Bills Posts

We met up with our dear friends from St Neots and had a very pleasant day experiencing Pompei (obviously, it was not very pleasant for the “Pompeiians”). The exhibition is held at the Excel centre, Royal Victorian Docks in London.

I’m not going to write about the experience, but I would like to comment on the area.

Firstly, there are a few ways to travel to and from Excel. We used two of them today. From Waterloo, we took the Waterloo & City line to Bank (It’s a simple line, only two stops – Waterloo & Bank). At Bank, there is a fairly involved trek to transfer from The Waterloo & City Line to the Docklands Light Railway – we need to remember that because the other route that we used to leave Excel (DLR from Customms House to Canning Town, and then the Jubilee Line to Waterloo really is much simpler)

I want to comment on the outward journey from Bank – we did have to change trains because to get to Customs House, Bank is the wrong line, but changing just meant getting off one train and waiting for the next one, which was heading where we wanted to go. The DLR trains are driverless, and if you are lucky, as we were today, you can get a seat at what would be the driver’s position – if there were one. It was brilliant, i loved it

The whole area is going through some pretty large (classic understatement, read huge) redevelopment. The header picture of Spillers Mill, where wheat was mill and stagely, dog biscuits were made (this particular building was a rebuild in 1933) is being preserved and repurposed, which is lovely to know.

It was a really nice day.

What a wet day – the rain was that fine drizzle that just seems to get everywhere. Not at all pleasant – unless you have the right clothing. Well, today I had the right clothing in the shape of my winter coat. Bought last year from Mountain Warehouse, with a very reasonable discount, it is slightly heavy, but it is water & wind proof and is very comfortable. pretty much making it a delight to be out in the bad weather.

We had an hour in Whitely, and then moved on to Hedge End. We found what we were looking for there. So it was a successful day. Even with the weather.

I think I must have been sitting awkwardly yesterday evening. When I stood up, I nearly fell over, the pain was so intense. But, rather than sit back down, I simply had to move and within less than six steps, the pain, thankfully, had gone. Of course, sitting down brought it back.

The thing to do is keep moving, so we got out in the garden for almost an hour to do a bit of clearing up – hundreds of palm tree fronds, enough to more than half fill our brown bin.

A Robin sat on the fence watching us for quite a while. Waiting for me to fill the feeder, then once were indoors, I was delighted to see the Robin, bluetits and a very small bird, could it possibly be a wren? all taking advantage of the food I had put out for them.

To keep moving, I decided to go for a bit of a walk into town. Strangely for me, I didn’t take any pictures of either the high street or the waterfront..

Talking of the birds, as I write this, I’m listening to a delightful podcast about Gilbert White, the 18th-century Century Rector who wrote “The Natural History of Selborne” who might be thought of as the father of recording Natural History. Here’s a link to the podcast; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bwUI6Rh0bE.

I’m now a paid up member of the Gosport Shed. This promises to be very interesting as they do some really interesting trips out. The first of the year being to the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, in Feb. Looking forward to that.

I didn’t get out for a walk today, although I did go into town and meet up with Elayne for lunch at McDonalds. We have some vouchers, except we forgot to take them with us. I had a very nice, but really quite messy burger, that completely fell to bits near the end.

The afternoon was a combination of watching a couple of films. I fell asleep during one, but the other was quite good, and doing the ironing – so at least we got something useful done.

Elayne said something today which caught me by surprise – she’s quite enjoying my not going to work, and being able to do things together. I commented, “so you haven’t developed the urge to kill me yet, then”? She smiled.

Leading on from that, we discussed the lack of structure to the day. We both agreed that we need to do something about that. I for one need to stop going to bed between midnight and 1 AM, because that means we are waking about 7, and not getting up until 9. We need to get to grips with that.

I had a Doctors appointment this morning. We covered a range of topics around my persistent cough and retirement. I felt it was quite useful. I haven’t had a chance to pick up the new medicine but I will do tomorrow. Hopefully, that will help things.

Aurora has been with us overnight. She woke up a couple of times, which was only to be expected, and absolutely fine.

We had a very pleasant lunch in the Gosport Garden Centre.

Aurora went back to Mum and Dad a bit later. It was a very nice but tiring day. Unfortunately I missed the Thursday Night Net, I was snoozing. I’ll try and do better next week.

