Bills Posts

Before we moved here, at our last home we had a very busy bird table. Here, we have had a bird table in place for a long time. I have had several attempts to lure birds here without success.

Recently I had another go, and this time it has gone a bit mad. Regular visits by starlings, pigeons, magpies, sparrows and others. I love it. The starling especially are untidy and argumentative. They throw food around and squawk, and it is brilliant.

Next door have a big bush next to our fence. I don’t know what it is but it is absolutely loaded with berries. The bush seems to be owned by a blackbird family. We can be sat only 3 or 4 feet away from from the bush, but that doesn’t stop them. We hear them clucking and flapping.

I love sitting and watching the birds on the table.

No point trying to put up a picture of the bird table – as soon as I move to do so, they bomb-burst.

So, here’s the thing. It’s 2230, I’m in bed and normally, I have a strict rule about not doing anything involving a screen except reading my kindle which doesn’t count. Why am I writing this? It’s one of those I need to get it out of my system things. Over the last couple of weeks i have been reading this book;

Branch Line Britain by Paul Atterbury

Splitting mainland Britain (and the Isle of Wight) into regions, it covers branch lines which closed mostly between 1900 and 1960, some later and some still open. A few of which I’ve been on. Anyhow, it has been my breakfast book reading about a couple of branch lines each morning, with a few departures (is that a pun?) to talk about things like railway hotels, model railway, railwayana and saucy rail related post cards. For the most part it was a very enjoyable read, and especially so as I class it as “one of those books you buy, but never read” the question is do I keep the book, or give it to charity? For the time being< it has gone back on the book shelf.

A primary purpose of this post is to get something written. But it has caused me some problems, as I am now thinking about whether I shouldn’t have a consistent theme, or are you happy with my random meanderings? That stopped me writing for a couple of days. The thing is I find it difficult to stay focused. Oh well. My next breakfast book is Timpsons Leylines. The thought of leylines has always fascinated me, and deserve a bit of exploration. I will report later.

Several days ago, I wrote about not walking, yet I walked. I walked again this morning. I had a bit of an internal battle to go out, but I do need to get used to doing it.

I saw very few people. It was a little bit busier than it was on Tuesday. But still nowhere near the numbers of the before days.

It is quite eerie, walking down Gosport High Street, all of the shops closed, some shuttered, the blinds down in the recently opened hotel – how little business have they done? Who would stay in a hotel through choice now? Who would board an aircraft and share the air the of the infected, or not infected – who knows? Who would go to a restaurant, and a cinema? how will these once loved, now feared institutions make a profit? I wish for the before days. This is now the after time. Things change. Will what was normality return? Who knows? I suspect we will find out.

I had a chat with my boss. I told him that I was worried about going back to work. Actually, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. We aren’t open plan and we don’t hot-desk. There are only three of us in our team, and our office is big enough for us to socially distance at our desks – are we lucky in that respect? I’ll be nervous I think when it happens, but we have to face the reality of it.

Where does not walking come from? It’s a habit that I need to get back in to. Over the lockdown I normally rise at about 0540, got and do 30 sit-ups and then get on the Wii-Fit to do 30+ minutes of physical jerks. It’s quite good fun really, and easier than going for a walk. The problem is that I can’t do the #Breakfastclub as my wife says that I shout when I talk and it wakes her up. She’s right I do shout. I really have to tone my voice down to a level she finds acceptable. Before the lockdown, i would follow the same routine, but would go for a walk to the waterfront, which meant that I could get on the radio.

I’ve had a busy day today, so no chance to research sidebars. It’s another busy day tomorrow as well. But Friday is a bank holiday. I’ll try then. To be honest I have other things to do in the evening, so it’s not a priority. sorry.

I went for a walk this morning. It was the first time in 6 weeks that I have been out for a walk in the morning. It was lovely to be able to go. It wasn’t sunny, it was a little bit breezy, but not cold.

A concern of the family was encounters with other people. This morning, it was most unusual walking down the high street. There were no shops open, between the house and the waterfront, I saw three people. None of them were anywhere near me. Down at the waterfront, there were a few more. But none of them were anywhere near me.

Of course, I was back on the #Breakfastclub, which was lovely. I have been doing the Isle of Wight Radio Society’s Thursday Night Net but I have missed the morning sessions.

Although I missed the arrival of the Mon St Michell, was rewarded by seeing the Reefer Barrington Island come in, escorted by two tugs – lovely sight.

My blog – do I care about how many people read it? Of course I do. I want it to be well known. Do I want my moment of fame? In a way, but fame isn’t necessarily a good thing. I don’t want to do a Ratner moment, but there are questions about the quality of my blog, and I know it has to improve. A lot.

Currently, I have around 5 known readers. I know one of them, a good friend. The others I don’t know. But one of them has a blog and blogs about blogging. I’m starting to absorb that content. I want to link to her in a sidebar. I don’t know the protocol here. Do I just do it? I have one technical problem, I don’t know how to put a sidebar up in WordPress. I’m working on it.

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It’s not a story, so don’t think I’ve gone fictional on you. The story is that of me writing my blog. The thing is what do I want to do with this blog? I’ve nothing to sell. I’ve no real story to tell. All I have is a desire to write. And, nothing to write about. That’s why my posts are random in content. There are things about a blog;

Who is your audience?

What are you writing about?

Why are you writing?

What is the end goal of your writing?

At the moment, I can only answer one of those questions, and I wonder about the validity of the answer. Why am I writing? The answer is because, not just because I want to, I have a need to. I have a ring bound notepad, writings from 15 years ago. I haven’t progressed beyond that. By now, I should have written a book. I’ve tried creative fiction classes. They didn’t work.

