Bills Posts

The triangle of lights going off to the right hand side is the ramp that leads to the Gosport Ferry Terminal. Looking at the picture, the ramp is pretty much level. This tells you that the tide is in. It wasn’t quite at it’s height at the time I took picture (0633), high tide would have been about 0800 ish. I know this because I have an app that tells me.

Now, that sparks a thought in me. My iPad and iPhone are loaded with apps, many of them I have downloaded and probably used only once and am not likely to use again. So, I might just keep a track of which apps I use and delete the ones that I don’t. The trouble is I look at an app and think to myself “Oooh, that looks useful” and I can’t quite bring myself to remove them. I’ll just have to be more rigorous.

Back then to the Promenade. It’s not too long, probably a third to a half of a mile in total. Regardless of the weather, it’s always really nice to walk along. When the weather is nice it’s lovely to just stroll along, watch the boats, and the people, most of the time people will exchange pleasantries and have a brief chat.

When the weather is rough, the wind is blowing, the rain is lashing, there won’t be many people around, just those who are really dedicated. Now, it’s not something I do very often. But when I do, I enjoy it. Just not at 6 in the morning!

I thought I would do a series on the Gosport Plaques. I thought that I would do a piece on each plaque, but I realised with Henry Cort, I would just be regurgitating what I’d read on the Wikipedia page. Not quite plagiarism, but not far from it.

I will be able to talk a bit more about some of the blue plaques because there are quite a few in the town. Some are a couple of miles away from Henry Court’s. But I am aware of at least four, possibly 5 within only a few hundred yards of this one.

I don’t intend to write about a plaque a day – you (my real and imagined readers) would get bored with that. But I don’t think one a week for the next few weeks is unreasonable.

Anyhow, here’s a link to the Wikipedia page for Henry Cort;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cort

There you can read about the “puddling” process that he developed for increasing the refinement of wrought iron.

The plaque is on a wall in a car park near the ferry end of town. I’m not sure exactly where his foundry was, I assume that it wasn’t far away. If you wanted to visit the plaque, use What 3 words reference study.trim.bound to get you very close to it.

If you haven’t heard of what 3 words, it’s a seriously brilliant mapping system. If you haven’t heard of it before, here’s another link;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words

This evening’s post is only called Monday Morning because I can’t think of a more original title. I nearly didn’t get out this morning. Having had a good nights sleep, I was a bit late waking up. But, I was determined to go.

It was warmer than Friday, but not much. No frost though. I don’t mind the frost, there’s something crisp and refreshing about it.2. It’s nice when you leave the house, your breath mists up straight away, you can feel the chill on your cheeks and your nose. But you have a hat and gloves, so your head and hands are nice and warm.

Of course, it’s even nicer when you get home, and go inside and the house is nice and warm and snug. This is the time of year when it’s like that.

Here we are then, starting the 2nd hundred. Let’s see how we do. Although it was a grey day, and there had been a brief shower before we got up. It stayed dry, so we thought we would go for a short bike ride.

On Friday, we had done our usual, fish (or in my case Sauasage) & chips from the chippy. We drove down to the Stokes Bay waterfront, and parked up near the GAFIRS (Gosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue Service) Lifeboat Station.

As we approached the car park, we could see some unusual lights in the Solent. Checking my Marine Traffic application I could see that there was a ship at anchor about where the lights were. The app told me what I wanted to know. It is the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Tidespring, and I’m not disclosing anything sensitive as MT says it’s on Military Operations. Definitely not covert, as it was broadcasting an AIS (Automatic Identification System) Beacon and was light up not unlike a Christmas tree.

We were curious to see what she looked like in daylight, so today we thought we would take a bike ride down to Stokes Bay, and there she was for all to see. It was a very pleasant ride out,

To me, It seems barely credible that I have now been doing this for 100 days. Back at No. 90 I expressed some doubt as to whether I should celebrate there, or here. Let’s do neither, but just put a marker in time. The next one will at 122. I can do that, as it is a leap year, Let’s just say that I’m really chuffed to be here.

We went for a walk this morning, down to the waterfront. We took a slightly indirect route down Mumby Road, rather than the town centre, which we wanted to avoid. On the way down, we paused to take a look at the tunnel through the remains of the ramparts. Queen Victoria used to travel along that little bit of rail track, heading towards Clarence Yard, for the boat over to the Isle of Wight, ending up at Osborne House. I knew the track was there, but had been sceptical about the tunnel. As we walked along the road though, I realised that it wasn’’t just undergrowth that obscured the view through the fence, there was a very steep bank, which could only have been part of the ramparts were built in the 17th & 18th century.

