Bills Posts

I managed to get up early today, before the daylight came, I wanted to experience dawn on the Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve. I was on the reserve before 0615, and it was still quite dark. The trip out this morning also reminded of another thing, that the tripod I have really is not fit for purpose. Anything I do with the spotter scope takes seconds to settle down after I touch it, where it is bouncing so much. So, a new tripod for Christmas I think. A bit of research needed there though. Can a tripod be triple purpose; as support for a spotter scope, for photography and as a platform for my winter ramblings. OK, that last one is irrelevant really. Need to do some investigation there.

I have five books on the go at the moment. One of them Tom Sharpe’s Wilt, which I read just after it was first published really, I can leave, one I am more than half way through; English Villagers, life in the countryside 1850 – 1939 is absolutely fascinating, I started reading it because I had just finished re-watching the Downton Abbey in between programmes, and the film when I found the book, started reading it, and realised that I recognised the programme. It just became a fascinating read.

Sean Tucker is a street photographer. He does other styles as well. I’m still not really reading books on how to do photography (I know I should, I will). He’s written a book; The Meaning in the Making. Which is more about his philosophy of photography, rather than an How to. I haven’t started it yet, but it is lined up.

The last book I am going to mention briefly is Ley Lines by Danny Sullivan; now look I know this is a pseudo science, and I do not think they are real, but wouldn’t it be nice? Anyhow, it makes for a fascinating read. I think I am just going to carry on for the time being.

Nope, they aren’t it – I’ve not seen it, but it was getting a number of birdwatchers quite excited.

I went for a walk in a seriously lovely part of the country side. Parham Nature Reserve, an RSGB site. There were some birds about, and quite a few people.

What I really loved about this walk, was that usually, all it takes is a “good afternoon”, or a “hi, can I ask what you are looking at?” To start a lovely conversation. This is how I found out that there is a red backed shrike in the area, apparently a comparatively rare bird to be seen in the area.

Everybody that I spoke to was very friendly and open, and delighted to speak about what they were interested in. Most people were out just to enjoy the environment, which was fully understandable.

There’s a church nearby which was originally built in the 7th century, but was rebuilt 40 years after Thomas A Becket was murdered church. Some relatively minor work was done by the Victorians during their refurbishment of churches.

I have talked about everyone having a book inside them I’ve quoted Hitchens in the past. What people tend not to say is the second part, which is along the lines of “and that’s exactly where it should stay”. Now, if any known author had done that, we would have missed out on seriously good reading. Now, I am not saying that I am comparing myself to Rowling, but you just don’t know do you. What if you have an idea for a book? At the very least, you need to test the idea and if the consensus is “thank you, we’ll call you” (a euphemism for don’t bother) then fair enough. But test the idea.

Now, I have the merest glimmer of an idea for a book, and surprisingly it is a work of fiction, which is the last thing I expected. Now, to do it justice, I need to do a fair bit of research, I have no idea of the plot, or the characters, except a couple of potentials. Like I say, research.

On facebook, We are now on week 37 of our Fantasy Holiday 2021. Visiting Louisiana. Just very briefly my thoughts turn to next year and whether or not I am going to have a writing project for Facebook. There are two questions; Am I going to do it? That I will is by no means certain, as to what I might do; I definitely do have an idea, that I would love to follow up. I’m not even going to discuss it now. But, it would be really interesting (to me at least).

Then of course, there is this blog. There is no way I am going to stop doing this.

The thing about this week is that the mornings are getting noticeably darker. It will soon be dark for the bulk of my walk. this will cause problems for the salinity readings from the cockle ponds. Perhaps I should get a watertight container to bring a sample home to do the measurements here.

For the most part, I haven’t had any problems doing the evening post this week. Tonight, my intention was to sit down and review the photographs. Definitely, my favourite I think is this one;

You’ll have seen it before, this is a symptom of one of the problems that the ponds face – being used as a litter bin. So very sad that there is so little respect for the place. Here’s another;

One of my friends referred to this as a serene picture, and I have to say I agree with him, there’s no editing of this picture other than a little cropping, the water really was that still. But, once again it’s a sad picture of disrespect. Somebody has a habit of throwing these things in the water. Now, I did see something. It did involve a group (3 – 4) people, and a shopping trolly on the edge of the pond, but then they walked away. Pointless my taking a picture, I was the other end of the pond, Just too far away.

