Bills Posts

A couple of years ago, I happened to pick up a walking magazine in the News Agents; Country Walking

https://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/country-walking-magazine

It was probably about this time of year when they were starting to talk about their annual challenge of walking 1000 miles. To walk 1000 miles in a year, you have to walk an average of 2.79 miles per day, every day – all 365 of them.

Obviously, you could walk one mile one day, and 6 miles another. It has to average out. The challenge starts on the 1st of January each year. I registered for the challenge and I am prepared to admit that I found the prospect of the challenge quite daunting. But by the end of January, I had clocked up over 90 miles, as a normal part of my routine. I knew that although a shorter month if February worked out to a similar amount that provided I stuck with it, I would be able to do it. Naturally, Holiday intruded, But, even then we did a fair bit of walking, so when I got back to the UK, I caught up the deficit fairly quickly.

As it happens, I reached 1000 around the end of October, meaning that over the year I did not far short of 1200 miles. I was, to put it mildly, as chuffed as anything.

Naturally, I signed up for this years challenge, but I knew that I would have problems when the lockdown was looming, and my family were saying that they didn’t want me to go out at all. After about 5 weeks of walking barely any distance at all, I knew that it would be pretty much impossible for me to complete this years challenge. I know that there are people that have completed the challenge notwithstanding the lockdowns, and the other problems, very good luck to them, and well done.

I hope that it goes without saying that I will be signing up for the challenge in 2021.

Image by Tim Hill from Pixabay

Several years ago, we holidayed in France. Although we had been to Paris a couple of times, this was our first proper holiday in “Rural” France. We caught the ferry over Ouistreheim, Caenand were booked in a hotel there. With the intention of exploring the Normandy coast for a while.

As we drove along what was a beautiful countryside, I knew that we could have no concept of the violence that had been visited upon the people.

As we were driving along, and we visited places like Arromanches-les-Bains, to see the remains of the Mulberry Harbour, which had very likely been built here in Gosport, the gun emplacement at Longues-sur-Mer and then on to Omaha Beach, where we visited the American war cemetery. As we walked amongst the graves, looking at the names of people, men, sons, husbands, lovers who had given their lives, how could you not just gently touch the occasional gravestone and say thank you? How could you not do that and have a tear in your eye? I know I did.

We visited the British cemetery at Bayeux, the restrained dignity of the site, much smaller than the US site, but one of many, no less significant. Once again I said thank you for your sacrifice, so that we could could live the life we have.

For most of us, we have been incredibly lucky to live in what has been for the most part peaceful times. We must remember the sacrifices, and the people who sacrificed for us.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

I went for a walk into town this morning. I did have to go into a couple of shops, but the main thing was to get out. It was worth it, Being a lovely bright day. Slightly on the chilly side. But it was a real pleasure to get out.

I was quite surprised that the the high street was quite busy. There were even a few market stalls out, mainly the ones selling food. People were being quite sensible, there were masks everywhere, people were making efforts not to get too close. It was definitely a case of people just wishing to be out to enjoy the day.

That was no more self evident than along the waterfront, on the Gosport Promenade, just about every seat was taken by one or two people, who were just enjoying watching the water. No particular ship activity whilst I was there, but that was OK.

It’s always a bit strange to be at the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall during normal daylight. I’m normally there about half past 6 in the morning. It was though, very pleasant.

There’s a frustration when I arrive at the waterfront, and I find the conditions as they are in the picture. The cloud line is low, so there really isn’t that much drama.

Even as the sun rises, there almost isn’t enough cloud to add much to the drama. Not only that, but as the sunrise is getting later, if the sky does become really good, I will be well on the way home as I don’t stay at the waterfront for that long.

And of course, when I was at the far end of the high street, I looked back, the cloud had broken up a little, and was showing a lovely stippled effect, which I was too far away to get. Oh Well.

Notwithstanding the frustration, it was a very nice walk.

Two for the price of one today. I couldn’t make up my mind which one to use. There’s something about the Gosport ferry, and the blue seats bottom right which appeals to me.

For the 2nd day, I arrived at the waterfront whilst a ferry was on it’s way in. The Mon St Michell was inbound. It was lovely to see her come in.

It was another cold morning, between 2 – 4C, but the pressure was surprisingly high at about 1039 Hpa / millibars. But it was a beautiful clear morning, the sky was brightening and the camera was showing some lovely colours.

Sometimes I have a bit of a problem getting up for the walk. I had no problems this morning. Sometimes I almost can’t wait to get up and go. It was a bit like that this morning.

