Bills Posts

I nearly missed posting today. I have been having a discussion with chatGPT, about my political views and beliefs.

All interesting stuff, and I may post a conclusion later, but for now I need to post this before midnight to keep the count going.

I’ll be honest. The picture is from a few years ago, but it serves to illustrate my point.

That point is at the moment, I have practically nothing to sasy about what is going on in town, because I haven’t been out. Apart from a quick trip to the ferry pick up point in the car on Tuesday, I haven’t been out of the house this week, and so have had to resort to old material today.

Apart from feeling rough (although I am hopeful that there are signs of easing symptoms – very slight signs) it doesn’t help that the outside temperature is a low 3C, and the seriously bitter easterly wind has been making it feel like a consistent -3C windchill. Making me very unlikely to go for a walk, even if I did have the energy.

We have had a nice Christmas, and today was a nice relaxing day for Elayne who definitely took advantage to trying to do as little as possible.

Tea was a scaled-down version of yesterday’s meal. I think we will probably be eating like that for a few days. That’s absolutely fine, it was delicious. I’m assuming a degree of normality for tomorrow, but I admit, I’m not entirely sure what that will look like.

What ever, I hope you have had a pleasant couple of days.

May I start by saying that I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas.

It has been both a happy day, full of cheer, happinesss, laughter and the delightful Aurora. But, also as he same time tinged with a hint of sadness. I feel immensely frustrated that I have not been able to help Elayne at all. She has been an absolute stalwart. For that and other reasons, I feel that I have let her down.

We must look forward to the New Year, and get over this lump. The first two and a bit weeks of my retirement, have not been memorable. At one point even Elayne was saying “Go back to work”. I don’t want that.

I want to get over this wretched illness and to be able to look to start doing what I want. That may sound selfish, I suppose it is, but there you go.

It seems that every so often, I forget to do a post and so the count goes back to zero.

Last night then, was a bit different. I made a deliberate decision not to do a post.

Let’s just say that I have been feeling a bit rough, for several weeks now, and last night I just didn’t feel up to it. I really don’t like to go into too much detail. But, it appears that the problem may be a resurgence of an issue I had as a teen. The doctors are on it, so let’s see how things go.

I’m feeling a bit rough at the moment, with a bad cough – it’s really annoying. The doctors are working on it, but nothing conclusive has been found yet.

Today then, I got away with having a lazy day.

We watched a bit of TV, and did the ironing. Elayne went and did the shopping. We now have everything we need for Christmas (or at least, we think we do).

I suspect there will be no walking tomorrow.

I think I have left tonights post too late. I really can’t think of anything to write. I could have wrrittent about having our granddaughter for a good part of the weekend, she was as usual and absolute delight. She has started to walk independently, it’s really lovely to see.

I could also have written about going out for a meal with Alex and Sean. We went to a local Turkish restaurant that we hadn’t been to before. I had a lamb shank with couscous – it was delicious.

It was quite a pleasant weekend.

We were in town today. We took Aurora into town for a walk and stopped for a bit of lunch.

One of the things I want to do is explore the cafes in town. I’m looking for something that could become a regular haunt, which will be happy with me sitting for half an hour or an hour, have a mug of tea and do my Facebook post. It will be my Facebook post. I haven’t been using Facebook for quite a while but I have felt constrained by work and time, and I very much want to start doing them again.

Today then, we went into a restaurant on the high street., I’ve never been there before, and I have to confess that I thought it was just a coffee house. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a reasonably comprehensive menu, with a good range of breakfasts and other meals. Today, we had a Spanish omelette each. Elayne didn’t finish hers, she was more focused on Aurora.

Now, purely in terms of food, I would definitely go back there, and if I could get a window table, that would almost be ideal. Now, I will go back, but I had a bit of a problem with the seat I was in. It was fixed and couldn’t be adjusted. I was a bit cramped and slightly uncomfortable. If all of the seats are like that, I am likely to have a slight problem. I stress, this is not the restaurant’s fault; I am a large person.

So, I’ve made a note of this one, and hope to explore another cafe next week.

I nearly forgot to a post for today, and so I’m now in a bit of a flap trying to get one done. Slightly difficult to think of what to write about as I haven’t really done much today.

I had to go to the pharmacy, on the way, I passed a group of workmen pulling plastic pipes through tunnels between manhole covers. I couldn’t help wondering how they fixed the rope to the pipe, some form of clamp I guess. I didn’t ask as they were busy.

Apart from a bit of a breeze, it’s been quite a nice day, weather was quite balmy.

Over the next day or so, I should have a couple of videos available for YouTube. I promise you, that these videos are so good, that you will want to watch them again and again.

My only real question is; should I put them up? I have put so much effort in to them (and I am known for my tendency to exaggerate in some circumstances, sorry I mean to not exaggerate).

The header picture today was not taken at the Cockle Ponds. It was over the other side of the water, next to the hard where i saw this bike wheel, semi-submerged, which I thought might make an interesting shopt, Especially in mono. It’s almost there already

I’ll have to try it.

I’ll be honest, the header picture bears no connection whatsoever with Waterlooville.

A quick story on how the town got its name as told through Google; Waterlooville got its name from soldiers returning from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, who stopped at a local inn, the “Heroes of Waterloo,” for a celebration, with many choosing to settle in the area, leading to the settlement being named “Waterloo” and later “Waterlooville” to distinguish it from other places with the same name, with the “-ville” added as the community grew into a formal parish. 

I asked if there were any building remaining from that time, and apparently, there are a few. But, it’s really the high street that I want to talk about.

Whilst I can’t give you specific, or even close, numbers of commercial units that aren’t in use, the impression that I get is that there are quite a few. I may even get around to doing a mini survey just to satisfy my curiosity. It just seems a bit sad, really.

It seems that Havant Council have a Master Plan for the town centre, here’s the link; https://www.havant.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-05/Waterlooville%20Draft%20SPD%20Web.pdf

Why the interest, you might ask; The locality in my Locality Stories blog can have a fairly broad brush.