Bills Posts

The Musketier outbound fromPortsmouth, not sure where it was going, but nice seeing it go out.

I’ve looked on a couple of websites that cut wood. Who’d have thought that a basic piece of plywood (9mm 1.25mx0.5m, plus enough 1×1 (25x25mm) wood to edge and provide 4 lateral batons could both be so difficult and expensive to find. Now, I must admit, I’m not really sure what I’m buying, and I haven’t looked locally. Surely, places like Homebase and B&Q are worth looking at – I wonder if there are any other places that I could look.

I can see a trip to local wood emporiums coming on sometime in the near future. I’m not going to spend that much, unless I absolutely have to.

You now know then, how big this, my first layout is going to be. This is because, this layout is going to be a proof of concept. The laying of track, setting points, cabling the track, installing point motors, practicing with Digital Command & Control (DCC). There are many skills that I need to develop, and the whole point of this layout is that I learn from my mistakes.

The baseboard is the starting point. Let’s see how it goes from here.

The Boat is the Caribbean Star, a Reefer. That means that most of the containers onboard are refrigerated. Portsmouth is one of the largest UIK ports for the importation of Fruit and Veg. Absolutely nothing to do with the Sparrows.

We haven’t seen the starlings for a while – probably just keep missing them. But I can’t help wondering if the sparrow gang has had it out with the starling gang and seen them off – I do hope not.

The sparrows were here in their masses today. There were about ten perched on the fence, and probably another 15-20 in the bushes. They didn’t care about the pigeons on the table, they just ignored them. They were going hammer and tongs at the hanging feeders. Somebody has been having a go at the peanuts as well. Probably squirrels – I need to buy some more (peanuts).

They also have a tendency to flit backwards and forwards across the garden, it’s like they have flight paths. I really, really don’t like the thought of them being hungry, but that’s life.

The Picture is nothing to do with Southampton; it’s the Haslar Marina Pier Wall in the rain at about 0630.

I can’t remember if it was last year or the year before when I first started using my tripod instead of my monopod during the really dark mornings. Now, this year, I’ve become a little more adventurous in the taking of pictures (please note, I’m not saying better). The monopod has played a significant role in enabling be to do that.

I am now on the verge of moving back from use of the monopod to the tripod and I’ve realised that putting the tripod in the same position that I have very easily put the monopod, is not impossible, but is by no means anywhere near as easy. Now initially, the obvious solution is to carry both the monopod and the tripod. Yeah, that didn’t last long (just a few fractions of a seconds) – there was no way I was going to do that.

The obvious thing to do is to get a tripod that is also a monopod. Hence my trip to Southampton. The intention was to visit Jessops in West Quay. Unfortunately, that shop has closed down. There are two branches of the London Camera Exchange out of West Quay, near the high street. One slightly further away than the other. I went the furthest one first. When I said what I wanted, they told me that it was unusual for the centre column to be the monopod, it was more likely that one of the legs converted. Manfroto have such a tripod. The first branch didn’t have one but they phoned and confirmed that the second did. Actually, the staff in both branches of LCE were very helpful. They let me have a play with the tripod, but I ended up not buying it. The process of converting the leg to a monopod, and back again was just too fiddly,

We came back via Hobbycraft, I wanted to buy a rainbow storage stack, but again I didn’t – not didn’t they have quite what I wanted, I can get it cheaper off Amazon. I want one of these, because I want to try and be organised with my model railway stuff. Anyhow. The end of all this is that I have bought online one of these; https://www.kentfaith.co.uk/tripods

Both a unsuccessful and successful day, even with it chucking down, it was a lovely day out.

He stood in the hallway listening. He could hear the wind howling outside, every so often the wind would grab at the loose flap of the letter box causing it to clatter. The rain, not yet driving, but still heavy enough to be audible as it hits the glass in the door. Tentatively, he presses the door handle, the wind starts howling furiously, how dare he go out? It becomes a struggle between the raging southerly gale, trying to push the door open and he trying to control the opening. It doesn’t help that the cat is curious about the weather and is preparing a dash for the door, for the rubbish must be taken out.

