Bills Posts

I am reading a book that I’ve wanted to read for quite a long time. I’ve hunted for it several times and then a couple of weeks ago whilst browsing Amazon, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written by The Venerable Bede in the year 735.

I can no more explain to you why I am interested in Bede and his writings. I have written before about my interest in history how it was taken away, and how I have gained it back.

The book was written in Latin, and so is a translation. It is an easy read so far, and the early chapters are covering events between the Roman occupation and Bede’s era. It is an interesting read, giving us a perspective on geographical knowledge of the time. Bede talks about the positioning of Ireland, where he says that It’s southerly extent reaches down to Spain.

In comparison to today, obviously, life in those times would have been very tough. At the moment, each chapter isn’t very long sometimes less that a page. It is a fascinating read.

I don’t think that I should be rewarded for going out on the walks. But, sometimes things happen, and I think of it as a reward.

I won’t deny that one of the main reasons I went out for a walk today was to visit my Jelly Fish in the Cockle Ponds. I wanted to see how they were doing. There weren’t as many as I thought there would be. I am assuming from the size that they are youngsters. I don’t know what will happen to them, I’m not sure if they have a route out to the sea or whether they are stuck in the pond. A concern is that the pond is drained every so often, I don’t know when that is due to happen next, but what happens to them then – who knows?

Today, They seem to be in fine fettle. Still from the looks of it mainly concentrated in the western end of the pond. They seemed to be quite mobile. I wonder if they are preparing to escape?

You can imagine my excitement then to see one of these flapping about. There were a few of these, from quite small up to probably about two inches long. I had no idea what they were. I thought they were another Jelly Fish. Turns out, they are a Sea Hare or Sea Slug. I had to resort to Facebook to find out what it was. The group to which I posted the query took about 5 minutes to respond, which was pretty good. I suppose this comes of paying a bit more attention to the site. Absolutely fascinating. I shall continue to observe. This is the first of my rewards or today’s walk.

From the cockle ponds I followed my normal route. When I arrived at the waterfront I strolled along the promenade as I normally do. I could hardly miss the collection of what I think are classic scooters, I don’t if they are really are classic, but they are clearly well loved machines. This is my second reward.

Then of course there is the walk itself, which as usual I enjoyed very much. Which is sufficient reward in it’s own right.

This is one of several pictures I’ve taken this week that really appeals to me. The picture was taken at the Cockle Ponds on one of my morning walks. It is a favourite picture because the reflection of the tree is almost perfect, not quite but good enough. The frustrating thing is that I couldn’t either get rid of the building, or position myself to include it in the reflection. This is one of several pictures of this type that I took this particular morning. They all pretty much suffer from the same problem. Here’s another example;

OK, so the reflection isn’t quite as good, but still not bad. To the extent that I like this one as well.

Then there’s this one;

I’m also doing the 365 project, I used this picture. I like the colouring, the position of the boat, the ripples and the sunbeam across the water. One person commented that the scene reminded them of Venice. I have to say that it does for me also. But that isn’t the reason I like it.

Then there is the jelly fish. Purely by chance I decided to walk past the Cockle Ponds. Of course, the jelly fish were there. I then made the mistake of identifying the species. Not only that, but I learned a little bit about the life cycle. So of course, I am now interested. To the extent that I am becoming possessive about them. I even wondered if I could catch one and keep it to observe it’s progress. I decided that was probably going too far, so I’ve decided that I will watch them in situ. The next time I go to the ponds they will probably all be gone, having been flushed out to sea. I’ll be upset of course, because even over only a couple of days, I have enjoyed watching them, and want to continue to do so. It’s not a good picture, but here is a Moon Jelly Fish;

Then, on Wednesday, the sun was amazing. A blood red sun, comming up behind the buildings;

The colouring of the sun behind the building was in my opinion quite striking. I like it.

Thursday’s picture was something a bit different. Sometimes a picture attracts your attention, as this one did, I don’t know if in the greater scheme of things it is a good picture, but I like it;

Then of there was the Thursday Post – the Feng Shui of the cup rack. How could I not include that?

And that takes us on to Friday, Other than the Jelly Fish, which had all decided to crowd together in the south west corner, where presumably, the water was warmest. They are difficult to photograph, so I’m using a different picture. All the mornings have been crisp and cold, the last couple have had a fresh wind as well. Yesterday’s was particularly fresh, but all of the walks were very enjoyable. Here’s the Friday picture. You tell what the wind was like from the flags – blowing from a north easterly direction, it was not warm.

It’s been an interesting week, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this review.

Don’t worry, I am only going to beat myself up about missing a night a little bit. There are two really annoying things about this; the fact I did it and a counter. Until that day the counter has been nicely ticking along. The next day it had reset. Going from 250 to 1.

The episode of writers block was unwelcome, but understandable. The strategy of writing about it helped. That I had a couple of topics lined up for the next two nights also helped. Even if the article on Feng Shui of the cup holder didn’t come out quite as I intended. In my mind, I was laughing. I don’t think the humour translated very well at all.

