Bills Posts

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.

Elayne retired a few (well, almost 10) years ago. I am still working and vowed that I would do so for another well, almost 18 months really, that was the plan.

Until we went on the river cruise, and our Granddaughter. Events can bring a new perspective. The river cruise introduced me to the retired life. I think, apart from the crew, you could count on one hand those amongst the passengers who still worked. I really enjoyed the holiday.

I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated that I am not able to give Elayne the time she would like, being tied to meetings or other work related activity. I have decided that it is time to finish. I am going to give my boss a few months warning, but I have set in my mind a date, which I won’t disclose here until I have discussed it with my boss.

Of course, what that means is that once I publish this, I can start to write about a new phase, a new aspect of my interests, and how existing ones are going to change, and indeed new ones that I can add. Basically, real soon now – that’s the plan anyway.

There are a few things that I haven’t worked out about how people work, like developers. I honestly thought that by now the old bus station would have gone, but apparently so Elayne tells me demolition has been delayed because pigeons are nesting there.

Now, as it happens I am thinking “really, pigeons”? It could at least have been bats – mind you, they are probably there as well. As it happens I have a lot of sympathy for pigeon, I think they are a hard done by species. Some people might describe them as pests, and I can understand that, but I do feel sorry for them. Some people might finding out that they may be the cause of a delay to the demolition is actually fine.

I’m expecting to walk down the high street and finds McDonalds open. That’ll be a breakfast wrap then. Not every time mind, perhaps once a month.

So the milestone; Post No. 1700, over 4 1/2 years of posting, and I wondered if I would keep it going for a year, so I am well chuffed roll on post 1825. It was around mid August 2020 that I started, so post 1825 is going to be nearly 4 months after that date. That then equates to the number of days that i have missed posting. More than I wanted it to be, but there you go. A minor celebration (beans on toast for tea) was in order.

One of the sad sights of this evening, is the George and the Dragon pub in the background, disused and boarded up. Of of several places that are closed near the town centre.

I went r for my usual morning walk, which was nice, but then this evening was a camera club activity. I had offered to host a walk along the high street, partially looking at the architecture, one of the main topics for the next season of the camera club.

It was quite a blustery evening, and the breeze had quite a chill. But we still managed to gather a few members of the club, and had a really nice stroll from Morrisons down to the waterfront, with a couple of diversions off Beamister’s land and one of the other passages. It was a a really pleasant evening.

I woke up around 3AM this morning, trying to get back to sleep, but feeling stressed. It was about whether or not I was going to get up and go for a walk. I still don’t understand why I am stressing about this. It is really annoying. Somehow though, I managed de stress. I can’’t believe that the method I used was to ask ChatGPT a couple of questions, and that was it – stress gone. If I feel the same in the morning, I’ll try that again.

I followed my normal route, but didn’t add in the small extension to take in No. 8. That’s the old Pound stretchers; that’s the one which is going to be made in to flats. I don’t see how they can do a conversion, but there again, what do I know? I think a once a week check of that should be enough.

Now, McDonalds is a different matter. The screen is still up out the front, but looking in, it’s getting near. The branding is almost all done (even down to the door frames being painted) tables and chairs are being set up, the food counter has been set up, and biggest of all the meal ordering machines are in place and were switched on!

Now I think it could be heading for an opening almost literally any day now, much more rapid than I expected, I shall hold myself to that promise of a breakfast wrap.

I had a chat a homeless person, he was quite pleasant.

Had a good chat on the radio.

I start the week with good intentions. For example, tomorrow morning unless it is raining, which I don’t think is forecast, I’ll be getting up for my morning walk. It’ll give me chance to set a baseline of the high street for the week ahead. The plan is, later in the week, to shoot sone video of the various activities that are going.

Tomorrow morning though is mainly a #Breakfastclub thing, a chance to have a chat with friends over the radio. Tuesday evening will be interesting. It’s my turn to host a camera club walk. I have some things planned, and have to do a little bit more research to finalise things.

