Bills Posts

The picture, clearly has nothing to do with Astronomy, obviously. Thirty years ago, when i was much younger, I was living near a golf course that I had access to. It wouldn’t have been unusual to find me on one of the greens at two o’clock in the morning, watching the stars.

If it was cold, I’d wrap up. But, the thing was I would go out and observe. I don’t do that today, 30 years later, I haven’t been out at 2AM for a very long time. When you consider that I worked night shifts for ten years, to do so now would, I think, be a bit of a culture shock.

The point of this is that I almost feel a bit hypocritical. I’ve been going on about learning the constellations as a project for the blog. Apart from looking up when I go out in the dark, I have done absolutely nothing about it. I haven’t been out to gaze at the stars. Two main reasons; I haven’t bothered and it’s too cold.

That hasn’t stopped me reading about Astronomy, or watching programmes about it, especially on YouTube. Especially the astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethurst. I at least try to stay informed. Not really good enough. Must try to do better.

The next issue of B&W photography has turned up. I haven’t got beyond the front cover which has a very atmospheric picture of some mist wreathed coastal rocks, a very nice picture, and I am looking forward to reading the issue.

I’ve been playing with Snapseed again, with the colour separation in the header picture. I wanted to get to the stage where I can do this process without referring the very good training videos you can find on YouTube. I’ve managed to do that tonight. OK, there were a couple of steps where I had to pause and think, but I don’t think I’ve made to bad an attempt.

I’m finding that on my morning walks, I am suffering from a lack of ingenuity or inspiration when it comes to taking different pictures on my walk. I’ve spent several years photographing the same thing (mostly the waterfront) with sometimes having a nice dramatic sky to make for a more interesting picture. But now that I am causing these pictures in three different places (The 365 project, Facebook and this blog), I would very much like to develop that photographers eye, looking for those more unusual or artistic pictures. Part of the problem is that I have never thought of myself as being in the least bit artistic. My sister has all that talent from the family.

Sometimes, just sometimes I’ll take a worthy picture, and I think any photographer would admit that not all of their pictures are perfect. Without a doubt, I don’t think I have ever taken a picture that is anywhere near perfect, but I have taken a few with which I am quite pleased.

I was publishing my daily picture on the 365 project, and because I haven’t been out for a walk for the last three days, I’m really quite surprised at how rapidly the situation of the lack of very recent material arises. I had to dip back to 2019 to find a picture of a railway platform.

This is Ropley on the Watercress Line in Surrey. Every year (except for severe interference from Covid) my Amateur Radio Club Horndean & District ARC use either this, or the next station up the line, Four Marks and Medstead as an Event Station, for Railways on The Air. For this, several members of HDARC will role up with some radio equipment and set up a radio station usually in one of the waiting rooms, and then proceed to try and make as many contacts with other radio amateurs as they can. As passengers arrive on the platform, either waiting for trains, or being disgorged from an arrival they usually hear us operating and will come in to find out what we are doing and sometimes stay for a chat. Just occasionally, we find someone who is sufficiently interested in what we are doing that they go on to make further enquiries, and have in the past got their own amateur radio licence. It is a great one or two days out, and everyone usually enjoys themselves.

I have this thing about railway platforms, provided I have sufficient time, I like to walk the length of the platform looking at all the features, the signalling, that kind of thing. It’s usually a very slow casual stroll in the hope that at least one train will go past in either direction. It really is a very pleasant way of spending time, waiting for your train.

Our local branch of Women’s Institute had it’s Christmas Fair today, because my fair lady is the president of the branch I felt it only right and proper to go along and support the event. The Cat Protection League had a stall there, and as a cat lover I felt it only right to support it by purchasing catnip toys for our cats. The picture is one I took this afternoon of our youngest cat, Misty, in the midst of a catnip high, shaking her head. Quite an interesting picture.

