportunity to read and look in to it this weekend, but geology is one of those areas that interests me and it will add another topic to my bow. So I will get to grips with that. In fact it could be a good topic for Vlogging. Let’s see how that goes.

I had a bit of a rough night and woke up just a few minutes later than I usually do, but wasn’t too late getting out of the house. I had another encounter with a town fox. I turned on to North Street and the fox was stood under the archway. Luckily, I had my tripod ready with my phone mounted, so it only took a few seconds to get it ready to take a picture. The light is quite low, so it meant a long exposure, flash would have been ineffective. Luckily, as I came to a halt, the fox just sat down, and then after a few seconds started coming towards me and passed within 6 – 10 feet. Quite delightful

I have in the past been inclined to take a bag and a litter picker with me when I go for my morning walk. This was being blown down the street. OK, perhaps I should have picked it up, but not with my hands – sorry! sometimes though, they make interesting pictures.

The Cockle Ponds look rough don’t they? It doesn’t take much of a breeze to whip a bit of a froth. The ponds could be a good place to do a bit of stargazing, the far side is reasonably dark. I wonder if the council would consider turning off some of the street lights at certain times. I’ve had previous experience where a local council has been extremely helpful on a previous occasion.

It was a lovely clear sky this morning and Venus was very bright. It was a very pleasant walk.