Almost a week ago I wrote a piece on birds, I really enjoyed writing that. I should also have done more research on the Jelly Fish, and will do so. I’ve started walking past them every morning to see how they are doing. This morning, they were all clumped together on the south western side. Some of them are very small, others are around three to four inches. I’m going to keep an eye on them.

I think the important thing is to keep writing, and I am going to. Even if it is waffle.

We have this cup holder. It’s been causing me problems. Why is that? You might unreasonably ask. Well, our cups tend to come in pairs. There are three hooks at each level. It just doesn’t work. I had thoughts of keeping any pairs off the stand. That doesn’t work, you pretty much always end up with at least one pair.

The problem I have here is That the randomness of the mugs jars my sensibilities. I have to come up with a strategy for resolving this. So I though OK, if I put one random mug on a hook, that leaves eight for four pairs. Then the odd one is very discordant.

Then, last night, I thought I had discovered the solution; Three pairs, two cup to a level, and the third slot on each level is occupied by a random cup;

The trouble is I can’t really show you the 3D view around the rack to show you the pairs. I did try doing a panorama and walking around the rack, but that didn’t work (I think it was probably my approach – I’ll have to try the technique again, but not necessarily on the cup rack. Of course my wife doesn’t understand my obsession with this and thinks I’m bonkers. I don’t really mind that at all. I’m still not satisfied with the Feng Shui of the mug rack. I suspect I never will be.

I think that writing for a blog can be a bit like catching a bus. You stand there for hours and nothing comes along. Then, out of the blue two of them turn up (I know, the traditional saying is three, but two fits my story better). Last night, I tried writing a blog and nothing came along so I ended up writing waffle. Tonight, there are two posts bubbling in my head. One of them is going to have to wait until tomorrow.

Do you find that when you are out and about and want to take a photograph, people will act in a number of ways? There is the couple who will politely wait until you have taken the picture, and for which you thank them for their patience, exchange smiles and then both go on your way. Then there is the second type who as they approach you clearly seeing that you wish to take a picture of something that will rival a David Bailey or Ansel Adams and they could not give a monkeys and pretty much right through you picture just as the magic moment passes and give you that look almost as though to say, it’s our space you are invading. Then there is the type coho area very similar to the second group, but who proceed to confront you of stealing something from them for daring to take a picture with them in it.

I have written in the past about my interest in street photography, which by it’s very nature I expect to involve people. This isn’t really about street photography, this is about having people in your pictures.

I’m not going to talk (much) about the second and third groups, and a bit on the first, those who politely wait for you.

Not long ago (on the order of a couple of months) I read, and it makes perfect sense to me, not to worry if you have people in your pictures, they can add both human interest and scale.

Of course with me being out between 0600-0700 for the most part, this means that there are relatively few, if any, people about to include in my pictures. I find that like street photography, I want to include people in my pictures. But this needs to either be for scale, or for a reason (does it?). I think I am trying to work this out. I have taken a couple of pictures with people in, mostly walking away from me, here’s an example;

It doesn’t mean anything does it? It’s just a person walking away room me down the street. There is no story here. How about this;

Now here are people disembarking From the Gosport ferry, and somebody either waiting for a passenger, or waiting to board. A bit of a story here, for effectively a random group of people. More interesting? Possibly.

As you can imagine, not having a steady supply of people to hand is a bit frustrating. Perhaps I should go out more at the weekend?

OK, so I messed up. I started drafting last night’s article and then got distracted, so I ended up not posting the article. For the first time in 250 nights, I didn’t post. I am so angry with myself.

Anyhow, I took this picture this morning. I thought it would be interesting to look in to what this is. It’s a Moon Jellyfish. You can tell this from moon shaped patterns at the top of the body. It turns out that this is the “Medusa” phase. The little girl beasties will be producing eggs like nobodies business, and the boy beasties will doing their stuff to make sure that the baby jelly fish which at the moment will be little more than larvae burrowing into the bottom of the Cockle Pond, and then in about 6 months they pass away, but the cycle starts again. Apparently they live longer if they are in captivity. This is due to a cleaner environment and less stress.

I quite like this picture, the colouring and the water. It’s nice to see the waterfront when it’s like this. It was a fresh morning, but it was beautiful morning.

So, here’s the thing. Having messed up last night (and forgive being a bleating bleeding heart) my brain has gone in to lockdown, and is refusing to give me sensible words to write. Writers block. Yup, I have it! And so I am deploying my strategy for dealing with it and that is to write about the fact that I have writers block.