Yes, at about 10PM last night, I had to take the rubbish out. Now in reality the wind was blowing, and the rain was threatening. I looked up, and the clouds were low – it was obvious that it was going to be a rough night.

Now I wonder how many of my thousands (I wish – do I wish that?) would look at the conditions, dressed only in shorts and a T-Shirt would have the thought “I quite fancy going for a walk”. Well, I didn’t of course, a rather comfortable bed beckoned. But I could quite easily have put some proper clothes on and gone for a walk.

Now as it happens, when I got up for my morning walk, and left the house at about 0550, the conditions were very similar to those at 2200 last night. It wasn’t cold, and rain was very on and off, but not really intense. That three miles this morning was absolutely delightful. There really is something to be said for walking in “bad” weather.

OK, I don’t know why this is happening, it is immensely frustrating for me, but when you view it on the web, it looks like you are seeing the picture at the proper size, which is good, I’ll keep looking but shut up about it now.

The temperature is on it’s way down, I’m back in the fleece-lined-non-waterproof jacket, the next stage will be a fleece. But that is absolutely fine, it’s all part of the weather. We walked through town today, it was almost, but not quite raining. The wind was blowing through trees, making that lovely rustling sound. It was a pure delight. Even if it were raining it would still be very pleasant. The Monday morning walk is an example of this, It was raining very hard. But, I thoroughly enjoyed the walk – mind you, it helps to have a really good raincoat. The one I have i bought in 2012, whilst holidaying in the Lake District. It’s a very good raincoat.

As we move in to the time of year when the morning are now getting so much darker, my photography gets that little bit harder. The monopod isn’t really suitable and my images become a little bit blurry or out of focus. So, I have to start carrying the tripod. this is a bit frustrating because whilst brilliant for stability, and freeing up a hand (I don’t have to hold it, except in very high winds) it’s not as flexible, there are some pictures I like which have been taken from a very low angle.

The answer here of course is sadly, a new tripod, one where the centre column acts as a monopod. I think that is going to have to be my next acquisition.

Here’s part of the problem; I’ve been outside several times over the last couple of weeks. The sky was clear of clouds, the stars are starting to appear at a reasonable time, meaning that observation is becoming possible.

I’ve even set up a thing on my phone, where if I press the button three times it goes in to red mode. Red light doesn’t mess up night vision.

I haven’t gone out to do any observing. It’s never the right time. Well, at the moment at least. Of course, that is a state of mind. If I wanted it to be the right time, then it would be.

I have one of the three tools that I need. Possibly two, it is the effort of making the second tool available for use that I need to practice because it means moving a fairly chunky chair in to the garden for the observation period. The thing about the chair is that it is comfortable, and it rotates and reclines – perfect. Unfortunately, it is not weatherproof and therefore it has got to go back inside once I finish, which means I need to be sure that if I am going to observe, it has to be worthwhile.

As to why, all of a sudden, the images are appearing as thumbnails rather than the full size. I’ve looked in to this, and can’t work out why, it is most frustrating.

It isn’t that I want to stop writing, I don’t. It’s almost like I’m running out of steam. My daily posts aren’t really exciting me, and the topics are not very interesting. Now, I know I don’t have a lot of readers, but those of you who are with me, thank you. I apologise for the feeble posts.

I think I need to engage with the Gosport walk project, but that won’t occupy every evening.

And then I remember, to start writing about things. So, yesterday, a member of my family said “You’ve always wanted to build one Bill, just do it.” So, a project I am working on – a model railway. I’ve decided to go ahead with it.

The first thing is to develop this as a project, and not rush blindly in to things. I’ve started working on the first step; the baseboard. I’m going to work out the wood I’m going to use, and what tools I’ll need to build it. I’ll start firming things up and give you a progress report. I should say, I know which gauge I’m going to use.

