Bills Posts

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.

This was the Gosport Ferry Ramp at about 0615. I quite often arrive here at about this time. The ferries keep to a good schedule, I usually see the same people heading toward or coming off. This is still a fair distance from the halfway point of my walk, from here I head along to the Haslar Marina Pier wall. Quite often, one of the Brittany ferries will come in to the harbour at this point, as said the Mon St Michel this morning;

From The Haslar Marina Pier Wall, I head over to the cockle ponds. I can’t see anything in the ponds at that time of the morning, but it won’t be too long before the bottom of the pond becomes visible. I’m hoping that the Jelly Fish will reappear. I’ve seen them over a couple of years, but don’t know if they come every year and I’m fairly sure that everybody views them as a nuisance, but I think they are fascinating and I am very keen for their return.

From The Cockle Ponds I head up South Street to the old telephone exchange where I double back on myself almost walking along Stokes Road. It amounts to about 3 miles. It’s usually a good start to the day – unless it’s raining of course. It then depends on how heavily it is raining, if it is just a gentle drizzle then I may just put my proper raincoat on and go anyway. To be honest, if it is raining heavily, I’m happy to go back to bed – or usually, if I can hear the rain, just not get up.

Looking through a fenced over gate into Fort Brockhurst. I went in to the fort during a Heritage Day a few years ago. The thing that really surprised me was how big the fort is inside the walls.

I’ve just done a quick look back and before last Friday, it had been nearly 200 days since I last wrote a post specifically about Vlogging. It really hasn’t gone away, and I really do want to do it.

There’s no doubt that I have the equipment to produce a fairly high quality video. But really, that is only a small portion of Vlog production. It’s all very well having the kit, you need the location and the topic.

On YouTube, I’ve just subscribed to David Knowles’ channel, he was Jack Hargreaves’ cameraman. I had been wondering whether Jack’s shed really was a shed or was it a TV set. Like a lot of things they make it look so real, but Mr. Knowles has just said that it was a TV set. As you find with things like this, I was a little disappointed, but I recognise the reality of the situation.

I’ve had an idea…

This isn’t a post about the history of Fort Brockhurst, one of the “Palmerston’s Follies” built during the 1850’s and 60’s to defend Portsmouth against possible French invasion, which never appeared. That’s it – end of history lesson.

I wanted to go for a walk this morning, and I use weekends to try to visit parts of Gosport that I don’t normally see during the week. One of these areas is Alver Valley, where I am very keen to spend some time. But not today. I had it in my head that I wanted to visit Fort Brockhurst, driven mainly by a couple of Facebook Groups that I’m in; The Gosport Unofficial Camera Club and The Gosport Nature Trail, Both of these are worthy of a post, and I will do that later, But it is sufficient to say there are some seriously fine pictures taken by people. I’m not intending to compete with those photographers, but it would give me an opportunity to see what it looks like there. Plus to do a bit of a circular walk would help contribute to my #Walk1000 total.

There was a lot of Moat based wildlife; Swans, Coots, ducks (various), Canadian Geese.

I don’t know what the stuff is that these (I think they are Tufted Ducks) are swimming through, but they don’t seem disturbed by it, and some of the birds were swimming through it and hoovering it up, so it looks like it might be beneficial.

Although it was a bit nippy today, it was a lovely bright day with a lovely blue sky, and that made for a lovely walk. There certainly was plenty of wildlife in the area and because I had trainers on, I didn’t feel able to explore some of the areas around the fort that may get a little damp. Next time, I will wear slightly more robust footwear. Because I will be going back. Today was an absolute delight.

I could write all sorts about the Rising Sun, but what I want to say is best said here;

I had read in my D-Day Book that the pub was popular with service people from HMS Tormentor, a base just a little distance away. We went in and had a drink, and I thought a bit about the times that people had there in 1944, and what it must have been like.

We went for a walk along the waterfront. It was really interesting. I was trying to work out what these were for;

They are on a pier owned by the Warsash Maritime Academy. I think it is for students to practice being launched in a lifeboat, to experience a drop. I thought it would be quite interesting (entertaining) to find out when it was happening, and go and watch.

We went for a walk along the waterfront. I was amazed to see along the sea front. There was a line, millions of seashells;

It was a really nice trip out.

Vlogging! I haven’t written about Vlogging for quite a while. Just in Icase you had thought I had forgotten. I haven’t. On a Thursday night I do the Thursday Night Net for the Isle of Wight Radio Society. I’ve been doing it for four or five years now. At some point I started doing it as a live session on Facebook. If you go to FB and search for GB3IW, it’s a page not a group so anyone can find it. There are literally hundreds there.

I’ve taken to during the first and last minutes of the session to just speaking to the camera, during the first minute some people may join, or I may be talking to myself. In the last minute before I turn off I sign off. The thing is I’ve been videoing myself. It’s spontaneous and only lasts a few seconds, but I almost get some of the effects I’m after.

I’ve got pretty much everything that I need to produce some reasonable quality video. What I am lacking is a topic range that I can reasonably talk about. The last time I talked about this, and what I was proposing to cover, was as usual a bit too ambitious. Yesterday I received a package that I had ordered from Amazon. I wanted to try it out, so I did a video. I really am going to do this, I’m going to put it here. Unedited. I’m going to make a few points about it. I mention two people, both of which you are unlikely to have heard of unless you are my age. They are the television heroes of an age, and whilst I can’t be like them. I want to be like them. Is that pretentious?

Jack Hargreaves and his TV programme Out of Town. Here’s a link to a page about him; https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=jack+hargreaves&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari and the intro music to his programme; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTtRsRcFVyk which always brings back nice memories when I hear it.

Then there is Dr. Magnus Pyke, He used to be on the TV show HOW from the 1960’s always very educational and entertaining. I’ll ask again, is this pretentious?

It’s not a good picture, sorry about that. But you can see the fox. I just a few yards from the high street when I saw the fox coming from the left. I was probably about 15 – 20 yards away. As it trotted along, it saw me I started getting my tripod positioned, phone already mounted. The fox took up position on South Cross Street. It quite happily sat there whilst I took these pictures. It was still sitting there when I walked away.

It made me think about other wildlife we might see here in Gosport. Birds certainly, lots of different birds, and sadly rats. I haven’t seen them myself, but I know they are at the waterfront on the sea side of the prom wall. I think there may be deer in the Alver Valley. I wonder when the best time would be to see them. I expect that will be early in the morning. I’d like that.

I think that most success would come with birds. This morning, we had starlings, ring necked doves, pigeons, sparrows, magpies. Not too bad, but there are others. What could I do to attract them? Some research needed. How many times have I said that at the end of a post? I might have followed up a bit on some of them, but not all.

The Blue Plaque commemorating the India Arms in gosport can be seen over the middle of the entrance at the right of the white building. What confuses me slightly is that it is the site of, but it appears that the building is Grade II listed – so this must be the building. I have an account with the British Newspaper Archive. There are loads of articles about the India Arms. It looks like there were lots of auctions held there. Here’s an extract from a news paper report;

“At the INDIA ARMS INN, GOSPORT The Good clinch-built Cutter LORD NELSON, Dimensions Length 55 feet 6; breadth 18 feet 10; depth in hold 7 feet 5; Built at Bridport 10 years since admeasures e75 tons, is pierced For 14 guns , completely fitted for an hired armed cutter or private vessel of war”

It’s that last bit that really surprises me – a ship for mercenaries, and no bones about it. There were a lot of auctions held there. I must admit I did a search to see if there were any reports of fights or Press-Gangs. There were, but not associated with the India Arms. Perhaps that’s a good thing?