Bills Posts

Yesterday, the 9th of April 2021, barely two months before his 100th birthday, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip ended his tour of duty on earth. Time to rest Sir, duty done.

The smoke in the picture is from one of the rounds of the 41 gun Solemn Death Salute. I was at the waterfront.

I arrived at the waterfront about 4 minutes before the salute started. Fortunately, there weren’t very many people where I was. I had wanted to go up to the Falklands Gardens, but there was a large crowd there (as there was on the other side of the water, Spice Island. I really don’t want to be in large crowds at the moment.

I’ve been able this week to reach my Walk1000 target yesterday, so any distance walked today and tomorrow are a bonus. I did my normal route, with about a 1 mile diversion added on. I took my main camera out with me. But I’ve yet to look at the pictures I’ve taken. It was a very pleasant walk, taken a little bit early for a Saturday as rain was threatening. As it happened , the rain when it did arrive, was very light. Apart from the solemnity of the time, it was a very pleasant walk.

It wasn’t that last night was the worst. I haven’t really had a worst. Towards the beginning of this exercise, I was concerned about writers block, But to me the immediate answer was; if I have it, write about it. That works.

Last night was just a rush, I had almost but not quite forgotten to do the post, it was my bed time, I was tired and I realised that I hadn’t done the post. There was no way I was not going to do something – I’m not going to not do a post after a 239 day run. There’s another big way point only a few days away. I’ve been waiting for it, and I’m not going to miss it. The next big point will be The One – it’s what happens after that I need to start thinking about.

At the moment, the blog has a purpose, well it has two; for me to write, and for me to reach 366/366, what do I do? 367/366, 01/365 or just drop the numbering and keep writing, the writing becomes the purpose. In reality, that is what I am aiming for. But the writing has to have a purpose. Now, I’m going to start looking at a wider range of blogs, one I particularly like is the Dorset Rambler;

https://thedorsetrambler.com/

The author of the blog has an eye for the picture, and a pen for the word. In Dorset, he has one of the most photogenic areas of the country, and he can write. Now, the flaw with this argument is that do I really think that Gosport doesn’t have a “photogeny” (is that a word – but hopefully, you know what I mean) on a par with Dorset? do I heck!

I just need to find it is all. And the words of course.

I nearly didn’t do tonight’s post. A Thursday night is a busy evening for me. As a licensed radio amateur, I run the Isle Of Wight Radio Society Thursday Night Net, then I go on to Zoom for a bit of a follow up chat. Both are really nice, and I very much enjoy them. I try to get my Project 365 post and this post done before I start the net. Tonight though, I go distracted and I was just about to go and get ready for bed when I realised I hadn’t done my post. Well, I can’t let happen especially as there is another important goal coming up in a few days time.

Tonight’s topic is writing. Except, I can’t think of much to say about it. It is not so long ago that we finished our 5 o’clock run of Downton Abbey, and I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to watch it again, so when I’ve had the chance I’ve been binging it. So I finished the second run this evening, well everything except the film that is. The last time we watched it as it was included with the streaming service, I think it was Now TV, but it’s not there now, so I may have to rent it off Amazon, which is a bit frustrating. Now I have to find something else. I need to go and have a look at my YouTube subscriptions as I haven’t watched any of those for a while, so the backlog of them is starting to build up.

I’m sorry this is a bit of a rushed post tonight. I definitely have problems with writing if pushed to do so, even if this last two paragraphs flowed quite easily.

It was a rough night. I awoke at around 0300, had trouble getting back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a cat being sick. That was it then, couldn’t get back to sleep. I was in two minds whether or not to go for my morning walk. But, as usual I’m glad I did. It was cold, a very clear sky, so it was lovely to be out.

Every morning I top up the bird tables (two of them) with a mountain of food and make sure that the feeders are topped up, then it’s back in with a sneaky eye on the bird tables to see who turns up first. Over the course of a week it’s a toss up between the starlings and the pigeons. I must admit, I would prefer to re-position the bird feeders two of them are hanging off a tree and the other two are really up against the fence. The sparrows do use them, but I get the impression that they would be happier if they were all hanging off a 4-way feeder out in the open.