Wednesday is likely to be videoing day as I won’t get a chance probably on Thursday, which means that I can use Friday to top up or correct. Video if I need to. Hopefully, over the weekend I’ll put together another piece for YouTube.

In my mind then, I do have activities mapped out. How close to reality they will be, remains to be seen.

I didn’t get in to town today, so I don’t really know what is going on, but I am reasonably confident that McDonalds hasn’t opened. I could be wrong of course, I think we will have to wait until Monday to find out what the latest state of play is. Assuming it’s not raining of course.

We spent a lot of time in the garden doing bits and pieces, and I had a run to the Gosport Recycling centre, which went better than I expected – mainly around the disposal of old paint. That went fine, It was the old tiles that got me the minor lecture from one of the staff.

Once we had finished what we needed to do, we took a quick trip into the Discovery Centre to see the pictures from the Camera club annual exhibition. That was lovely, there were some beautiful shots. Elayne had four pictures on display, I was so proud of her. I had one picture, and I was very pleased with that.

After, we went to Stokes bay and sat for half an hour just watching the sea, with an ice cream of course, a very nice 99.

Elayne had bought a spiraliser, it cuts food in an unusual way, she used it on some courgettes. We had pulled chicken, chips and spiralised courgette – it sounds a bit odd, but actually it was delicious – the courgette definitely tasted different.

Actually, if I’m honest, the day was really quite pleasant.

There’s something about Fridays. It’s a bit like all the sleep that I need suddenly rushes to catch up with me. It leaves me exhausted, I’ve just spent the last two hours crashed out on the sofa.

Oh, and although I wrote last nights post (1694) last night I didn’t publish it until this morning, meaning my 91 day count of conti buoys posting has gone back to zero. Aaaaaagh!!¡

Sorry, tired, going to bed.

Another rather pleasant, lucky shot of the fox, down at the waterfront.

At the end of the last season in the camera club, people were asked if they had any suggestions for a walk that members of the club could do between seasons.

I of course immediately got one idea (well, actually two, but I quickly realised that they made more sense together, as they both involved the high street). The first was to look at the blue plaques; admittedly erected by the local council rather than any national scheme, there are several of them, and between them they tell some interesting stories

The second walk though, was the more interesting, as it directly related to the idea for next season at the club, I suggested that we just take a walk down row high street, looking at the various architecture types. There are.

I’ve taken pictures of some of the buildings, and am going to run them through ChatGPT, getting it to tell me about them. Should be interesting, and offer some blogging (as well as vlogging) opportunities and idea

No, nothing bad. I read something that was along the lines of; The tendency to worry is a throwback to our Neanderthal and earlier days when there was a risk of being chased by woolly mammoths it helped the flight reflex. It (the tendency to worry) was never meant for worrying that an email was late.

I’m pretty sure that it also wasn’t meant for walks being taken later than usual. I was worrying because I normally leave the house before 6AM, this morning it was nearer half past 6, but it was a nice morning and I was determined to do some videoing.

When you leave the house that much later for a walk, you see the town in a different light. There were a lot more people around – no problem with that. There was a chap on the high street whom I always say good morning to when I see him, I paused for a couple of minutes for a chat.

The waterfront was lovely, calm and warm. If I had felt a bit more comfortable (and to be honest, I had stopped worrying about the lateness of the walk, but wanted to get my facebook post done before work, so was still a bit concerned about the time).

I was walking toward the seaward end of Trinity Church when I saw this gentleman. My immediate thought was Mary Poppins and Feed the Birds. I stopped and had a chat with him. He was quite happy for me to take his picture and put it on my blog. I’d tried to keep a distance from him, he had at least half a dozen pigeons on him, but they dispersed as I approached even as far as I did. I really thought it was a lovely sight.

It was one of the best morning walks I had done in quite a long time. The weather was lovely. As it happens, I didn’t get the facebook post done until nearly 5PM.