Bills Posts

I honestly, really did have every intention of getting up for a walk this morning. Yesterday, we changed from the summer to the winter quilt. Of course, at the start of the night, it was way too warm. By the time the morning had arrived, it urned into a bundle of warmth that was way too comfortable to get up for anything other than to make a cup of tea.

The good intention to go for a walk hadn’t so much flown out of the window into the cold air as decided sod this for a game of fish. So I snuggled down for a few extra minutes. Very nice.

We had one of the Monday evening short trips out. We went down to Jackie Spencer’s bridge to take pictures of Alverstoke’s church as the sun goes down behind it.

I haven’t uploaded those pictures yet.

We moved from the bridge to the church. I took a couple on my phone.

I realised the the corner of Green Road with Anglesey Road is an excellent spot for practicing panning shots. The cars past quite fast. I took some which I know aren’t very good. But, I’ll have another go.

Recently, it has been painful to walk. My right heel has been giving me a lot of pain, and my right leg in general hasn’t been right. I tried sommething today, ditching the trainers that I normally use and instead wore my firmer walking shoes.

The result, a significant improvement and reductionin pain levels. The follow up action; trainers consigned to the bin. Can’t complain about that looking at them, they were getting worn. I’m not sure how long I’ve been using them, but I think well over a year. So they were due replacement.

I’m going to try the walking shoes on my morning walk tomorrow. I’ll let you know how I get on.

I think it was probably by last Thursday that we had mapped out how we wanted today to go. I am very pleased to report that it pretty much went as we wanted it to;

We had a fairly easy wake up, except for Misty wanting breakfast at some ridiculous hour, and making no bones telling us. As it happens it was at a time when (during the working week) it was reasonable to get up and make tea and as our feline mistress appears unable to distinguish between weekdays and weekends, I got up to make the tea.

We were up and having had breakfast were ready to leave the house by 0925 – a mere five minutes later than planned. We arrived at Gosport’s Trinity Church at around 0950, again as planned and assumed responsibilities as ushers for the Gosport Camara Clubs exhibition of winning pictures (including ones from Elayne and myself). Very proud we were too.

We had 20 plus visitors during our three hour stint, including one lady expressing interest in membership. Quite a few of the people were happy to have a chat with us, and all were very complimentary, We were relieved by the next at about 1245, a few minutes early.

The U3A also had a stand at the church, and I managed to have a really good conversation with the chap running it. Which bodes well for when I join it.

I had to pop home as Elayne had bought some plants, and we didn’t want to carry them around for the rest of the day. Elayne had gone to the bus station and was awaiting my call to say that I was at the bus stop before boarding an E2 heading for Fareham.

We had about three hours to have a wander around – I ended buying two books, and Elayne bought some bits and pieces. I’d also made a brief diversion to the Fareham Cinema to buy tickets for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. Which we went to see at 1700.

I’ll not say anything about the film, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Although we had a little bit of a wait for the bus, it wasn’t too bad, and we were soon on our way back home.

A most satisfying day.

Things really are happening down at the bus station.

One concern I had was the charity bike shop that had been operating out of a unit around the corner from the Tourist Information Centre. I was speaking to a chap who told me that the shop was operating near St Vincents college. I was pleased to hear this.

I wasn’t aware, but it’s obvious, that the toilet block is going.

I was surprised to find out that the ferry ticket office is the property of the ferry company. Again, it’s obvious really but I did assume that as it was part of the bus station and presumably council owned. The ferry company is waiting for the ticket office to be compulsorily purchased.

Fascinating stuff.

Whilst I went for a walk yesterday morning I took pictures mainly of the start of the demolition of the Bus station, which has now really begun. The guy that I spoke to on Tuesday said that the first thing they would do is take the glass out. The question that immediately came to mind was how would they do the waterside of the building?

There are two problems; half of the windows are over a car park, relatively easy to solve – close the car park. The other half is more difficult. It won’t be easy if at all possible for the demolition engines to physically reach the glass as it is over a part of the building that protrudes out.

Assuming that I am able to get out for a walk tomorrow morning, I will be very curious as to how far things have progressed. Will they have taken out the glass on the seaward side? Is it possible that demolition of the building itself will have begun, or even possibly completed and all that remains is a pile of rubble?

I am quite keen to find out.

