Bills Posts

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.

Yes, my writings. I’ve been doing this blog for quite a bit more than 78 days. But, as you’ll gather it is 78 days since I created that intention to write every day. Monday to Friday, I tend to twice a day. The first time is my FaceBook entry in the morning. This session is my opportunity to be a little freer. I follow a bit of a regime there. Of course it’s self imposed, but I’m happy with it.

Now the thing is about this is the blog I react to something, or try to think of something every day to write about, even if what I end up with is rubbish. Which kind of implies that at least some of what I write isn’t rubbish. Without wishing to create my own Ratner moment, I have no illusions.

The, to me, less successful posts are those that a bit rushed. The thing then, is to reduce the need to rush. There are then, a number of strategies that can be deployed to achieve this goal. Now I have kind of been here before. I’m going wait until I reach no. 90, Well, I’m not really I’m going to start looking at my previous posts . I’m sure there is at least one pattern here.

A couple of days ago the latest version of the magazine turned up. I’m still reading it. But as usual, there is normally an article which sparks my interest, and I’m barely a third of the way in to the magazine.

This article is about prehistoric astronomical observatories. Not observatories as we think of them of course, but natural features which either line up naturally, or have been modified to show an astronomical events; two rocks positioned to show the rising sun on the summer solstice, less sophisticated than Stone Henge and the like, but showing an awareness unexpected for the time.

I don’t think I’m going to be going out hunting for them, but it’s interesting to think that the people from those days were interested in the sky – for very good reasons; understanding when the seasons are changing for farming and the like.

Fascinating stuff.

I had a very pleasant walk this morning. It was a little bit breezy, and it was nice to have a padded jacket, but otherwise, it was good to be out.

The part of Gombrichs book, The Story of Art I’m on now, around pages 3 – 400 are dealing with the arrival, in order of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raffello or Raphael. Whilst each artist produced a plethora of truly historic work, some pieces are worth mentioning individually;

Leonardo’s Mona Lisa – I’ve seen her in the flesh so to speak. It was strange because the picture was smaller than I thought it would be, and her eyes follow you. But Leonardo brought in the technique of painting truly life like portraits – I’m doing a gross injustice both to Leonardo and Gombrich here. The picture and the words are both so much more expressive than my writings.

Michelangelo is of course remembered for his painting of the Sistine chapel. We have been to Rome, the Vatican, We didn’t go into the chapel, the queue was too big, and we had only limited time. But any picture of it really doesn’t do it justice. I must admit, I would like to go back.

Then of course, there is Raphael; I’ve heard of him, but never paid him much attention. One of his best known pictures is the the drawing of the nymph Galatea. On page 320 of the book Gombrich talks about Raphael drawing of the picture between 1512 – 1514. He says that at the showing of the picture, a courtier asked him where he had found a model of such beauty? Now, temporarily this is where I head in a different direction; How does Gombrich know that Raphael was asked that question, and by a courtier no less – that bit isn’t surprising, it’s the detail. Did Raphael keep a diary? I can understand the information available about The Venerable Bede, he was written about and was himself writing – what are the records relating to Raphael? Come to that, who wrote about Michelangelo and Leonardo? Who gave us the information we have about them? Who knew to write to the future?

Fascinating stuff.

I couldn’t tell by looking out the window this morning whether or not it was raining. Stepping out the back door I could feel just a few drops. I have this “rain tolerance” thing. I won’t go for a walk if it is absolutely chucking it down, but if it’s just a few, I’m inclined to risk it.

I got to the end of the street, it started to rain quite hard. I paused, and turned around, taking a few steps it stopped raining. I turned around, it started raining, I paused, it stopped. I thought I’ve got to get around this, so decided to carry on. As it happened it stayed as a gentle drip, and so turned into a very pleasant walk with the reward above.

I went for my usual walk this morning, I even went on my usual route. I was about 10 minutes into my trip when I realised I didn’t have my phone with me. I’ve never forgotten my phone before. Why did I this time? It came down to what is the purpose of the walk; exercise or photography? I could have turned back for it, but as I only permit myself to be out until 7AM, it would have meant that I couldn’t get to the weather front to do my weather report. I must admit, I hummed and haa’d for about a minute before continuing.

When I got to the water front I was just in time to see the Reefer Ship Columbian Star passing the Spinnaker on her way out, accompanied by a tug. Minutes later, the Normandie came in. There was a pilot boat moving about, and of course with the clocks going back Sunday morning, the sky was nicely brightening. No pictures, can you imagine my frustration.