Bills Posts

This is the Brittany Ferry Salamanca. Coming into the harbour at probably around 1630 today. I wouldn’t have seen her if I hadn’t made the decision that I was going to go to the Haslar Marina Pier Wall (HMPW) with a set sequence of shots in my head. I wasn’t even worried about being out and filming in public.

I set from from home, about 4PM, with my tripod and the DJI OSMO 5 in my man bag. I got to the bottom of the HMPW and set the phone up open the tripod. I was only going to use the three lenses in the iPhone 12, the 0.5 wide angle, standard (1x) or the 2.5x lenses, not touching the digital zooms at all, and ensuring best quality.

Town was still quite busy, but was tailing off in the aftermath of the Saturday Market, although not unexpectedly the bars and cafes were busy. I arrived at the HMPW to see that there were quite a few people on the pier, walkers and people fishing. I was determined that nothing was going to deter me. I set the phone up on the tripod, and took an establishing shot of the HMPW. I then moved the phone onto the OMSO5, did a minute or so walking along the boardwalk. Not far in to that I saw the ferry coming in. Now, I did go in to a bit of a panic, because when I realised I hadn’t seen this particular boat at all, I was determined to get a picture, but I had to turn the O5 off because I couldn’t get it to line up. Nothing wrong with it, just me not knowing how to use it. Mind you, this is exactly what these sessions are for; familiarisation with the kit. Anyhow, at least one picture of the Salamanca taken, I resumed videoing my walk up the HMPW.

At the far end there were some teenagers fishing, and a couple of people in mobility scooters. It didn’t stop me from moving the phone back on to the tripod. This time, I was after one of those Jack Hargreaves picture of him wandering around and looking at things. So I took pictures of the Mary Mouse 2;

The Medusa;

This new facility, which has only recently been put up. I have been speculating about its purpose which could be anything from being a supplies storehouse, through to a wedding venue;

There was one other thing that I wanted to photograph but there were a couple of you fishermen lolling about at the base of the pillar. I asked them if they minded me filming and including them – they kind of mumbled their consent. I fear I may have put them off YouTube for life – the oldies have moved in!

Anyhow, I have the pictures and videos I wanted, and because I wasn’t bothered about audio, I can get the movie together and then record my commentary, which is one of the main activities I want to do, to develop my video voice. If you watch any of my GB3IW videos, the minute before the net starts are almost there, my voice to me sounds reasonably realistic with no stress or false tones. And the great thing is I can record multiple versions of the commentary, which I want to be a combination of fact and interpretation, which I want to get it sounding just right. When ready, I will release it on YouTube, and let you know.

It was a really good exercise today, getting out and filming in public. I even enjoyed doing it. A new concern though – my posture is dreadful, and I really do need to lose weight – again.

Rough sleepers disturb me. Not the person, but the fact that they are sleeping on the week. I’m not going to go in to the reasons as to why it happens because each story is different.

There is a group of people who look as though they sleep rough regularly. One in particular who sleeps on the promenade. The other morning I saw him walking around the high street picking things up. I stopped and spoke to him, he told me that he was picking up cigarette butts to put together a smoke. When I went for my lunchtime walk I bought a packet of tobacco (it included papers) and a lighter and gave it to him when I saw him next. There’s another chap, who usually takes up residence near the ferry ticket office. I’ve bought him food on occasion. Am I doing the right thing?

I think if I had the time, I would volunteer to work with a charity, there are several in Gosport. Is my saying “if I had the time” an excuse for not getting involved? It is partly, I relish my time off, and resent things eating into it. Sadly that is increasingly applying to RAYNET, and even HDARC. It’s me being a a bit selfish I’m afraid.

Is it a case me doing a little thing that appeases the guilt in my mind that I should be doing more. Perhaps I will do so – one day.

These particular empty chairs and tables do not reflect the state of Gosport’s High Street, especially as the picture wa taken at about ten past six in the morning.

But as an illustration it serves a purpose of depicting a high street that is not in the best of health. I don’t think it unreasonable to say that most people would probably blame the Internet. Is that an accurate position though. Perhaps the High Streets equivalent to Amazon would be something like Argos, coupled with all the other shops on the high street being able to meet all of our normal needs? It’s a matter of scale, and availability. We now want things that we never knew we needed.