These days, this is a comparatively rare experience. To see one of the Brittany Ferries coming in to Portsmouth Harbour. This morning I was lucky enough to arrive at the waterfront whilst the Armorique was in the “Bar Channel” I’m not sure why it is called that. There are a number of bouys marked with sequential numbers. They mark the channel.

I was awakened by the sound of one of our cats heaving, as it happens it was just at the right time. After throwing him out the door I got ready to go out. It was cold, only just above freezing, 3-4C , apparently it’s going to be colder tomorrow. I didn’t mind the cold, especially when the light was like it was this morning. That lovely gentle glow that develops as the sun rises.

I hadn’t clicked that I had started blogging on the 27th of September last year. So I have now been blogging for more than a year. I’ve just gone back to the beginning. My very first post really wasn’t up to much. Am I any better now? Perhaps a little more confident. Having looked back at my first post, I hadn’t noticed the example post provided by wordpress (perhaps I had seen but forgotten it?). Anyhow, it asked four questions about why you blog. I thought, given where I am, I should have a look at them.

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal? That’s probably the most difficult question to answer. Obviously, I want to write or I wouldn’t be doing this. Why do I want it to be public? Do I have a secret desire to be famous? Don’t we all to a degree? If you were about during the 60’s and 70’s you’ll hopefully remember two people; Jack Hargreaves, famous (to me) for the programme Out of Town, I used to love that. The other person is Magnus Pyke, from How. It was his characteristics waving his arms about and the like. I think I’d like to be known for having a blog that just reflects life. Definitely not selling anything.
• What topics do you think you’ll write about? If you read anything about blogs, they stress that you have to deliver a message, or selling something, but importantly you can’t write about what you want to write about you have to write what the readers want to read. I’m not there. I want to write about what I want to write about, to be blunt you have the choice of reading it or not. That is absolutely not the way to accumulate a large number of readers. I’m not there yet. The question is what topics, my response is “stuff.”
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog? Simple answer anybody. I’m hoping that what I write entertains and interests you. Just how good am I at doing that? Not very at the moment. Working on that.
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished? This kind of ties in to what I’m doing at the moment. To improve the quality of my writing, to hopefully have identified a message, to have readers, to be writing interesting stuff.

The picture? It’s a model yacht on the cockle ponds in Gosport. Now, there’s another thing that interests me. It seems to be a very relaxing activity.

Yesterday weather was wind & rain. It was a typical autumn day. Made darker by the heavy clouds. I felt like going for a walk. I didn’t though. Not sure why. It kind of felt like a busy day.

Let’s not talk about that tonight, instead lets talk about the seasons in general. My least favourite season is the summer. It’s too hot. I tend to not have another lesser favourite, I think I like Autumn Winter & spring pretty much the same. I love the wet & windy days. Sometimes it’s really nice to go for a walk in the bad weather.

Winter is slightly contradictory; The coldness of winter is lovely for wrapping up warm and going out for a stroll. I must admit, I’m not overly fond of the ice and the snow when we get it, providing that we don’t have to go out in it of course. The coldness I don’t mind, the ice I do.

Then there’s spring; well it’s just lovely isn’t it, those cold bright frosty mornings, just right for a nice walk. There’s a brightness and a freshness about the season, which really justifies the expression, the joys of spring. Still, we have a way to go before we get there.

This year, astronomical winter begins on 21 Dec, and ends 20 March. Appreciate the seasons.

We had to pop over to Hill Head, near Lee-on-the-Solent, we ended up on the waterfront next to Titchfield Haven, a local nature reserve.

The weather was extremely autumnal, rain, wind, kind of not that cold, but the rain was fine highly penetrating drizzle that makes it really uncomfortable. Well, whilst there is only one kite in the picture there really were a lot of them, I reckon a dozen or more. I can only guess that the water & weather conditions were very good for them, because I wouldn’t want to be out in this – I was quite happy sat in the car.

I was lucky with this picture, the kite is reasonably sharp. They were moving so fast that you just had to fire and hope that you caught something.. I wonder what you get from the picture, any feeling of cold and wind?

We were busy tonight. I didn’t think I would get a chance to do my. Blog or the 365 project.

As time marched on and the evening got later, there was no guarantee that I would be able to post tonight. At one point I was asking myself how I felt about that.

Extreem dissappointmet of course, I would be letting myself down, and whatever readers I may have of course. A little bit of stress. They say that to form a habit you have to repeat something at least 21 times. We are well beyond that now, It becomes something that you have to do, Of course, the danger there is that the habit becomes less enjoyable. I’m pretty sure I am not in that scenario. I want to do this, I really do. So I am glad that I appear to have a habit that I enjoy doing, and desire to do it is driving me to avoid not doing it.

I hope that all makes sense, it looks reasonable to me.