Doesn’t the bird jump out at you? Surprisingly, the day after I took this picture I watched a video from one of my YouTube subscriptions this particular showing was about the positive impact of including birds in photo’s . I like this one.

This is another one. I tried it in B&W;

There’s plenty of texture in the mono picture, but this is one of those occasions where the colour versions works better for me.

The weather hasn’t stopped me from walking this week. I had a bit of an encounter yesterday lunchtime, luckily I had a brolly with me, and I needed it. There was a very brief shower this morning, a few seconds that’s all. It was fine.

A good successful week of walking. A good and mostly successful week of writing. Let’s see how next week goes.

I’ve cheated just a little bit. The picture is one that I took, but it’s from a couple of years ago. It’s train on the Watercress Line taken when we were doing an Events Station – Railways on the Air, from Ropley. I really enjoy these event stations.

Talking of stations, you’ll have seen the title. I’m in that phase again. I want to build a model railway layout. I’ve wanted to do one for years. I pretty much decided on somethings such as the gauge (it’ll be N-Gauge). N-Guage is reasonably small, so I could have a reasonably complex layout. But no, it won’t be complex, because I haven’t really got a clue what I’m doing. Well, that’s not strictly true. I am compiling a list of the materials and tools that I’ll need for the construction work. I’m thinking about things like what track, what Digital Command and Control System (DCC), and a basic loco. The track layout will be very simple – a couple pieces of straight, a couple of points.

My first baseboard will be small 1×0.5m, but more than enough to do my first layout. The experience of building the baseboard, mounting the track, cabling the layout and running the train are the initial basics. Get a grip of those, and I will know I can do something bigger. But, then there’s signalling. I like semaphore signals, I’d want to use them. What about scenery? I’m torn between rural, urban or industrial scenes. I had a thought about a container yard, with working cranes.

See, I do have grandiose plans – but that’s not good at the moment. No experience. Well, if I’m going to get that experience, I need to do something. I feel a project coming on.

We are in that in-between time. Summer and Autumn. It could easily go either way. What becomes a hurricane on the Eastern seaboard of the USA has a tendency to spin off in our direction depositing its remains here. So, the rest of the week will either continue in the same vein, or it won’t.

Another bugbear is shopping trolleys, abandoned ones. It annoys the heck out of me. My friends on the #Breakfastclub are aware of this.

This is the thing about the weather, if you don’t watch the forecast, you don’t know what it’s going to do. It has been quite warm of late, but it rained this evening – it was needed. Actually, quite a bit more is needed. I just don’t want it to interrupt my walks.

One of the things that really bugs me are abandoned shopping trolleys. In the past I’ve reported these to street scene at Gosport Borough Council. One of my friends on the #Breakfastclub told me about Trolleywise, an app, through which abandoned trolleys can be reported. Trouble is, it appears that each supermarket has to have a contract with Trolleywise for it to work, it appears that Asda, in Gosport at least, doesn’t. Also, they won’t recover trolleys in water. So Whilst I like the glossy app, it’s useless to me really. So, back to street scene & twitter.

Whilst I was googling for some information about this, I came across something; The Shopping Trolley Theory. What is the shopping trolley theory? The theory posits that the decision to return a cart is the ultimate test of moral character and a person’s capacity to be self-governing. It is a theory fully embraced by the video vigilantes known as The Cart Narcs, self-appointed enforcers who confront shoppers trying to leave without returning their carts.

Given that the supermarkets make efforts to prevent trolleys from being removed from the shop’s locality, I’d argue that the stronger strength of moral character is not to remove the trolley at all. Even better, not to push it in to the cockle ponds – which is a fairly regular occurrence.

I’m going to explore this a little further.