The wagtails are back. I was concerned when we put the garden furniture out that we had frightened them away. They have changed slightly, they prefer down the bottom of the garden, but I was watching them this morning, and they were particularly bouncy. I interpret that as them being happy, but of course I don’t really know.

By the end of the day, the mountain of food has gone, but there is always residual, so the birds don’t starve. I’ve just been watching a pair of magpies. They have a bad reputation, but they are a lovely looking bird, and it is nature, so I don’t mind. I am so pleased to see the sparrows using the bird feeders. They really are a delight to watch. If I could do things right, I would get another camera to watch the feeders. The first one, aimed at the table is a delight.

I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of the butterflies they are about, but not very common at the moment. Hopefully, the wild patch will develop and cause more of them to appear.

The Moon, even though a very waning crescent, was quite prominent this morning. I took this picture of one of the Wight Link Ferries as it was departing toward Fishbourne. I quite like the picture, in my eyes there was a kind of serenity to it.

It was a quite relaxing walk, I was even able to take a five minute break to have a chat with one of the people I see at the waterfront, there was no rush. It was a cold one. Luckily I had my balaclava with me. I needed to pull it up over my ears for the back leg of the walk.

One thing I noticed on my walk along the high street was a lack of rough sleepers. I wonder where they had gone. I hope they were somewhere comfortable. The street was even more quiet than normal, I guess that’s because it’s Easter Week, lots of people off for school holidays.

I was thinking about which is the most boring part of the walk. It’’s a toss up between the stretch along Mumby Road to Clarence Road. Nothing much exciting happening there, although not far, a matter of a few yards off to each side are this of major historic interest; Queen Victoria’s railway down to Clarence yard, punching as it does a hole through what were Gosport’s defences. Large chunks of which are no longer there, but of what does a remain is being repaired and refurbished and should be very interesting when opened.

On the other side of Mumby Road is St Georges Barracks. Whilst I haven’t been inside they have been converted in to what looks like some very tasteful flats. I didn’t know that they had been built in a way, with extra buttressing so that they could be covered in earth as additional protection.

So, you see, even the most boing part of the walk isn’t; at all.

Another picture from yesterdays walk. This is the far end of Workhouse Lake. I think what would have been the workhouse would be over my right shoulder behind me. I can’t really write with any confidence about workhouses, but I have a perception (which I think is a reasonable one) that they would not have been very nice places.

Here’s a link to aa site about the workhouse;http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Alverstoke/. I’m just grateful that we don’t have these institutions these days. But how were they viewed back then? And, was there a way out, once in? Perhaps this is potential Vlog? I have to do a bit of research about them.

I knew that the workhouse but I hadn’t clicked that the piece of water in front of it gave an indication of what had been there. This leads me to wonder if there are other street or place names that give an indication of former activities. I want to find an index of place names for the area and have a quick scan through it.

A good part of this evenings amble of writing is going to be more about writing that walking. Over the last week I’ve talked about a couple of pieces of writing that have impressed me.

I’ve been thinking about why the writings impressed me. I believe that part of it is down to passion. The two writings are really quite passionate, intense. It’s that which I think contributes to the success of the pieces (for me).

what I didn’t want to do was create a Ratner moment but, I have to be honest and take a critical look at my writing. I think that apart from the odd occasion when I get really excited about something, definitely my writing lacks passion. It is a report of something happening with nothing added, no excitement. just a straight recital of an activity without passion.

How can I change this? Do I need to change, to introduce passion in to my writing? How do I even do that? For the most part, I am not a passionate person (well, that’s what I think, others may disagree).

I went out for a walk today, just over 3 1/2 miles. That kept me on schedule for the Walk1000 thing, so that’s OK. The walk took me down to the Iron Bridge over the Alverstoke Lake. The sun was out, and lovely, but there was a distinct chill in the air. I was worried that a fleece rather than a jacket might not be enough, but it was fine.