Why is it, that when i was working, an 8 hour day seemed so long, yet now I am retired it seems so short? it looks like that on a typical day, I am only able to get one or two things done, and then the day is gone – and just for clarity, I am talking about the 9-5 day, even if this is notional in retirement. Even if I don’t have to abide by that day, the working world does, and since it is that world with which I need to interact then I need to go with its flow.

I know what this is going to come down to; it will be my fault. MY day now starts later. The last few monthss of me working saw me at my desk at 0600, now admittedly, i’d stop for a walk at 0800 and might take a slightly extended lunch break. I didn’t massively go over the roughly seven and a half hours that was my working day.

In addition to starting later, I tend to be more relaxed and don’t rush, that means time that might be labelled “wasted”. But, is it me that is saying that time is wasted? If so, then it is up to me to be more useful / productive – what ever.

Do I want or need to do a time and motion analysis of how I use my time? Well, I could – but only if I want to. I’m still in early days, things are in development and so it’s very likely that my useage of time is likely to change quite a bit. So, perhaps I might revisit this question in 6 months time.

I had a couple of things lined up for today, and in the most part, with one exception I didn’t do any of them. I was going to do an e-consult with the Doctor, didn’t get around to it. It’s OK I can do it tomorrow as it’s in readiness for the Thursday appointment.

I was going to do the ironing, and do you know, I just didn’t feel like doing it.

Elayne had gone out for a coffee with her friends, and there was a reason why I couldn’t go out for a walk, but I really can’t remember why that is. When Elayne came back for lunch, we sat in the lounge, and I kept drifting in and out of sleep.

I ran Elayne to her afternoon’s volunteering and came home with the intention of doing something. The closest I got to doing something was watching TV until just before my afternoon medical , which went OK.

I picked Elayne up at around 5PM, and we followed up with a very nice Tuna Pasta Bake. We watched most of an episode of the new Lynley (which we quite like) and then went to the first 2026 Gosport Camera Club evening, which was very pleasant.

Apart from this wretched cough, today has been really quite delightful.

It really doesn’t matter that it was cold, the clear sky gave the sun a chance to share some of its warmth, even if the air had a bite to it. I said hello to several people whilst out on the walk, and we all agreed that it was a lovely day, perfect for a stroll.

It has been successful in another way also; U3A. I’ve paid my subs and sent in my registration, so whilst my membership may not have been registered yet (I’ve had no acknowledgement, but that’s OK, I submitted fairly late in the day. The coffee morning was very informative, and there were 6 prospective members in addition to myself. I suppose the next thing to do is get in touch with the various group owners, and confirm that it is OK for me to turn up. Must admit, not yet sure how that side of it works. I guess I’ll have to find out.

After the meeting, I felt the need to record a little bit of video about how I felt about things. Here’s the link; https://youtu.be/3DQV02WIkjU .

I ended up not going to a cafe for a drink and do my FB post. I guess I should have done, as it ended up being done just a few minutes before my posting of this, which I now have to rush to make sure I keep the daily count going.

We were fairly late to rise, but that was OK, after all, it is Sunday.

Breakfast went well, I’m on a bit of a porridge thing at the moment. We then had a few jobs to do. One of which was to empty the kitchen bins. This meant my first venture into the open for the day.

I didn’t wrap up, as I knew that I wouldn’t be out for more than a few seconds.

The air was chilled beyond cold, but the sun was delightfully warm. I heard the squawking of the Canadian geese and stood and watched a fly over of about 20 of them. They are always a lovely sight, and hearing them squawking to each other is a delight.

It really did make me feel that I should go for a walk. As it happens I didn’t, and I’ve felt guilty about it all day.

Way too late now. Time for bed.

We walked into town again today.

We did the Charity shops.

We ended up at the ferry end of the high street and went in to Cafe #1 for a drink. Cafe#1 is very popular. Understandably so. What with Poppins and the Gallery I’ve now visited 3 Cafes. In Fairness, Cafe#1 is a relatively frequent haunt, so no surprises there.

So, what am I looking for? Why am I working my way around the cafes in town? Well, I can only answer one of those questions at the moment. I’ll be using the cafe on my own most of the time, so I really want something where I feel comfortable and the cafe has a bit of atmosphere. That really is hte subjective bit. I’m not sure what I am looking for, except to say that hopefully I will know it when I find it.

Can’t really say much more than that. .