We headed on down to the waterfront, taking a stroll out to the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. When we got there we were rewarded with seeing one of the Bunkering ships, the Whitonia. She was heading out with the plimsoll line well up, so she had been busily refuelling the likes of the ferries. Presumably heading back up to Southampton to re-load.

Afterwards, we went back to the promenade, where we found a sheltered seat, as it was just a little bit breezy. We sat and ate our sandwiches and fruit, and just watched people for a bit. Most people seemed quite cheerful and said hello as they went past.

It was very nice to get out for a bit.

I nearly didn’t go for a walk this morning. I woke up at around 10 to 6. If I had lingered I would have felt it too late to go. That would have been a pity. I’ve only managed to get out three times this week. I do have problems getting up sometimes. But I always enjoy them when I do, even if it rains during the time out.

What I am not seeing much of, whilst out, is shipping. I’m catching many fewer Brittany ferries than was normally the case. Occasional sights of the bunkering ships the Janey W and Whitchampion still come in to the harbour, but I don’t see them very often at all now.

These two ships though, the Mary Mouse 2, which is always there there. It used to be an active lightship (which probably stating the obvious, given the giant light on top) and whilst I don’t know how it is doing now, it is a very nice restaurant, serving some very food.

Now, the other ship, the EGS Pioneer is also a bit interesting it’s a survey vessel. It has some quite sophisticated equipment on board. I don’t know what it has been surveying. I’m sure it’s being useful also.

The picture was taken on last years trip to London. I thought it was quite amusing. At the beginning of the week I set myself a mission; I laid out seven topics, and I was to write about them in no particular order over the course of the week. Tonight’s topic is writing.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, It’s not that I have found it stressful to write something, I think it is probably that I actually do have to think about what I’m writing, andd having to stick to some kind of schedule. Of course, as I get to the end of the week the scope of what I can write about decreases, forcing me to focus even more.

So, having reviewed from 94, I haven’t brilliantly, at least two of the topics; the story of art and photography have been the subject their own posts. Other topics like the weather, and the waterfront have been shared around a bit between other posts. So, a partial success.

So, I’m wondering if I should have another go. I need to find a range of topics that I am comfortable writing about. Do I need a kind of standing agenda? I have a reason for that – It’s because of a project I’m developing.

I think there is a point up until which, it is almost impossible to separate art from religion, it was a tool that was used to illustrate religious events. The 16th Century introduced the reformation. I haven’t really looked at the reformation, I’d heard of it of course, but not having looked in to it, I had no understanding. A little bit of research reveals knowledge.

Artists that were famous at the time, and famous now. Lorraine, Rubens, Van Dyck, Poussin. The book is fascinating, and it is certainly making me think about art, and I am looking forward to being able to go to a gallery, especially if it features some of the pictures discussed in the book, so that’ll probably be London then, so can’t see that happening for a while.

I’m now on page 430, not far off two thirds of the way through. Right at the very beginning of the book, Gombrich gives a warning about judging art. Reading the book does not qualify you for doing that. Knowing some of the trials that artists went through will, I think make me appreciate the artist more that what I have done.

I acknowledge that the two pictures weren’t taken at the same time of day, from the same angle, at the same time of year. But they are sufficiently close that they will do for my purpose.

That purpose is to compare the normal and night modes on the P20 Pro.

For whatever reason I haven’t played with the night mode and now I think I need to explore it a bit more. So, which picture is which?

The bottom picture is Normal, the top is with the night mode.

It’s not just this picture, but also this one;

Taken only a few minutes before. In both cases the colours are deeper and richer. I like them both, and that makes me want to explore the mode further. I am also now asking if the mode could be used for astrophotography. So I am hoping for a clear sky in the morning to test this. But the weather forecast is for cloudy skies so probably not in the morning.

This picture was taken October last year. We had a lovely day in London. Sometimes it’s nice to look back to remember good times.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. I woke up around 6:15 ish. I’ve previously explained the self imposed problem I have getting out of the house by 0610.

In a recent post, I wrote something along the lines of that’s I have been walking to the waterfront and taking pictures of the same scene. You would think I’d get bored with it. Well, sometimes I do. Thrash’s why occasionally I might take a morning off, or change my route. The thing is though that I almost invariably end up at the waterfront – because it is lovely and interesting.

I also wrote about sometimes needing motivation to get up and get out. Two of the best ways of doing this are to look out the window and see a lovely morning developing. The other way is to have an objective for the walk. Frustratingly, I did have an objective – which I will carry over to tomorrow. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. I have been dropping the occasional hint, but I’m not yet ready to reveal. But, I do have a plan.