Bills Posts

I really should have gone for a walk today. I’ve been following a slightly different pattern during the week. Instead of going for a walk at 6AM, I’ve been going to work, clocking off at around 8 and back to work for 9. I find it easier to get up and go to the office than go for a walk at that time.

Going for a walk at 8 has been different. Of course, it is a different group of people that you see, fewer dog walkers people rushing to work. I haven’t worked out yet who are regular ramblers.

Just over 8 weeks now until the 16th of December. Elayne r has a bit of a Cafe Culture, I think I will as well in addition to the things we will do together. One thing I am going to practice is a bit of people watching – should be fun.

I’ve never been to an event like this before. But, I’ve seen TED talks on YouTube. But those were huge events, in a vast arena, and tickets can cost thousands (reflected in the types of speaker (US Presidents, former that is, for example).

The thing about TEDx is that it is locally organised and funded. Tickets are much cheaper, and as was the case with all 14 of our speakers today, locally based. But in some cases, famous, a lady who had sailed around the world, and another who had swam around The Isle of Wight.

Not every speaker was famous, there was the dog walker who spoke of the social community between walkers. I spoke to him after, I could absolutely relate to what he was talking about, even though I’m not a dog owner.

All 14 speakers were really interesting to listen to. IT was interesting to be told that there had been 109 applicants to speak, 37 people had been auditioned, leading to the 14 final speakers, who had been worked with for 6 months, and it showed in the professionalism of the presentations.

It was a really enjoyable day, and I think there are plans for another, next year. Definitely up for that.

Thursday will be an interesting day. I’ve taken a days leave because it’s the first Gosport TEDx Event, and I have a ticket.

I first heard of TED talks several years ago, but it is only in the last couple of years that I learned the TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, but in reality, the range of TED talks is massive and I think most, if not all are available on line.

My interest in TED talks increased significantly when I read Chris Anderson’s book about public speaking and to be quite honest reading from a sceptical position, it really didn’t take me long to become a total convert to TED Talks, and have very much wanted to go to a TED session. When I found out about TEDx from the book, I googled to find out where they were being held in the UK, only to find that one was being arranged for Gosport.

So, here we are. I’ll let you know how we get on tomorrow.

I think the title of the post pretty much sums it up[ really. Of course a large chunk of the day was taken up with work. I won’t write about that. I watched a bit of TV. I didn’t go to the camera club, I just sat downstairs and watched TV.

I’m a bit annoyed with myself, I could have gone on the Bramble net. I didn’t even think of it until just now. Never done that one before, so would have been good.

I could have gone for a walk this morning, but didn’t. No particular reason other than my heel and Achilles tendon were a bit tender, and I didn’t want to aggravate them.

I’ll try again tomorrow

For some reason, I seem to be determined to build a relationship between this blog, and my facebook posts. I don’t really know why, and in doing so, I appear to be making a rod for my own back. I see no reason why the two can’t be entirely independent. After all, they do serve different purposes.

I think my facebook posts are usually light hearted and a bit more personal that the blog. I can after all, exercise a degree of control over who sees them, which is exactly not the case here, but that also means that here, I can write about some of my more peculiar ideas – such as the desire to vlog, interest in earth mysteries and the like.

I think that things will change when I retire, I have some thoughts about things that I want to do. Of course, reality will intrude, but let’s see how things work out.

I managed to do posts to FB over the weekend, quite pleased with that. They were a bit diary-like, as I hadn’t gone in to town. But that was OK. I’m going to see if I can keep it going, doing the posts in the afternoon certainly helps, but I still think I would prefer to do them straight after the morning walk – provided I have time of course.

We had a delightful Fox encounter today, I’m not going to reproduce his antics here. But it was clearly enjoying our garden and seemed quite relaxed. I died comment that the fox seemed quite healthy, which was nice, but I know that they can suffer badly from mange, I know our neighbour feeds the fox – I’m assuming that it’s this one as I think they are quite territorial. I may look into seeing if there is a powder or something that can be mixed with the food to stop the mange – should it appear.

The birds are ignoring the food on the table and in the hangers again. I’m hoping that they will pick up on it again, as I think we are moving into that time when natural food isn’t quite as abundant.

Looking ahead, I’ve bought a new shoulder bag. It’s a bit bigger than the NASA bag, but I don’t want it to get too heavy. I am playing with ideas.

The week ahead promises to be interesting what with updates on the high street and the bus station, but Thursday in particular will be a focus – it’s the day of Gosport’s TEDx event, I have a ticket and a day off booked. Really looking forward to it.

I am not used to doing regular weekend posts on Facebook, which is why I feel that today’s felt a little bit “forced” or artificial. I do hope that it didn’t come across like that.

Weekends can go in several directions, frantic or lazy. I confess, I tend to prefer the latter. I find it almost difficult to believe that I will finish work in just under 10 weeks now. I’m sure that I will very quickly find things to do (even if that doesn’t involve volunteering, I think I will have things to do.

I have previously written that it can take 21 days to form a habit, I have pretty much got the habit of doing posts here, I very much want to do the Facebook thing. Don’t ask me why, I just enjoy doing it, and when I don’t I am continually humbled by friends who tell me that they miss my posts.

I am going to try and do this.

I’m having a bit of a mind block. I wrote a reasonable post on Facebook this evening. What I want to do now is write a complementary post here. I’m not going to just repeat the post, but I just can’t think of a link that is robust enough to lead to a full article.

My route included the Cockle Ponds, they were very calm this morning, I could have done another reflection picture, but I’ve already put one of those into a competition. I could have gone out along the Haslar Marina Pier Wall, but there was little point, as nothing big was moving in or out of the harbour.

The next obvious thing to focus on is the bus station. I’ve written a fair bit about the progress of the demolition,, and included two video clips, if I go into the planning application in a bit more depth I might be able to work out what comes next.

I’ve managed to get up for two walks this week. I’m hoping to get up for a walk in the morning, it will be another one of the “late” walks.

It’ll be interesting to see how the bus station is progressing. None of the other projects that have planning permission have started.

We’ve had a busy couple of days, so ready for bed now.

Things seem to be on hold at the moment. I am walking, but not every day. I should really have gone this morning, and I had every intention, but it just didn’t happen.

I’ve stopped thinking about vlogging, this bit of writing and the occasional facebook post are pretty much it. It’s like I am just waiting for retirement to happen and then we will see how things go.

We have iPhones which are approaching end of support not there yet, at least a year to go, but we are thinking of upgrading, we can at least get something back on trade in. When I heard how much the top of the range iphone 17 was going to cost, I was put off, and seriously considered the 16, but having looked at it in a bit more depth, I think we can do it – we really don’t need the 1TB version (the most expensive). The low end has twice the storage of my 12, and I have only just worked out how to free up enough memory to do the latest update (Sorry Meg, it has taken me a while to get there, I will call you).

I was looking at the demolition work. Whilst most of the bus station infrastructure has gone, and will probably all have gone by the end of the week, the huge pile of rubble needs to be ground up ready for re-use (as detailed in the planning application) there is also the pan which is quite big, and probably a couple of feet thick. So there’s still a lot to do to clear the area, and then we are into the rebuild.