We can’t deny though that things are unlikely to change in a backward direction, and that online shopping will continue and grow.

What then, happens to the High Street? I think it has to change it’s role in some respects. On Tuesday I had to go in to town during lunchtime, I had forgotten the market was on, It was heaving. There were lots of tables & chairs out, the bars were busy and there were lots of people wandering around.

I think on tomorrows high street what are now shops will probably be living units, coffee shops, restaurants galleries, street entertainers and perhaps the occasional specialist shop.

What do you think?

I’m sorry that there are so many pictures. The one of the glove and the sweet wrapper in the Cockle pond are one of those pictures that you take not knowing how it’s going to look on the bigger screen, but I like that all of them.

The light in the mornings has been lovely, it is only just becoming daylight as I start my walk, by the end it is pretty much full daylight. Sunday, the 20th was the Spring Equinox, and the clocks go forward next week end, meaning that for a few days at least, I get another go at the light of dawn.

As annoying as it is, and it really is annoying, rubbish does present some interesting photographic opportunities. But, so does the rest of the town.

It’s not because I’m political, well I am political, but I’m not going to talk about that, it’s because I am interested in what is happening in Gosport. This is a re-kindled interest, the last time I went to a council meeting must be at least 3 – 4 years ago, in fact it was 2019 – at that meeting I saw the appoint of Clr Kathy Jones as Mayor (2019-20).

I have been keen to go to a course, because I am interested in what is happening in the area. It’s very likely that I will focus on the community board and possibly the planning board as definitely the first, and both combined will give the best view as to what is going on the town. I missed the Community Board on the 8th of March, the next meetings are the Regulatory Board on 6 April and the Standards and Governance Committee. Should I at least go to these to see what they are like, but not the Standards and Governance meeting that’s on a Thursday and could interfere with the Thursday Night Net.

There were only half a dozen members of the public at the meeting, so we were able to be well spread out.

The meeting itself was as you might expect for a formal event very formulaic, and it turns out that it is the first face to face for two years, it sees the retirement of 5 councillors (who are not standing in the next election) including the current mayor.

There were some interesting points of discussion, but one of the main ones was a written question from a councillor from our ward, asking if anything could be done about the badgers and foxes in town. It appears they are a bit of a nuisance. We have personal experience of this, when they go it in to our garden and tried to trash the lawn.

Badgers it turns out are very difficult to remove from the area. Natural England, the body that controls policy for the admittedly cute looking beasties will pretty much only grant a licence for the removal of badgers if it involves building subsidence.

Foxes are a different kettle of fish. Do what you want with them.

It turns out that the best population control mechanism for both species is quite straightforward; stop feeding them. Stop making life easy for them.

But they are so cute!

I bought a selfie stick. I found that the gadget I bought at Lidl’s didn’t work out the way I wanted, it’s down to me, nothing wrong with the kit. I wasn’t comfortable with the way I was holding the unit with the phone attached, I was finding it difficult to maintain holding hte camera up, tending to let it drop down, which meant if you watched the video, you ended up looking up my nose!

One lesson from this is that I need to develop the habit of holding the kit at the right level. Now, the other issue that came to light is that I am not very stable, I have the shakes! I have device to get over that, its the DJI Osmo 2. Now Earlier this afternoon I put the osmo on charge, and that appeared to be OK, except the system status light is flashing amber, saying that the unit is not performing correctly. I’ve paired it with both my iphone and my android. One reason I though it need a software update, and normally, as soon as you connect the phone should let you know, and just do it. No indication that there is an update. All indications are that the unit is still in support, so I’m not sure what’s going wrong. It’s kind of leading me down the path that the unit is broken. There is no response at all from it, the app appears to have paired correctly, it found the device after a little bit of hunting.

One thing that has always bugged me about the Osmo 2 is that when it is turned off it becomes all floppy and there is not way of locking the gimbals, so the best thing is to get it back in the box – I found that really annoying.

I think I am letting myself come to the conclusion that a new device is required.

Wow (sorry for starting with that), but it’s just to ask how bad was last night’s post? Pretty dreadful, and I felt really bad about. I had started it very early in the evening, but wasn’t happy with it, so deleted the two additional blocks I had written with the intention of coming back to it after my regular Saturday Night Zoom, but got distracted and ended up panicking, because I thought I was going to lose my streak (the count goes back to one from 330, hence my being annoyed), luckily though, it appears that I didn’t lose the streak. Anyhow, apologies for a bad post.