Having only just a week ago reach a milestone of two thirds of the way through the 366 project, I do not want to give up now. So, unless I have something to seriously distract me I am. Back on the weekly cycle. Tonight’s post should have been about the waterfront. So, here’s what happens most mornings; I usually arrive at the waterfront not far off 0610. This means that the #Breakfastclub, my Amateur Radio friends and I run every weekday morning is about 5 minutes away from starting. I take my radio off scanning mode, and make sure that it is tuned to my channel for GB3IW, the Isle of Wight Repeater. The Brittany Ferry completing the crossing from Ouistreham (Caen) to Portsmouth, this is more likely to be either the Normandie or the Mon St Michel although there are others at different times of the year, and also a new ferry that I haven’t seen yet, The Galicia I take a few pictures of them usually as they are coming in through the harbour entrance or as they are passing the spinnaker. You might think this is boring. Well, I know it’s a set subject but it’s the background, the weather that makes every picture different.

By now, the #Breakfastclub is well underway and when it gets to my go, my “over” I give a report on the weather conditions in Gosport. This is not a forecast you must understand. I do not forecast the weather. I start with what the tide is doing; up or down, when is low tide and high tide, how much of a slope there is of the ramp leading down to the loading pontoon for the Gosport Ferry, what the sea state is in the harbour (how big are the waves) – which is usually not very. I have a handheld anemmometer, apart from windspeed it gives me temperature (ambient, dew point and windchill) and atmospheric pressure in either HectoPascals, but I prefer millibars – the measure is the same 1mb = 1hpa and inches of mercury, and I then report on cloud state (in 8ths) and if misty or hazy, whether or not I can see Portsdown Hill.

I then move on to carry on with my walk, which is about three miles in length.

There was one particular story in this month’s issue (No. 251) Tish’s True north is a story of her life. It’s story of poverty and deprivation and the kids that were growing up in that life.

There was another story, Home Truths by Jesse Lenz writing about a carefree childhood in Ohio. This was the story I wrote about a bit last night I think it was. In this, the Ohio story , I wrote that I couldn’t associate the pictures with the story. True North is the complete opposite. The pictures so clearly make the story. Here are the pictures by Trish Martha.

http://www.tishmurtha.co.uk/photograph-gallery.html

And these are the photos by Jesse Lenz

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/jesse-lenz-the-locusts

I have been positively smug about posting daily and keeping that up for 250 days. Well I have been truly strung up by my own petard. I didn’t post last night. I can’t tell you how truly angry I am with myself and disappointed. There is nothing I can do to correct this, I can’t wind the clock back, and go back in time. So the only thing to do is accept that it happened, not let it happen again, and post again tonight. Tonight’s story will be about Jelly Fish!

I really should have gone for a walk today. Once again, the weather has been perfect. I confess we spent a lot of time in the garden. Once again, not gardening, just enjoying the setting, and of course the birds.

I had every intention of going out, and did go and get the papers. But as things stand, I’ve managed to do 4330 steps. Isn’t that just perfectly pathetic? I think so. Once again we have been delighted by the birds. The sparrows in particular have been delightful, having a problem making up their minds; bird table or ground? Bush or fence? Our garden or somebody elses’s (in this last case , mostly ours). The Goldfinch has been letting rip.

I had a zoom meeting this afternoon, which went well. Otherwise, it has mostly been a lazy day.

Definitely a European Goldfinch. We’ve spent a lot of time out in the garden today, not gardening, just enjoying being outside. The weather has been magnificent. I really should have gone for a walk, but we had things on, and I didn’t have time. Tomorrow.

When we first moved in to this house, we were disappointed by the complete absence of birds. Nothing, no one would come near us. Even when I bought a birdtable and put food out – in the winter, nobody came. Until last year. We are now at the stage where wherever we sit in the garden, the starlings will visit the other bird table. The Sparrows are voracious eaters, i have to top our feeders up most days. Today, the blackbird was about 6 feet away from me, it’s beak stuffed with worms and still making a mess of what we are trying to turn into our wild patch. It’s likely we will have to re-seed and put some netting over. Once it’s established, it can do what it wants.

The last few days we have seen the wagtails (I thought they were yellow, but it looks like they are Grey). They have both been with us through much of the winter. How we have laughed at their bobbing, worried when they don’t show up, and said with relief “The Wagtails are back.”

The Goldfinch in the picture has been with us for a couple of days now. I’m told it does come down for food. I’ve been watching it this afternoon. It would come from one direction, sit in the tree for five minutes or so, making an extremely loud but very musical racket, and then fly off pretty much at 90 degrees to it’s arrival path. A few minutes later it would be back again.

I must admit that I thought that it was announcing and defending it’s territory. But it appears that Goldfinches are not Territorial, which is, presumably why they were both content to sit in the tree, close to each other (at least, I think they are both males). They are welcome to come down, there’s plenty of food.

Last night on Facebook, I jokingly commented that watching the bird table is more entertaining than what’s on television. Actually, it’s watching the birds – the tables are incidental. i notice though, that they need topping up. They’ve certainly had their fill today, and we have definitely had the pleasure of their company. Quite simply beautiful.