Bills Posts

I’ll give you two pictures today. The first one are the dredger and the hopper holding the dredged material. They were in Haslar Marina. I have seen them before, but can’t remember when, probably a few years ago.

Then there is the second picture;

This one is the Saint Malo, the Brittany Ferry that is a hybrid. I don’t think I’ve seen her before, coming into the harbour.

Both these pictures represent what I think of as little rewards to myself for having made the effort to get up at an unworldly hour for a walk. With retirement only a matter of weeks away now, I do occasionally ask my self if I will be getting up at that time if it isn’t work forcing me to? Well I may not do it as regularly as I have done. But, I think there are occasions when an early walk will be welcome.

There are balancing effects. With the early walks there are far fewer people around, so not many chances to talk to people. If I go later, there are more, but I feel awkward if I want to video (I do find the more I video with people around,m the less concerned or bothered I am.

Being as it’s Thursday in the morning, Aurora duties means’s no walk (but I am OK with that), I have been thinking about having a Facebook post ready. I could have done one this morning, but I didn’t so, I have something for tomorrow.

This morning’s Facebook post was, for me, quite a long one. I covered several developing stories. Of course, the main one is the demolition of the bus station. By a very fortunate collision of circumstances, which meant that I was at the bus station at the start of the day when demolition will commence. I have been waiting for this for at least a year, so I am excited to be there at the start.

I met a couple of chaps who were flying a drone along the high street. I asked them what they were doing. They told me that the council were planning upgrades to some parts of the street. I’ve had ChatGPT run a search and it has highlighted several suggestions as to what he upgrades may be. I think some of them won’t apply as they relate to the waterfront, and the drone was working in the Morrisons part of the unstreet, so it’s likely to be related to the High Street Heritage Action Zone.

I don’t always mean for my posts to this blog to be completely different to my Facebook posts. Sometimes it is useful if the posts feed off each other. That especially helps if you might be experiencing a bit of writer’s block. It’s really frustrating if I don’t go for a walk, because that means I don’t have fresh material for the post.

That frustration deepens because for some reason, i am unable to look ahead – I understand why; it’s because I react to events. I don’t forecast ahead, I find it really difficult to do. I’m not sure how to do that (plan ahead) without losing a degree of spontaneity.

Today was another treat for Aurora’s birthday. We visited Fishers Farm; https://fishersfarmpark.visihost.co.uk/ I think I can confidently say that we will be going back.

We didn’t spend the full day there, the weather was a little bit off-putting some very intense showers, mixed in with the odd bit of sunshine.

There are lots of things at the farm to see and do. things change There’s am area which a a petting zoo. There were some guinea pigs there This little chap in the picture was the one that caught my attention. Hee was curious about me. He spent a good minute or more totally focussed on me.

There was a lot that we didn’t see. Also, many of the activities were for children a bit older than Aurora, so as I say, we will be back.

Exceptional circumstance mean that there are no pictures today. Especially as any picture really should feature Aurora. I haven’t got permission to post a picture of her anywhere other than Facebook, so I am hoping to have one or two that I post there tomorrow, but not here for the time being. To post any other picture just wouldn’t be right.

But we had a really lovely day. Elayne’s organisation was as usual excellent. Plenty of food, no alcohol. I did the BBQ. The long sausages from Costco went down very well. We still have a box of 18, and the packet of belly pork, but a lot of the food was eaten.

Aurora, being 1, was aware that something was going on. She had a lot of fun and some interesting new food (Birthday cake.

My sisters, Meg and Mirse came to the party. It was lovely to see them. I drove them home.

It was a lovely day.

We went to Costco today, to do a bit of shopping in preparation for Aurora’s first birthday party. I saw this giant bauble there. You don’t really get a sense of scale from the picture it must have been at least four feet across. i didn’t dare ask Elayne if she wanted one, it would have filled the lounge!