I stayed in the sun, it was too chilly to be in the shade. The birds were in full voice, it was lovely to hear, it was a pity though that there was so much human noise, mainly traffic. There were quite a few people about, but I had no problems with them from a distance point of view. The return leg of this part of the walk took me over Workhouse Lake, heading up towards Asda, and then down to the waterfront. I paused at the bridge over work house lake to take a picture of these houses;

I always think this is a Strange place for houses like this, they look very Scandinavian to me. But I like them. From here I walked along Mayfield Road, turning left to head past Asda’s on to South Street walking past the Cockle Ponds, it’s always nice to see those. I haven’t seen the model boat club out sailing their radio controlled yachts for a while. I take a slight turn to the right, walking down the street with no name towards Trinity Church. I always enjoy having a look around here, there are usually quite a lot of squirrels, but none seen today.

I went through the Milenium time piece to end up on the Promenade. That was also quite busy, not surprising really, it is a very popular place for stroll when the weather is nice (some of us like it when the weather is bad). Not much going on in the harbour, just a few small private boats. From here it was a straightforward walk up Mumby Road towards home. It was quite a pleasant walk. But, not much passion. I really will have to work on that. Litter & dog poo (actually not much of that, Gosport appears to be pretty good in that area, then you get an idiot who picks it up properly, but then drops the bag – on the pavement, nowhere near a bin! What were they thinking? I might make a comment about not thinking. Would that be inappropriate?

The Birds of Paradise being held in our conservatory over winter are blooming like nobody’s business. This is one of about five that are breaking out. They really do look quite lovely.

We had our first BBQ today. With the easing of the lockdown, it meant that we were able to see some members of our family face to face (even if six feet away) for the first time in several months (several = four in this case) how ridiculous to be “forcibly” separated for a third of the year. On the other hand, I entirely understand and agree with the reasoning behind the enforced separation. We haven’t encountered anything like this for the best part of a century. In many ways it is a different world now to how it was then. I was just pleased to be able to see them.

Having not been used for quite a while, the BBQ needed a good clean. That went well. The food was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.

The birds were pretty annoyed. They were very reluctant to approach the bird table whilst we were out in the garden for most of the afternoon. I have a camera set up so that I can watch the bird table from my desk. What I can see is that the mountain of food that was there has now gone. I guess as soon as the guests went home, and we went in, the birds descended en-masse.

The last few days have been quite glorious from a weather point of view. We spent a fair of time in the garden. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Mind you, the birds weren’t to impressed. I detected their frustration. We have two cats. One of them was sat under the bird table as we were sat having a break. I was watching the starlings – they were particularly annoyed. A wing of three of them swooped in a very tight group under the table, buzzing her. I think as humans, we are very proud of our technology and abilities, whenever I watch starlings in flight, I am reminded of Jet fighters, not that I am impressed with our technology, it’s the capability of the birds that impresses me. They really are a joy to watch. Even the pigeons which I always equate with the C130 Hercules nick named “The Fat Albert” they are a large grey apparently ungainly birds, but quite graceful in flight.

On a Friday, we often have Fish & Chips down at the waterfront. Like a lot of people if we have any chips left we give them to the birds. They squabble over them. I hate to think of that as entertainment, but I love watching their behaviour.

What I would really like is for them, the starlings especially, to not be afraid to visit the bird table whilst we are in the garden. I don’t think we are far from that. I was cleaning the BBQ in preparation for our first one of the year tomorrow, turned around and there were three of them on the fence eyeing up the table, one of them did hop down briefly. But flew away as soon as I twitched. It is at the start of the nice weather, hopefully as the spring and summer progress, they will hopefully get used to us.

I’ve also started looking for butterflies. Haven’t seen one yet, but I’m sure I will do before long. Exciting times.

I’ve never been a lover of hot weather. It’s only in the last few years when I’ve lost a little bit of weight, I noticed on one of recent holidays that the heat wasn’t causing me as many problems as it had done in the past, which I do acknowledge was nice. Mind you, I still try to avoid the sun if I can.

Last year especially, there were a few things going on, one of which was the Big Butterfly Count. I am going to have a look for that. But I’ve just found the Garden Butterfly Survey for 2021. I’ll sign up for that, but the BBC has an excellent app, which I really enjoyed using.

I see that the butterflies are due to come out around about now, so I shall be looking out for them. You might notice, I’m quite excited about it. It was really lovely to find a different butterfly and add it to the list.

Just an absolute delight. Looking forward to it.