One thing they say, is you can’t write about what you want. You have to write to your audience. At the moment, the audience is me. your are here by happenstance. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that I don’t care that you are here. I do very much. I want to educate and entertain you.

IS it really the 20th of March since I last wrote a post? That’s outrageous. In my defence I will say that I have written something most days on my facebook page.

Towards the beginning of what would turn in to the lockdown, we were preparing for an ambition fulfilling holiday, to China. The crunch point came when we were faced with the decision as to whether or not to go to the visa processing centre to get our visas. By then it was clear that the trip was extremely unlikely to go ahead. We agonised for a period over whether we shouldn’t get the visas. By then if if we could, we didn’t really want to go. As it happens, it ended up that we didn’t go to the centre, and obviously we didn’t go on the holiday

And then the lockdown started. Luckily, it turns out that I was able,initially to do about 80% of my job working from home. I think with a recent upgrade in comms, there is now very little that I can’t do.

I have to confess that I am quite comfortable. I have an excellent workspace, notwithstanding the three email accounts that I have to monitor. That’s all to the good. To a degree, working from home has become so comfortable that I’m not sure that I’m looking forward to going back.

Stay safe everybody.

It seems that Covid-19 is getting very close to home. Literally. I suspect that it won’t be long before one of us goes down with a cold and then we will all be in isolation. But, unless I am actually ill I see no reason to not go for a walk.

I went out for my usual walk this morning. The footpath on my normal route was partially blocked for maintenance meaning I had to cross the road. Didn’t like that, so changed my route for the return trip. Only the Mon St Michell and the gosport ferries around this morning, although I heard the Janey W, a bunkering (refuelling) ship buzzing around the links spans in the harbour. There are problems with GB3IW, the Isle of Wight repeater, so the #Breakfastclub has moved on to Zello, a mobile phone app. It’s fiddly, and I don’t really like it but it works. Although I admit, the sound quality for everybody, is very good, whereas on mother radio it can sometimes be a bit hit and miss – but that’s the fun of it. It was alsodifficult doing my weather report, as I really needed three hands. But I managed to a degree.

Talking of the weather, 7.5C, and a bit of a breeze (lightbulb moment, breezy Bill – don’t worry, it’s a radio thing) pressure was almost normal at 1025mb, 30.25 inches of mercury. A grey sky with uneven clouds and no blue. It was cold, so as usual, I appreciated being wrapped up.

In these times, i think it’s important to be as normal as possible, that mean even as to what you do indoors. The panic buyers are being very selfish, even if I understand their motives. I just wish the news would find something positive to report on, rather than focussing on the negative, what about all the self help groups that are being set up? Frustrating.

Still, I wish you all well, and hope you had

a good day.

Tonight was the Isle of Wight Radio Society’s Thursday Night Net (TNN) most weeks now, I chair the net for an hour, and going back over my log it looks like I’ve been doing it for at least two years now. As is usually the case, my record keeping wasn’t very good when I started. I have a big A4 notebook which is everything radio. That’s good, I like that.

I usually get 4 or 5 callers on the net which is fine, that gives us 2 or 3 good overs each, and every one gets a chance to have a talk, which is the main thing. A TNN can have a topic, but doesn’t have to and almost invariably talk will drift away from the topic. Tonight’s discussion was Adventures I have had with my antennas, and other antenna stories talk ranged from how one radio ham use a catapult big enough to launch a tennis ball with a wire attached up in to a tree so that they could haul a cable up, through to how one hams antenna got blown over into next doors garden, and how was worried that he could injure someone.

TNN’s tend to start off quietly, and then pick up people as it progresses. I knew it was going to be busy from the off, and it was 13 callers including myself, I think the busiest I’d had before was 12, Apr 2018. It was a good ranging discussion, and people seemed happy with the way it went. I certainly enjoyed doing it.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. I over slept. Waking up just after 0600, so my out of the house before 0610 kicked in, I knew I wouldn’t do it, so I went and made a cup of tea. Oh well, at least I got out for a couple of miles for lunchtime. It was windy, and the wind was cold, but a double layer of fleece works very well.

Some random pictures for you.

Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey fame plays a British soldier by the name of Donald Jeffries in the film. Jeffries gets shot by a German soldier in a church whilst trying to protect a piece of art, which is kind of the point of the film. But, the main thing for me is the letter that Jeffries writes to his father, whom it appears he never got on with. It was one of those moments, which I know is only a script but the writing was for me just utterly powerful, evocative and quite simply beautiful. It touched me quite emotionally. I would quite simply love to be able to write like that.

I brought the subject up because I was reminded of the passion in the letter tonight. It started on my walk to the Sea Cadets centre for the monthly presentation for the Gosport Society (the topic by the way was the secrets of Bury House, and is completely irrelevant to tonight’s post).

I looked up to the sky to see whether it looked like rain. It didn’t, there were patches between the clouds where the occasional star peeled through, but the most striking things were the large clouds that were scudding along at no mean rate, behind them was a full moon that would jump from behind a cloud only to be consumed by another as it hurried by. But even that is not the point of this evenings post.

Tonight, I had cause to go out and put rubbish in our bins, as simple as that. I went out in shirt sleeve order, no coat. The wind was chilled, the earlier small clumps of cloud had turned into a large bank, with breaks. The moon was still there, appearing and disappearing in the breaks. There was something about the chilled wind, the moving clouds, the moon bright but playing hide and seek behind the clouds. I felt what it was like to be outside, in the chill, so much so that I was finding reasons to go outside. There was a pleasure in being out, watching clouds scoot along, the moon blinking, feeling the chill of the wind and then going back into our nice warm, comforting home.

It’s times like that when I really feel for rough sleepers, and wish they would all find a warm dry place to sleep.

See, it’s nothing like the Monuments men, is it? I hope you had a pleasant day.