For some reason, I felt tired when I woke up, even after a good nights sleep, and felt tired all day, until I gave up fighting it and laid on the bed this afternoon. I must have gone out like a light. woke up an hour later feeling fine.

I playing about with ChatGPT. I wanted it to summarise my posts, both here and on Facebook just to act as a re-fresh for my mind as to what I had written about over the last month. It’s a bit fiddly, but it kind of worked. Just not quite sure what I am going to do with the idea.

Let’s have another go at doing a post every day on FB, or at least, trying to.

Here we are then, back to a semblance of normality. By which we are home, it’s Friday, Elayne and I are doing a bit of binge watching of London Kills, a police series. It’s not bad.

Mist was picked up from the cattery this morning. She really didn’t appreciate being stuffed into the carrier and she let me know her displeasure in no uncertain terms. But once home, she has been quite clingy and is currently asleep in the chair.

We managed to get the grass cut and Elayne did a bit of tidying up in the garden.

I didn’t get out for a walk today, but I did get to drive past the ends of the high street. Enough to see that demolition of the (old) bus station has not started.

We are back home, too late unfortunately to pick up Misty, so she is in the cat hotel until it opens for pick-up. I shall be there. I feel really bad not having her at home.

Hastings, the town known for 1066 and all that, and the location for scenes from Foyle’s War. We done a bit of exploring and sight seeing, and it was really very nice.

We also managed tro return to a couple of places that we had been to fairly recently. That was very nice.

All in all a very successful few days.

Oh, the picture? We initially thought that they were buildings where fish was dried. It turns out that they are called “Net Hotels”. This is where the nets and other kit is stored from the fishing boats. They are three stories tall. True location is the Stade on Hastings waterfront.

When I first saw the building in this picture, I thought it was part of Hastings Castle, but it isn’t. It’s the gatehouse to the east cliff railway, that brings you up to open fields, with some lovely walks that we didn’t have time to do.

We’ve been out and about a bit, heading first to Camber Sands, an old family haunt from many years ago for Elayne. A proper sandy beach. We didn’t stay long there though. The weather has become properly autumnal, by which I mean wind and rain.

We came back in to Hastings, and just had a slow walk around the old town area, looking in a few rummage or antique shops. I didn’t buy anything, but Elayne bought a few compacts.

We were walking down one old street and when we got to the end, we were at the foot of the West cliff railway, so we thought, well seeing as we are here, we might as well go up this one as well. We did start out to look at the castle, but time was becoming a bit tight. So we headed back.

The end result is that we had seen a few things and done a few things and done a bit of retail therapy. All in all, it was, despite the weather, a really pleasant day.

We visited Battle today. The location of the 1066 Battle of Hastings. A battle which was won by the invading William the Conqueror. It was one of those events that resulted in significant cultural change in the country.

As a result of his victory, William caused an abbey to be built that became one of the richest and most influential in the country. At least, until Henry VIII triggered the dissolution resulting in the destruction of it and many others.

Today, amongst some rather spectacular ruins and a country park that appeared to be as well visited by the French as it was by the British, is what appears to be a thriving school.

We climbed to the top of the gate tower. The view around the town and surrounding countryside was most impressive, showing the town layout that had grown in support of the abbey during its heyday.

From there we moved on, passing through Bodiam, pausing to look at the castle from afar, then on to Tenterden, where we spent some time at the K&ES (Kent & East Sussex) Heritage railway. We didn’t go on the train.

We returned to the hotel via Rye. It was a lovely, interesting and educational day.

I should perhaps say that the picture is only related to Foyles War in that it is taken in Hastings, where the TV series was mostly filmed.

We both wanted to visit the town, because it is one of those places steeped in history, and its relationship to the series.

We found the Church that Foyle would have attended, St Clemente’s, and the house where he would have lived, St Just’s. We were both quite pleased. We even spoke to a local resident. She said filming had been quite disruptive, involving street closures.

We had a meal in a lovely little italian restaurant, at the bottom the street, near Foyles home.

A really quite enjoyable day.