Well, my Vloging efforts have been very successful over the last few weeks. Actually, that’s a lie. It hasn’t been going at all, I have done nothing. Certainly, over the last couple of weeks I haven’t even thought of it. This has to change. I don’t want to make excuses but I recognise that I have too many things going on, and I end up spending only a little bit of time on each topic. To produce a vlog takes a level of commitment and time. I definitely haven’t followed up on that commitment.

With the Gosport Walk having 31 points of interest, that means I am intending to produce that number of vlogs, at this rate it’s going to take me a decade to produce them all, which is a bit of a problem. I think I want to produce vlogs because I enjoy using the tech. Well, if I do enjoy using it, don’t I need to just get one with it? Well, Yes!

I deliberately took a walk to Rowner Church, to scope it out in preparation for a vlog on 4 Sep, that isn’t that far from three months ago. Way, way too long. I should be able to produce a 3 – 5 minute video within that time. I really need to do better than this.

It has definitely helped this week to return to the schedule I had imposed during the 366 project. Usually, I only have to look at the diary to see what the days topic is for me to push something out. OK, it may not be brilliant, last nights post for example was really quite feeble. As I said on the night, I am leaving even the bad posts in place as examples of how not to do it.

Last night, instead of the normal Isle of Wight Radio Society Thursday Night Net on GB3IW we had a zoom meeting with some of the regulars. That was quite entertaining. We had Bob, KO4DXQ who lives in Tennessee on the net. He follows me on Facebook, he was talking about my Fantasy Holiday, and this week which is all about New Mexico. He said at one point he had been thinking about moving there, but eventually decided against it (well before my writings, so I hadn’t put him off). Really interesting to have an American reading my stuff.

We were laughing about how chaotic my wanderings had been. I took the header photograph of the time in the New England states. The movement around was very chaotic because of my very poor planning, but it made things interesting.

I am definitely going to do an FH22, but it will be based in the UK. I had thought of limiting it just to the counties of England, but I think I have said elsewhere that would stop me visiting some very interesting & spectacular place in the rest of the country. In my FH21 tomorrow, we are moving in to Arizona, after that we have one more state and that’s it. Which means that I can really start thinking about FH23, and be ready to go on 01 Jan 22.

Towards the beginning of the month, there were several days where the temperatures were borderline freezing, cars were iced up. It didn’t last long. Whilst it isn’t roasting, temperatures of 10C have meant that it has been quite pleasant to go for my morning walks. Now, don’t your get me wrong. I like to think that I am all prepared for cold weather, and I enjoy the freshness of the cold. There are few things better than going out in the really cold weather, and then coming to a nice cup of tea.

I’ve talked about going out the rain, I have in the past, when I have been doing Couch to 5K (I need to have another go at that), and admittedly it was during a warmer time of the year have gone out for a run in the rain, and I found it to be refreshing and exhilarating. It’s not that often that I really get caught in the rain. Generally it’s OK though.

There has been very little wind during my walking times over the past week. The pressure seems to have been fairly consistent as well. The gadget stick has been giving me good service. I enjoy giving the weather report, but I do make sure that I say, when anybody asks, that it isn’t a forecast, it is a report on the current conditions. Of course they could change as soon as I’ve given the report.

I’m going to leave tonight’s report as is, but I have to say that I’m not overly impressed with tonight’s writing. But I use poor episodes like this as an example of my determination to keep going. Who would have thought when I started this that I would achieve the 366 let alone 500, and that goal is now closer than the previous achievement.

This is the Royal Research Ship, The David Attenborough. The ship came in to harbour this morning. Unfortunately, at the wrong time for me.

When This Antarctic Research vessel was about to be commissioned in 2017, a competition was held to name the ship. The most popular name polled was Boaty McBoatface. The establishment really couldn’t tolerate that, so the poll was ignored and the vessel was named The RRS David Attenborough.

There was a compromise though. One of the ships autonomous remote survey vessels was given the name. I can remember, probably in the very late 60’s the Antarctic Survey Ship HMS Endurance had dropped anchor in Swanage Bay. I don’t know how mum did it, but she got us onboard for a guided tour. I can’t remember anything about the tour, other than there’s being a lot of steps and that it happened. It’s one of those little moments in time that stick with me.

