Bills Posts

I didn’t see this initially. It’s a long net, presumably lost by one of the little trawlers. I can’t help wondering how they managed to lose it, and why they didn’t make an attempt to recover it, or perhaps they did, and it has become too entangled for them to draw it back in. I don’t know. I wondered what to do about it. Dangerously assuming that they are going to do something to get it back.

If it is still there tomorrow, I’ll DM StreetScene about it.

I follow a number of people on YouTube, mostly American, and mostly aimed at running businesses, very focussed on that. They are almost breathless in their urgency to get their message out. Then it comes as one long stream, where they give the impression that taking a breath would waste the time and space for a word that will help them sell. To be honest, it pretty much leaves me breathless just watching them.

I kind of get the logic, who wants to waste their time watching me pause for breath, when I should be giving them more information. Then there is the editing. These people have been producing videos for years. Not decades admittedly, yet the edit points are clearly visible. I haven’t tried to do this, so I can’t really talk about it, but I will do. There must be a way of doing it, than can be learned – is that doing a scene perfectly so that you can cut between takes. Actually, I’m just thinking about it. I watch a regular vlog by an astrophysicist, Dr Becky (from the UK), and I can’t recall seeing the edit points. I’ll have to make a point of watching for them next time she is speaking. And she does make mistakes, because the bloopers section at the end is very popular.

I went out for a walk. Leaving Home, I headed towards Alverstoke Valley, this is a nature reserve. On the way out to the reserve, I passed the memorial to Nat Gonella, a famous musician, who came from Grosport;

I had a very strange feeling as I approached the bottom end of HMS Sultan, It was almost a sense of release. I have become so used to walking within a fairly limited area within town, that to actually walk somewhere else was amazing. A very intense feeling.

The reserve has a place, a small bridge over the Alverstoke River, called the Apple Dumpling Bridge. A Bridge (not this one obviously), has been here for a thousand years or more. Not far from the bridge is the Alver Valley Motte & Bailey. A Motte and Bailey is a defensive position, with a protected community It’s a high point, a mound and a community surrounded by a wall. Of course, the structure is not there anymore.

I recorded some video, It was dreadful. Not the quality – that was fine. The content. I know what I wanted to say, presentation was dreadful. If I am going to do video I need to really improve. I am not a natural presenter, and I need a script to work to. In this case, it didn’t work. But I will try again.

After the Motte & Bailey, I decided to walk towards GilKicker Fort. This is one of the Palmerston Forts, built in the 19th Century. I paused at Pebbles to indulge in a 99, that was very pleasant. I carried on until I reached the Gosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue Station GAFIRS. By this point, I had to make a decision. My feet were beginning to ache. Knowing that if I returned home now, I still had about two miles to go, or if I carried on to finish the walk I wanted to do I would still have at least three to four miles to go.

I made the decision to go home. I’m glad I did so, I knew that by the time I got back I had made the right decision. For two reasons; I didn’t want another dreadful attempt at videoing, I would not have been looking forward to walking another mile or to.

This gives me a chance to prepare for a visit to Gilkicker. Possibly next weekend, or the weekend after. A bit of planning to do. I only include this to give you an example, of just how bads it is.

Our first long trip in our electric car. 60 miles. It was fine, obviously, we had enough charge that we could have come back, but they had charge points there, so we used the opportunity to top up. One reason was to compare driving styles. Mine is more conservative, but at the end of both trips there was only a little bit of a difference.

We’ve been to Wisely several times over the past few years, each at different times of the year, The appearance of the gardens in each season is massively different. But each season brings a different set of experiences, all are lovely and well worth seeing.

The gardens are very colourful at the moment, and even though they were quite busy we didn’t feel crowded. We heard one of the staff saying that there were only 50 parking spaces available, and that was towards midday – so they have been busy. Not surprising really, it’s been a magnificent day. Good for the gardens.

I am not a gardener, I always say that you should never ask me to go and pull out the weeds. But I do like a good garden. I also like a good wild patch, Wisely as you might expect, has several. At least one specifically cultivated as such, and several areas that are undergoing various developments.

The layout of the site has changed a lot since the last time we were there, with the location of the entrance changing from one side of the Great House to the other. We were slightly disoriented by this, but we quickly learned our way around.

It was a lovely day, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was really nice to go somewhere else other than Gosport. It was lovely to see dear friends.

It is quite likely that over the next 63 days you are going to get fed up with me. That’s because I am probably be going to be doing a fair bit of self analysis of my writing between now and then, and what I may be dong when 366 comes to an end. Since starting I knew there would be two directions in which I could go; to give up because I am not enjoying it. Or to continue with a blog, whatever shape it is..

I think it is fair to say, that if I was going to find it difficult I would have done so by now. I don’t include the odd episode of writers block in that, I mean a fundamental difficulty in writing. I am enjoying it too much. All this indicates to me that I am very likely to carry on. I need to work out the end date – looks like around the 20th of August.

If you read last nights post on meteorology, you’ll have noticed I’ve started asking questions of myself. I acknowledge I have an interest in this and other topics. I am not an expert in any of them, I won’t even pretend to think I know stuff, but I’m interested, my brain won’t let me not be interested, and that being the case, I want to write about it.

I need to look at the questions I asked last night. Do the questions form a principle that apply to all the topics I want to write about. I need to be careful that I don’t get to formal about this.. I want to have the freedom to write how I want, about what I want. But sometimes within that, there really should be a structure to some of my topics. You see, here is another good example of the way my brain works. I like to formalise, plan, put structure to things. I’m doing it again. But, I think I may have to do some of that if I want a successful blog (bearing in mind, I have not yet defined success).