Now, The annoying thing is that I don’t know why today’s picture is only coming up thumbnail size. I’ve tried changing it so that it comes up the normal size. I’ve tried changing it, but it hasn’t worked. I don’t know why, but it’s just a tad frustrating.

I got up at my usual time. It wasn’t raining, but I thought I had better wear my proper raincoat just in case. It started raining about a minute before I left the house, not heavily, but as I was walking down the street, the rain was getting heavier. Now, I must admit that I did stop a couple of times on our street, pondering whether or not to go back home to the very comfortable bed from which I had not long since arisen. I decided to stick with it.

I was really appreciating having my full raincoat, not just the rain, but the wind blowing a real gale. I took a bit of a video clip. Doubly annoying, it won’t let me put in a video clip. (EDITED) – I worked out how to add a video; I still haven’t worked out why the picture is only thumbnail size.

It was a pleasant walk even with the wind and the rain, but I did cut it short.

Under the old scheme, I would have been writing about the book I’m reading, but it’s a bit awkward! I can’t find it. The othe book I have on my kindle is about the Old Straight Track By Alfred Watkins the man who “discovered” Ley Lines. Now, these and other “Earth Mysteries” (such as why was Stone Henge built, and what was the purpose of the Avebury Rings? You can’t help but be curious about these things can you? There used to be a club – I wonder if it is still going? I’ll have to look in to it.

I’ve just re-read last nights post. I’m not going to correct any of the mistypings, as they reflect the character of the day & evening. I had reached that point in the day when it was time for bed. I hadn’t done my Project 365 Or my blog posts. I could have left them for the day, but I really didn’t want to break the run. WordPress tells me that I have a 157 day streak, which acts as a reminder of that one day during 366 times when I accidentally missed a post. I want to keep this going.

I’ve encountered that problem with the fantasy holiday on Facebook. I’ve barely posted anything about last weeks state, and I haven’t even looked at which state we are in for this week. I have lost the thread, but having got so far, I do want to finish it, and in fairness, there are only about 10 weeks ago.

Where I was parked on the RAYNET exercise yesterday was very dry and powdery, which meant when anything or anybody went past, they kicked up a cloud and as a result the car was absolutely filthy so today it went off a good clean. I couldn’t really do anything else whilst it was being cleaned, so I went for a little stroll, which is where I captured the two vessels at the Haslar Marina.

I have another RAYNET possibly coming up in October, this is the Rufus Ride, a horse distance endurance ride. The previous two times I’ve done this event I have been just to the north west of Stoney Cross try scaffold.harsh.lunge in what 3 words, that’s pretty much exactly where I was. Personally, I’d quite like to go back there but I have no control over that. We’ll just have to wait.

Today, I arose at 0630, well to be honest that’s not strictly true. I arose at some ridiculous hour to assist in the capture of what turned out to be a dead mouse, being used as a plaything by one of our cats. I tried mostly unsuccessfully to get back to sleep, only to be disturbed once again by That Darn Cat, this lime with a live mouse, that she really didn’t want to give to us, but which we did manage to recover mostly uninjured we think. Anyhow, by then it gone 0400, and I was fairly confident that I wasn’t going to get back to sleep (I’d had enough problems earlier in the evening. That early morning cup of tea certainly hit the right spot. Car all loaded, route set, we are on our way to The Estate of Wimborne St Giles.

When I did this journey last year, it was really straigth forward Journey, the satnav in the QashQai took me along what lookks like the most straightforward of many routes.

This year? Hooo, No chance. The first thing that confused me was the satnave message saying that route presented would avoid the diversions on the A31. I thought it a bit strange as I had no intention of going anywhere near the diversion. The SatNav not only thought otherwise, it also concocted one of the most devious routes it is capable of doing. Why on earth would I wan’t to go along what I am sure as some of the narrowest single track. Anyhow it finally let me arrive.

Now, it has taken me a long longer than normal to write the previous paragraph, this is because, to be blunt ( please excuse my language) LI am knackered. I keep on falling asleep in the chair and wake having written a load of gibberish. I’m going to lease this for now