I’d have liked to have seen the ship come in.

I went to Wiltshire today, I had to go for a work related meeting. They gave me a hire car for the trip, a BMW 318i automatic. I’ve never driven a BMW before, it was an interesting experience, it’s also the first time that I’ve driven a petrol car since May, just about 6 months.

The outward journey didn’t really go all that well. It started going wrong when I took the wrong exit out of a reasonably complex junction at Andover (I’d just followed the car’s satnav – personally I’d have gone a different route). I left the A303, was negotiating the junction, and took the exit that brought me back on to the 303.

SatNavs and I don’t really get on that well. For some reason they think I love really narrow country lanes. The stupid thing is I let them lead me that way. I should should just say “No, I’m not going to”. I arrived at the meeting venue thirty minutes late.

On leaving the venue, I decide I am going to take route that I know. A350, M4, A34, M27. A bit longer, but a faster route where unless something goes seriously wrong means you are always moving. I’m wondering if travelling during rush hour counts as something going seriously wrong? From the bottom of the A34 to around the viaduct in Fareham was pretty much a single traffic jam. Seriously frustrating.

I find that when I get in to a car for a longish journey, all I want to do is fall asleep. Not good. It kind of puts me off long car journeys.

This is the Columbian Star Reefer going out this morning. If you embiggen (as Homer would say) the picture it will be just ever so slightly blurred. Sorry about that, slow shutter speed.

Sometimes a pressure builds up. I have four magazines delivered a month, they generally come once a week, it can take me three or four days to read each one. That’s leaving roughly three days per week to read other things like books. I’m now beginning to feel a bit frustrated that I’m not reading books.

The follow on to that is do I stop reading the magazines? The thing is, I vowed that when I took out the subscription for the magazines I would read them from cover to cover. Of course, there is the occasional article that I might miss, mainly because it breaches my boredom barrier. I’ve stuck to that for at least the last two years. Is it time to slack off?

I have a problem with slacking off. I’m going to sign up again next year to do walk1000. I enjoy reading the articles, and the pictures. Then there is black and white photography, I really enjoy reading those articles, I love a good B&W picture, I have an ambition to have a picture published in the magazine. Not impossible if I take the right picture.

I don’t think I am going to give up either of those. RadCom comes as part of my RSGB membership, I must admit I don’t read that cover to cover, and I am not going to give up membership, so that magazine comes as default. The same really applies to the RTCS Observer Magazine. So, it looks like my four weeks of magazines is really nearer two, I just need to manage my time a bit better. I was please to be able to have this analysis. All is well.

I went out for a walk today. I was heading along South Street near the Asda turn heading toward the waterfront. I use happened to look up, the back yard of this particular house had a long brick wall. I reckon there were at least a dozen pigeons on the wall. No only that, there must have been another two dozen on the roof of the adjacent house.

They were clearly waiting for something – I assume the occupants feed the pigeons, because they were mostly perched, being very patient. Well, except they weren’t amongst themselves. There appeared to be a fair bit anti-queue jumping measures in play. I’d see a pigeon move in between two other birds, who after a couple of seconds would each deliver a resounding peck. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pigeons wait patiently like this. Very interesting. For a brief second, I considered knocking on the door of the house, to ask what they did, and. How they got the pigeons trained.

I bit further along I walked past the cockle ponds. I stayed on the road. If the model yacht club is operating, I stay away at the moment. The only reason is that I am a bit embarrassed about the way I initially engaged with club, almost buying a model yacht, and then realising that I wasn’t prepared to make the commitment and backed off rather abruptly. There is of course, no need for me to feel embarrassed, I just do.

I saw a young lady and her little girl feeding the swans on the cockle ponds. It was a lovely sight, the birds on the water were right up to them, and patiently waiting to be fed. The walk was only my normal morning walk in reverse, but it was in daylight and there were people around which added interest, and made for an interesting hour.