Bills Posts

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.

The Scarlet Lady, the aptly named Virgin Cruise Ship is not a small vessel. It looks like the tug is about to get run over. But when you see them in action you begin to appreciate not only the power of these little vessels, but the consummate mastery with which they are captained. It was stationary, The Scarlet Lady was heading right for it, and the tug just started scooting backwards, the power and agility of these little craft make watching them at work an absolute delight.

RThings like this are one of the aspects of my morning walk that I enjoy most. It’s like that job where you never know what is going to happen from one day to the next. Yesterday, one of the Marella cruise ships, Explorer 2 was in. I didn’t see her arrive, but hopefully I will do at some point when she returns. She’s not as big as the discoverer ship we went to Iceland and the Fjords aboard, but still nice looking.

On a side comment, I was travelling back over Portchester hill this evening. I had to stop to have a look at The Scarlet Lady in port, all lit up. For the most part, Portsmouth is not a high rise city, and even from that distance you could see how the ship was dwarfing that part of the city she was near.

Whilst the rest of the walk was routine, I had a problem with my radio, both batteries failed. I must admit, I new the second battery would be low, but it failed quicker than I thought it would. For some reason Echolink wouldn’t let me connect. But, it was an enjoyable walk nonetheless.

I have registered with our local council to be notified when anything is added to the Gosport Borough Council website in respect of committee meetings. Last night I saw that a meeting of the Community Board has been scheduled for 08 Sep. It gives the paperwork for the meeting, including the briefing pack. I had a skim read through. I noticed an item relating to the Cockle Ponds. This is where the picture comes in to play. I read that the intention is to remove the concrete barrier between the two ponds, and replace it with a boardwalk.

The rationale for doing is that the water in the North (the smaller) pond is refreshed as much as the larger, south pond. Replacing the barrier with a board walk will make North Pond healthier. I get the logic of it, it’s just that I am always wary of change.

After a few days away, it has been really nice to go out for a walk this morning. It is quite surprising as the nights are lengthening, and we are heading for the Autumnal equinox to notice how quickly it is happening. Soon I will need to be taking my tripod with me instead of the monopod. Although the tripod is heavier, it’s quite nice to use.

Whilst I enjoyed the break, it was very nice to get back and get out.

We bought an electric vehicle. I think anybody who reads this is well aware of that now. As we started using it I became very aware of its limitations. When Fully Charged the display shows 180 miles. Of course, that doesn’t mean you get that distance. It all depends on how the car is driven. For example, we drove down the A3 this afternoon. I did not exceed the speed limit, but I kept as close to it as possible. I used RHS Wisely as a marker to home, gives a distance of 57 miles. To cover that I used 84 miles of energy. I was not driving economically.

In contrast to that, when we were northbound we joined the M25 at Junction 10, and using Heathrow Terminal 5 as a measure, a distance of roughly 14 miles. We joined the M25 showing 135 miles on the clock. We passed the M4 Junction still showing 135 miles. We discovered that EV’s absolutely love traffic jams. At one point in the slow moving traffic, our distance reading went from 135 to 136 miles. It actually went up. We both laughed, we had been watching it.

The return trip went as smoothly, we had a good (non-traffic-jam) run southward. We reached a recharging point that we had used before. We took the car up to 90%, so I was able to deliberately test it’s capability.

When we arrive at our destination, the ability to recharge via a 3 pin plug means that provided we have time (and overnight, or a long daytime stay is perfect) we have no problems.

The absolutely key, most fundamental aspect to this is;

• Don’t risk the distance – keep a good margin of safety.
• Plan.
• Plan
• Plan

If you do this, there is no need to worry or be anxious. Also doubly important is know your car. We have now done the three long journeys that we might normally expect to take. Provided you do it properly, you can sit back and enjoy the car.

I had the opportunity to visit three good book shops today. I went on a really good browse with no sense of frustration, I think it’s because I was looking for something different to the self help area that I normally end up in. I think that’s a lesson I need to take from this, to stay away from this area. I’m not going to find what I’m looking for, so why bother?

I am both surprised, and not at the amount of information that is available from history. I am curious about the nature of the records, how they were made; when and why and by whom. They are there, and they are used.

I saw a book of a radio programmed they listened to; Alistair Cooke’s Letters From America. I was very tempted to buy the book, but I decided to wait until I had found out whether an audio version of the book exists. There must be many issues of the letter that I’ve not heard. It must have been going for years before I found the radio programme. Seems like there are. I feel an audio book coming on.

The 2022 edition of the Writers & Artists Year Book is out. I’ve bought about three versions of this book over time, and have done very little with them. Once again, I had a browse through it, found some interesting stuff, in particular an area of publications that I have been looking at recently. It seems that this years edition has quite a large section on the subject, So, once gain it is in my shopping basket.

There were also a couple of books that I’m not yet prepared to talk about, So, I’ll leave them until a later date. It was a real pleasure to spend a good bit of time in there, for the first time in a long time.

This is NOT Rowner Church, this is Trinity Church in the main part of Gosport. I don’t have any pictures of Rowners’ St Mary’s the Virgin – Yet! They come next.

This coming weekend, if I have time, I am intending to visit Rowner’s St Mary’s (as opposed to the Alverstoke church of almost the same name). I am going to take some pictures there, and I am going to see if I can get inside the church for a look around. I think I may also ask if it is OK to video inside. Respectfully of course.

The first visit is to set the frame of reference, I want to try and do at least a semi-reasonable job. That means stable shots on a tripod, things like establishing shots, long short, close-up pictures etc.

I’ve never even visited the church before, so how can write with any confidence about producing a vlog on the matter? This all goes back to my previous posts about doing some decedent research. I have done a couple of practice runs, and I have not been happy with my presentation, this is why I am not rushing in to this.