We went to Titchfield and had lunch in the Garden centre. The other half wanted to go to the waterfront at Lee-on-the-Solent, and sit and read her book for an hour. By now it was nearing three o’clock and I was feeling frustrated as I could feel my Sunday walk slipping away from me. Then I thought; well, what I could do is walk back from Lee.

I didn’t though, want to walk back just following the road, so I thought I could head in to the Alver Valley, a local nature area. I found a path in, and found my self walking past an area heavy with Gorse, I was surprised with the smell, which had a delightfully surprising coconut tincture to it. It was lovely walking through the wooded area. For the first part, I saw no people, but I heard the barking of dogs, and at one point I think it was a terrier burst out from the undergrowth, took one rather surprised look at me and then ran off in the opposite direction.

I was heading towards Apple Dumpling Bridge, a small bridge crossing a small river that runs through the Alver Valley. I’d last been there several months ago, its a very popular spot for locals and ducks! When I got there, I was more than a bit surprised to find that the whole area was flooded. I didn’t know that would happen. I was just debating whether I must now re-trace my steps probably adding a a couple of mile to the day. At that point a chap with a dog appears on the other bank and just walks through the river.

Turns out it’s only two or three inches deep across its whole width. I decided then that I didn’t want to get my shoes wet, so it was shoes and socks off, and a very gingerly trodden path across the water. I had to sit down to get the dirt off the bottom of my feet and dry them off. I was then able to continue my walk home, a very pleasant four and a bit miles.

It’s a bit like being driven. I haven’t yet got the Vlogging thing out of my system. I have only just begun. Last weeks thing where I went down to the waterfront and sat with my microphone went very well. I also stood on the high street today with my DSLR camera in full view. That is the street photography thing that I also feel I want to do, but although a separate issue it all feeds in to building my confidence in filming in public.

I am now really annoyed having broken mybrunning streak because I got distracted. Sorry!

Although, apparently not. I thought the clock reset at midnight, it didn’t so my running streak is intact.

Sometimes, when you can’t think of what to write the thing to do is to sit down and write whatever comes in to your head. The Gosport Society meeting last Wednesday is the first time I’ve been out in the evening for quite a while. I think over the last couple of years I have become very used to at thee end of the working day, just going downstairs to a cup of tea, a crumpet and a couple of episodes of Grey’s Anatomy (we’ve now watched not far short of 400 episodes).

Now, admittedly I have been going to meetings of my Amateur Radio Club for a while now, but that’s it a couple of times a month plus the occasional committee meeting. It was nice to get out on Wednesday, although I think everybody there was still nervous about covid, coupled with a recognition, that we must continue.

Next Tuesday, the 22nd of March there’s a full council meeting. I want to go to that. I really want to focus on the community board as I feel that is the body that is most involved in what is actually happening in the community. The next meeting hasn’t calendared yet due, so in the meantime, I shall go to the full meeting.

Just bear with me on this one. This is a picture of Rowlands Pharmacy taken in May 2017, it’s one of over a hundred pictures that I took of the shops in Stokes Road, as I was starting to get on with my project of mapping the history of change in the street. Here’s the same pharmacy today;

As it happens, I didn’t take exactly the same picture as 2017, but enough that you can see that the frontage of Rowlands has changed significantly. Now, I can say that Gosport Best Kebab is present both today, and 2017, as is the unit to the right of GBK. Here’s the picture of that from 2017;

It doesn’t look like the curtains have changed. It does make me wonder happens about the rates for places like this.

Moving on to a slightly wider piece; reading the Book of Gosport, and looking at these pictures has made me think that perhaps I need to take another sequence of pictures, but this time perhaps include the whole building – especially if it is an interesting one – also I want to get it as close to the Book of Gosport as I can, which should be possible.

The good I have realised is that I don’t have to do this all in one go, I take pictures of a few shops at a time whilst I am out on my morning walk, seeing as I walk down Stokes Road most mornings, so over a few days I can capture everything. And make a not of changes. I will go back over that part of the Book of Gosport, and where they talk about specific shops or buildings I may go in and speak to them and ask them if I can write a piece about them – I’m not nervous about doing that, I’ll take the book with me. Should be fun!