Bills Posts

With astronomical Autumn only a few days away, there are signs in the garden that the growing season is coming to a close for some flowers at least.

Our wild patch which didn’t start off particularly well, probably because the birds kept eating the seeds boomed in to life and was a great attractor for insects, which was brilliant.

Elayne has done a superb job of cultivating a truly lovely garden colourful, and producing bumper crops of potatoes, tomatoes and only today, radishes. Have to admit though, the runner beans didn’t run.

I think it must have given me a bit more focus during last years lockdown, I have done a couple of Big Butterfly Counts, but just haven’t kept up with it. That by no means says that I have lost interest, there was a degree of uncertainty about whether the count was being run this year. I have absolutely loved watching what has been going on with butterflies.

Without doubt though, the stars of the year have been the birds. It really took off with the wagtails which were simply delightful. We haven’t seen them now for several months now. I do hope they are ok and return to us.

I will keep feeding the birds through the winter. This time of year it is a matter of survival that they have access to an assured supply of food. I certainly intend to give them that.

No, this is only the site of the palace. I’ve been wanting to visit here ever since I heard of it. I have to admit I had no idea how big it was.

To visit the site is to be exposed to the artefacts and building skills of 2000 years ago, and to begin to appreciate why the Roman Empire dominated as it did. The skills of the people who built the palace, and laid the mosaics that decorated the floor. To see the central heating system – which I knew they did but to see it is amazing.

The palace was built very close to what was then the waters edge of the harbour. Speaking to the staff running palace, there is a big question as to why the palace was built at this location. Apparently, they had install wooden piles to hold up part of it.

It really was a fascinating end to a lovely week.

We had a couple of lovely walks today. We went for breakfast in a local cafe, which was nice and then went for a walk around the lagoon. I don’t know how long the lagoon has been there, but from the way the harbour has silted up, it’s been quite a while. Anyhow, it makes for a lovely walk.

As you might expect we weren’t the only people out walking. In places, the paths are relatively narrow, so you can’t avoid being relatively close to people, not to worry about, but certainly to exchange pleasantries. Hence the Morning or hello title.

I have to say that we have had some really nice chats with people, nothing spectacular, just pleasant. In the afternoon, we did the other part of the harbour the North Sea wall that forms part of the sea defences for Chichester. I’ve been having a bit of an issue with my tripod, the one that I use for both photography, and for my spotter scope. I stopped to talk to another birder, to ask him about his tripod, he was more than happy to show me how he had jury rigged his spotter scope/tripod pairing.

Most people were delightful. Just occasionally we would say Hello or Good Morning to somebody only for them to completely ignore us. One elderly couple were coming toward us, and just as they were passing, we both said hello. They were both head down, one after the other, did not even look at us as they marched past. We both looked at each other and laughed. It certainly did not take away from the pleasure of the walk.

We have decided that it is a delightful area, and would be more than happy to return here for another holiday.

As is mostly normally the case, the picture has no relation to the subject of today’s post. This is a picture of the river at Littlehampton, which it turns out is actually, quite a nice place.

I had quite a conversation yesterday with my Father-in-Law, about a love of his life, which it’s probably not unreasonable to say, he turned into a second career after his retirement. That is Philately, or Stamp collecting.

One of the questions I asked was what impact has the Internet had on the hobby. His response aligned with my much briefer experience in one of my main hobbies (amateur radio) in that the internet has had both positive and negative impacts.

The most obvious impact has been that it is much more difficult to get young blood interested. It does happen, but on nowhere near the scale that existed in the past. This is because the internet offers services which appear to be a much more attractive offer. There are also some social attitude changes that make it more difficult for young people to become involved.

Those two factors alone have served to almost kill these and other hobbies. But, not quite. Because we can now talk about the positive impact; not least of which is the global reach. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching programmes like Downton Abbey, it brought out how people would communicate using small notes sent through the post. We have our own version of this, the key exception is that ours is global and pretty much instantaneous. Being able to communicate with text, voice and video with anyone almost anywhere in the world, has served to really bring about the global village.

Then of course, there is the capacity of the Internet as a research and information repository tool, which really is superb. Of course, sometimes you might have to filter out a bit of guff, but undoubtedly, the internet has done wonders for research.

It’s like anything, the Internet is a tool for both good and bad. It’s down to people like to ensure that the good side prevails. I wonder how many other hobbies have been impacted both positively and negatively by this wonderful tool that we have been given?

This is Thomas A Becket Church in Pagham. Totally unrelated to today’s post, but I think quite a nice picture nonetheless.

Ah yes, 2nd hand bookshops. Now sadly, I don’t really class charity shops to be any good in this field, unless they are dedicated. Oxfam seems to be quite good at this, they have two dedicated book shops that I am aware of one in Cambridge and the other in Fareham.

No, I mean the proper dedicated 2nd hand books shops that are run by people who just love books. Now, I am sure there will be hundreds of these all over the country, but there are three that I particularly want to mention as they are accessible (now, I had three in mind as I started typing this paragraph, and of course one of them has decided it doesn’t want to play and has, without permission gone out. Hopefully, I will find the little so and so, otherwise it won’t get mentioned, Ah there it is you see; Chichester, you blighter, come here, where have you been these last few clauses?

OK, before any more of them become a nuisance, lets list them, not in order of preference, rather proximity (but not necessarily ease of access);

• The Ryde Books shop, the Isle of Wight
• Kims Bookshop, Chichester
• The Petersfield Bookshop

I can easily spend a couple of hours in any one of these. For pure browsing pleasure they are all on a par. Whether all on the same level (Petersfield) or spread over multiple floors, they are all rabbit Warrens of sheer delight. It is extremely rare for me to walk out of any of them not having bought something.

It’s always a pleasure to find a “new” shop on the scale of these. I have to admit I wasn’t aware of the Petersfield shop until it came up on the news as being in difficulty – a social media campaign rescued it. I made a point of visiting and buying several books. I am looking forward to going back sometime in the future.

If you live near any of these bookshops, or if you live near a similar shop, pay them a visit, have a browse, buy a book to support them, but most of all, enjoy the time you spend there. It is most assuredly, time not wasted.

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.