What do you do when you go into a bookshop? I usually take a quick look at the Science Fiction Section, but It had been quite a while since I bought an SF book. Notice the tense? Had. Now, don’t get excited, I haven’t bought a physical paper based book. I bought an audio book of Audible, I’d like to recommend a TV series to you, especially if you are with Amazon, where it is being streamed on Amazon, it is being hailed by scientists as very scientifically accurate for a variety of reasons. There are 5 seasons, and it is brilliant.

The series is based on James A. Corey’s series of books. normally, I’d say read the books first, then watch the TV, but this time I did it the other way round. And, I’m really glad I did, because as I listen to the book, I know what things look like, I picture the characters, I know what the ships look like, I know the scenery. It is brilliant.

It also has absolutely nothing to do with my being organised. But, it was a nice diversion. After the Science Fiction section, I usually head up the stairs to the reference area, I usually look in the self help area for the book entitled “Bill – this is the book that will totally organise your life”. Do you procrastinate? I think I do, but probably not as much as I think I do, I feel that parts of my life are not organised, and I waste a lot of time doing things that aren’t massively productive. By the same token though, why should I spend all of my time being busy doing useful things? I don’t of course, but I sometimes feel as though I should. Here then, we need to start thinking about what I mean as “useful” – I guess the first stab at this would be; stuff that keeps my brain busy. Sometimes, my writings are that stuff.

Another part of the book shop I go to is the travel writing section, I think if there is any author that I would aspire to be like in this genre, it would be Bill Bryson. His books are a dream to read. I don’t do a lot of travelling though, so following that route would be a bit pointless. History, I think would be an interesting topic, but I don’t normally visit the history section. That’s partly because I have never felt the need. I’m now thinking of books about writing about history, and also books on the local area, Gosport – don’t seem to be many of them about

I shall keep looking.

Back again to organising my self. I suppose I should at least bring this to a conclusion. I think goal setting would help. The main goal of this blog is to satisfy my need to write. But what service does it give to you, the reader? I’d like the blog to inform and entertain. In order to do at least the first of those, I feel it should have a focus. Well, it does have a focus; my locality project. But what is Locality, as I have already intimated, it is writing about the things in which I am interested. I can even identify those things. But it’s writing about them that is becoming an issue. In order to write about Astronomy, do I actually have to do some? When would that be then? The questions are the same for all of my areas. I do hope you are not getting fed up with my prattling. We will try and get things sorted.

After yesterday’s grey and very misty morning, today’s early trip couldn’t have been much different. A clear and very bright sunny morning. It was a delightful walk, made even more so by seeing the Conmar Gulf outbound. Admittedly not a large ship at 8,000 tons on the way to Zeebrugge.

And so begins post No. 300 in this series of 366 which started in last year, a leap year hence the 366 rather than the 365. I can remember when I started this thinking I have no idea how long I am going to keep this up for, I don’t know if I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. I may still not finish, but every day brings me closer, and it is now more likely that I will – hopefully.

I have had times when it has been a bit of a struggle. Typically writers block. The thing to do about that was to write about the block. It may have resulted waffle which I was able to do, because I am not dedicated to a specific topic, I can write about what I want. Then, there are the topics I need to stay away from; freedom of speech, politics and religion. It is not the purpose of this blog to stir controversy. I won’t do that.

The purpose of this blog is to satisfy my urge to write. If anything were to purge the urge, it would have been this exercise. I think it has reinforced it. I still want to write, but I want a focus. Locality may provide the framework. I need to look at previous posts where I mention locality, and perhaps do a bit more detailed article as to what it is all about.

In the picture, I reckon that the Normandie is a good bit less than 200m from me, and yet is barely visible. I couldn’t even see her as she came in through the harbour entrance, it was only when I heard her that I realised she was there. I can’t recall the last time the fog was that thick.

I think I prefer the B&W version again.

The Monday night writing exercise is to write about the current read. I’m still on Bede’s An Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Published in the year 735AD. Because it is an ecclesiastical History it’s focus is understandably on religion, and the key players of the time, queens, kings, bishops. The letters they exchange, their battle for their beliefs, missionaries. As I have said before, it has been fascinating to have a good history book to hand. Nearly all of the names mentioned by Bede are covered in the history book. Of course there is other reference material to which Bede will not have had access. Bede and the history book build up an interesting picture of the time.

I’ve just deleted a paragraph, because my writing on this particular topic was starting to go in a direction that I didn’t want it to. In theory, I should be able to write about what I want. In reality, it’s not as easy as that. That then leads me on to another difficult topic that I’m not going to cover.

Does this mean that I have to stay away from books which cause me difficulties? I don’t think so, it just means I either have to circle around the issue, or avoid it completely. Presumably I’ll reach a point in the future, I will have to write what makes me feel uncomfortable, but that is not the purpose of the current blog. Not yet, anyhow.

This is a picture from part of the route that I normally follow. I have been following this walk for literally years. It’s not that I am bored with the walk. I’m not. But, there are other walks in the town.

There aren’t other walks that I am aware of that have the same set of rewards as this one. There are other walks of course, and they would have different rewards. For a morning walk, my normal route is preferred, so I think it unlikely that I will change it.

What I do need to do is get out at the weekend. I need to put effort in to that. I almost did this weekend, but didn’t quite make it. I’ll have another go next weekend.

I’m still off the view though, i haven’t explored aspects of the “Normal” route. There is loads of history along this walk that i haven’t explored. History is an area of research that I haven’t explored. How to do that? I perhaps need to do some more reading..