There’s a lady who lives in Scotland (she is Scottish). Her name is Kim Grant. Kim is a photographer, every week or so she releases a video on You Tube. She’s very good. This week’s video was about how to make your pictures even better, quite simply by including a bird.

Does it work for you? It does for me.

I must have several tens of thousands of pictures in my online storage. I’ve decided that it’s time I do something with them, other that the occasional picture either here, on my facebook page, on twitter or instagram – yes, I use all of them. That means printing them. I have some photographic paper, so when I take a picture that I really like I’m going to print it. They are going up on the wall in the office. I only have a limited space, so I am going to have to rotate them. For the time being, I will build an album of my favourite pictures.

I think it’ll take quite a time to fill the album, but where does it stop? When I have ten, or twenty albums. I have to be realistic. I think, when the album is full, then that’s it, I recycle it. In the mean time, I’ll just enjoy them.

It’s very nice to once again be in the position of having to choose which photos I want to use. I’ve used this one as the header. It annoys the heck out of me. abandoned trolley are bad enough – I used the trolley app to report two of them on Clarence Road earlier in the walk.

The problems with this one were that it was in the water, there’s a button for that in the app, and you have to say which supermarket they come from. It turns out that not all of the shops have a contract with the app providers. It looks like Morrisons does, the two I sent earlier were accepted. I couldn’t see which shop this one belonged to, so I chose Asda. The app rejected this one. No contract.

The thing that really annoys me is I like the pictures.

The walk started well. As I got to the playing fields I could see the low laying mist, I think called radiation fog, had formed.

The thing about this time of year is the lighting. Borderline dawn. The lighting is either right, too early or late. This morning was good time. The light was quite prominent, especially when I got to the waterfront.

I did my usual weather report from the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. One thing was the utter lack of wind. I had to blow on the blades of my anemometer to make sure it was working. Well, I didn’t have to really because I could feel that there was no wind.

I’m working on the script that I want to use when I do my vlog of Rowner Church. It won’t be done for a few weeks so plenty of time to think about it. The question I want to ask is what direction do I want to take the commentary?

There are two distinct tracks that I feel the need to talk about;

The age of the church, or should I say the original church.

The Victorian restoration, around the 1850’s which was not so much a restoration as a complete re-build. Now, I know the Victorians did a lot for us, but was this one their acts of vandalism?

What I want to do is build confidence in front of the camera. Part of that is knowing what I am going to say. I don’t though intend to script every word. Bullet points are probably going to be the way.

There is one piece of equipment that I’m still working in in preparation for the vlog. The microphone. I’d really like one those hand held hobbies like a news reporter would use. Working on that.

Today, as per the picture, we walked down to the waterfront to see the Aircraft Carrier HMS Prince of Wales sail out. It was quite impressive. I liked watching the tugs. There were quite a few people around.

I spent a bit of time trying to tidy & organise the office. Making sure that the books I use on a regular basis for reference have some degree of logic in the way they are arranged. At least I have most things off the floor, and in its place on the shelf. But the office still looks like disorganised chaos. Why is that? Why am I absolutelyp useless at anything like this?

The Railway line between Fareham and Gosport finally closed on 30 Jan 69. At some point between then and now, somebody somewhere made one of their best decisions. That was to turn the old rail track partially into a bus route, and partially into a cycle track. The exclusively cycle & walking track part runs from Rowner Down to the old Gosport Railway Station.

Today, I paid a visit to Rowner church of St Mary the Virgin. The original building built in the 11th and 12th Century. I’ve never been there before. Rowner had a bad reputation for a while. No sign of that here today. Two separate fields both with sporting activities going on.

I got to the church by walking following the route of the old railway track. In both directions it was a really pleasant walk. The track was being well used, cyclists, walkers, scooter riders, people exercising their dogs, plenty of smiles and good afternoons exchanged.

I’m not going to write about the visit to the church. That will be the subject of a future post, and hopefully video. I couldn’t get inside the church as it was locked.

A very enjoyable if slightly tiring day.