I’ll give you two pictures today. The first one are the dredger and the hopper holding the dredged material. They were in Haslar Marina. I have seen them before, but can’t remember when, probably a few years ago.

Then there is the second picture;

This one is the Saint Malo, the Brittany Ferry that is a hybrid. I don’t think I’ve seen her before, coming into the harbour.

Both these pictures represent what I think of as little rewards to myself for having made the effort to get up at an unworldly hour for a walk. With retirement only a matter of weeks away now, I do occasionally ask my self if I will be getting up at that time if it isn’t work forcing me to? Well I may not do it as regularly as I have done. But, I think there are occasions when an early walk will be welcome.

There are balancing effects. With the early walks there are far fewer people around, so not many chances to talk to people. If I go later, there are more, but I feel awkward if I want to video (I do find the more I video with people around,m the less concerned or bothered I am.

Being as it’s Thursday in the morning, Aurora duties means’s no walk (but I am OK with that), I have been thinking about having a Facebook post ready. I could have done one this morning, but I didn’t so, I have something for tomorrow.

This morning’s Facebook post was, for me, quite a long one. I covered several developing stories. Of course, the main one is the demolition of the bus station. By a very fortunate collision of circumstances, which meant that I was at the bus station at the start of the day when demolition will commence. I have been waiting for this for at least a year, so I am excited to be there at the start.

I met a couple of chaps who were flying a drone along the high street. I asked them what they were doing. They told me that the council were planning upgrades to some parts of the street. I’ve had ChatGPT run a search and it has highlighted several suggestions as to what he upgrades may be. I think some of them won’t apply as they relate to the waterfront, and the drone was working in the Morrisons part of the unstreet, so it’s likely to be related to the High Street Heritage Action Zone.

I don’t always mean for my posts to this blog to be completely different to my Facebook posts. Sometimes it is useful if the posts feed off each other. That especially helps if you might be experiencing a bit of writer’s block. It’s really frustrating if I don’t go for a walk, because that means I don’t have fresh material for the post.

That frustration deepens because for some reason, i am unable to look ahead – I understand why; it’s because I react to events. I don’t forecast ahead, I find it really difficult to do. I’m not sure how to do that (plan ahead) without losing a degree of spontaneity.

Today was another treat for Aurora’s birthday. We visited Fishers Farm; https://fishersfarmpark.visihost.co.uk/ I think I can confidently say that we will be going back.

We didn’t spend the full day there, the weather was a little bit off-putting some very intense showers, mixed in with the odd bit of sunshine.

There are lots of things at the farm to see and do. things change There’s am area which a a petting zoo. There were some guinea pigs there This little chap in the picture was the one that caught my attention. Hee was curious about me. He spent a good minute or more totally focussed on me.

There was a lot that we didn’t see. Also, many of the activities were for children a bit older than Aurora, so as I say, we will be back.

Exceptional circumstance mean that there are no pictures today. Especially as any picture really should feature Aurora. I haven’t got permission to post a picture of her anywhere other than Facebook, so I am hoping to have one or two that I post there tomorrow, but not here for the time being. To post any other picture just wouldn’t be right.

But we had a really lovely day. Elayne’s organisation was as usual excellent. Plenty of food, no alcohol. I did the BBQ. The long sausages from Costco went down very well. We still have a box of 18, and the packet of belly pork, but a lot of the food was eaten.

Aurora, being 1, was aware that something was going on. She had a lot of fun and some interesting new food (Birthday cake.

My sisters, Meg and Mirse came to the party. It was lovely to see them. I drove them home.

It was a lovely day.

We went to Costco today, to do a bit of shopping in preparation for Aurora’s first birthday party. I saw this giant bauble there. You don’t really get a sense of scale from the picture it must have been at least four feet across. i didn’t dare ask Elayne if she wanted one, it would have filled the lounge!

For some reason, I felt tired when I woke up, even after a good nights sleep, and felt tired all day, until I gave up fighting it and laid on the bed this afternoon. I must have gone out like a light. woke up an hour later feeling fine.

I playing about with ChatGPT. I wanted it to summarise my posts, both here and on Facebook just to act as a re-fresh for my mind as to what I had written about over the last month. It’s a bit fiddly, but it kind of worked. Just not quite sure what I am going to do with the idea.

Let’s have another go at doing a post every day on FB, or at least, trying to.