Bills Posts

Looking at the weather app, tomorrow morning (Monday) promises to be bright and sunny. The radio is on charge, so apart from me feeling stressed about getting up (which I don’t at the moment) there’s nothing to keep me from going for a walk in the morning.

Tuesday could be different though. There is an almost even chance of rain. Beyond that, the only morning that I know for certain that I am unlikely to go for a walk is Thursday.

What with the radio planned for Monday & Tuesday, vlogging on Wednesday, Thursday otherwise occupied and Friday available for other things. There is the prospect of a good week. How much I will achieve is a different thing.

It’s a bit like vlogging in that there will probably be quite few posts on the matter until it actually happens, and then possibly beyond.

I was determined that I wasn’t going to retire until my 70th birthday, in about 18 months time, I felt entirely comfortable with that until fairly recently, when some kind of switch obviously got thrown in my brain, because I’ve brought the date forward by a year, which means I’ve got about 6 months to go, and if I were totally honest I could imagine a situation where that date could move again – Christmas time?

Let’s leave that for the time being. Instead we’ll return to the topic of what am I going to do when I retire. Firstly, I am going to help around the house more than I do. I do some housework, I know it isn’t enough so that’ll be a good thing. I’m also going to do more cooking. Whilst Elayne is an excellent cook, she has often said she doesn’t enjoy it. I’m sure that I can turn out the odd spaghetti Bol, or bangers & mash.

Then of course there are my interests to feed. One of which is to go for my full amateur radio licence. I’ve got the book, I’m sure I could give an hour a day for a few weeks.

Following on from that is the University of the Third Age, U3A. It seems that Gosport has a lively branch with several groups that might be interesting. I might even suggest a new group – more on that one on a later.

The men’s shed is also in prospect. Now, I’m not sure what I’m going to do there. Apparently a friend has suggested that I could join the Ukulele band. Well, unless there is some kind of admin role I could take on, I can confidently say nope to that.

I will explore more on all of these topics later.

Tonight, it bending Friday, we went to the chippy. Elayne had Fish & Chips & I had jumbo battered sausage Y& chips.

We took our food to Lee-on-the-Solent and parked up in the big car park. Because it was past 1900, parking was free which was good.

We really enjoyed our meal, we watched a couple of cruise ships go out, The Queen Mary 2, heading for Stavanger and Independence of The Seas, which have had a cruise on that we thoroughly enjoyed. It was nice to see her again.

After we finished our food, we just sat there for a while, just people watching. Because it was a very pleasant evening, there were a lot about – as you might expect.

I really should have gone for a walk this morning. If I am truthful, there was no excuse. I was awake in time, I just fancied a cup of tea, so I didn’t go. I really can’t complain about not having recording any video if I don’’t make the opportunity.

It obviously isn’t a blank page, but I have just spent the last 15 or so minutes staring at the web page that had only the number 1708 at the top – at least I knew that.

I was really stuck for something to write about this evening, quite simply, I really couldn’t think of anything to write about. Well, that’s not strictly true. I could always write about my vlogging and retirement plans, my intention to go for a full amateur radio licence, my studies on Future Learn, so there is stuff there, but I am very aware that I have a bit of a tendency to go on about it.

The vlogging side of things iss a bit frustrating, I haven’t done anything for a few weeks, and I really should get out with the phone, gimbal and microphone. There are things that I could be videoing.

Part of the problem is that I can’t get away from the limited time that I have available in my early morning walks. I think what I need to do is to be much more focused on what I want to record and why, and what I want to say on the video, and very importantly, am I going to include any talking to the camera, rather than just the microphone.

I only want to record a couple of minutes of video on a couple of locations. I should perhaps have a go.

I took this, this morning, I was sat on the waterfront having breakfast. It’s the Whitonia, one of the bunkering ships, heading out of Portsmouth.

Breakfast? Oh, it was a breakfast wrap and a hash brown from the new McDonalds. I had missed the first day of opening, but had promised my self a breakfast wrap the first time I walked past. I took the opportunity to take a brief break from my walk to enjoy the breakfast, which was very nice. The hash brown was one of the best I can remember for a very long time, nice and crunchy.

The walk itself was very pleasant, but I have to confess that I only took a few photos and no video at all. It’s likely that Friday will be my next opportunity.

I haven’t written about vlogging very much at all over recent weeks. I think it is time to take another look at what is going on in the high street. I may do that tomorrow if I wake up in time, like I didn’t this morning.

I’ve also had an idea for a photo project for the coming camera club season. Not going to say anything about it other than at least one of the pictures will be a collage of the subjects. I shall start looking tomorrow.

A pigeon doing some square-bashing. Totally unrelated to today’s post.

Waking up at around 4AM, as I usually do, I consulted the weather app which told that it would be raining at 0600. I went back to sleep. I was conscious again at around 0545, sufficiently so to get up and look out the window. I have to say, that the sky did not look like it was going to rain. Sadly, I had made my mind up first time round, so I went back to bed.

I spoke to my boss today. I told I was going to retire, and gave her the intended date. All I have to do is submit the paperwork. Not quite yet though. Soon, very soon.

The Arrow, a relatively small container/cargo ship coming into the harbour today. I was lucky to catch her as it has been several days I was last at the waterfront, and I had only been there to meet the ferry.

It’s a bit of a short post today, tired and later than I wanted it to be.

I got told by a friend today that the new McDonalds is open. Well, I guess the frost time I go past on my morning walk I will indulge in a breakfast wrap. To be repeated no more than once a month.

I had a bit of a lay in until about 10, having been awake since around 4AM, I decided around 8AM that I needed a bit more sleep, so put my head down, and that was it. Obviously, I did need it.

We said goodbye to a friend today, she passed a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a sad affair, everybody was calm and respectful, but it was mainly a really nice buffet we stayed for a couple of hours and just talked about Enid, and what a nice person she’d been. I think it was just a nice way to say goodbye.

I haven’t been for a walk since last Tuesday/. I couldn’t go Wed & Thurs for various reasons and Friday I’d basically lost the will. I had actually got up and got dressed, but then just gave up. Silly really. Couldn’t go today as had things on, and am not sure about tomorrow.

I gave ChatGPT a normal picture of Gosport High Street and asked it to do something with it for a new project I’m working on (more on that later in the month, hopefully). I asked the AI to convert the picture into a drawing and age it by applying sepia toning to it. I have to say, that I am really pleased with the results.

The purpose of producing the picture in this way was to produce an image that. reflected the past history, the present and the future of the town. These are the elements that I would like to capture more of in the blog. Now, there are about 70 people who have subscribed to this blog (for which I thank you so much). I can’t help wondering if you read every post and what you get out of the blog – I’m not asking you to tell me but I can’t ignore the fact that you are there, and I really do hope you enjoy my (mostly) daily meanderings.

Naturally, I would like to increase numbers of readers, who wouldn’t, but that I think is a plan for later time. In the meantime, thank yuo for reading this and have a a lovely day.