Bills Posts

Monday to Friday I usually get out for a walk. When I get home I like to do a facebook post. Whilst I’m on the walk I like to look at what is happening on the walk. When I went through the phase of note getting up, which lasted I reckon 15 months, I was always humbled by the number of people that said that they missed my posts. People would in the most unusual circumstances pop and ask when I was going to start posting again. I was upset that I had stopped, but now I am walking again, I have restarted the facebook posts, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed doing them.

On the walk, I am looking for anything that is changing, changes to shop fronts, building work pretty much anything really. One thing though, was what I was doing boring? Well. That was pretty much dispelled by one of my friends who lives in California who said that he had enjoyed my following of the construnction of the new Gosport Interchange (Bus Station).

What I would like to do is find out if there are any other public or commercial construction projects underway elsewhere in town and I could report on those. It wouldn’t be as often as the town centre, perhaps once a week. I’m still looking in to that.

Nature as well, what’s happening there. Now the other thought that occured to me was that although I do the facebook thing Monday to Friday, could I use that text as a basis for contributing to vlogging. I’ve had a lot of thoughts on that.

I needed to break out of the serious focus on the vlogging, which has been a bit of an obsession for me recently, mainly because it’s fun, I enjoy doing it, and it is frustrating because of the talking to the camera thing, which I think is improving, but it’s a slow process – for me at least.

I went out this morning with the intention of recording a number of video segments and then, sometime over the next few days, putting some effort into bringing them together into a single production of 5 – 6 minutes and putting it on YouTube. I’ve been reviewing what I recorded and I still sound a little bit presenter-ish, but I am getting better, and nowhere near freezing as much when there are people around. That’s also helping when I’m doing the amateur radio thing.

I really quite enjoyed this morning, and I do get quite a bit of encouragement from my friends, which is really nice. It makes me want to do it more. Fridays though is radio day, so that’s fine. I will try and spend a bit of time editing things together.

One thing that I do want to get to grips with, though, is getting the YouTube channel as discoverable as possible – SEO, Search Engine Optimisation. Making the site easily discoverable. That’ll open up another learning curve.

The blog that is. More and more more recently, I have found myself thinking about the content of my posts, and whether or not they bore any readers (I think there are about 70 of you the last time I checked). You don’t have to answer these questions but why do you follow me (don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that you do) – If I know you personally, and there are at least two, and family don’t reply, but if you just found my blog, I am genuinely curious. I probably shouldn’t be asking these questions, so I’m sorry if it disturbs you.

Where I have been thinking about my audience, I have to a degree, well, several degrees actually, bee limiting what I write. At the moment for example my current obsession is vlogging. I could very easily have gone on for a couple of weeks about it.

My plans are reasonably well developed in some respects, for example I have got the format laid out quite clearly in my mind. There are a couple of things I need to practice, so I may put together a few clips.

Tuesday night was camera club night we each had 3 images in competition number 8, the last full competition for the season. There’s one more thing to do and that is the exhibition, where photos go on public display in the discovery centre (the library).

I really didn’t do well, my lowest score, a 6, but. I also got a 9. I was ok with that.

Elayne did better than I did. Getting her 3rd third place, we were both very pleased. I’ll see if Elayne will let me share her successful picture.

It was a very enjoyable evening for the club.

I’ve taken a bit of a kind of imposed break in the reading of my history book, Rebellion, which covers the Stuarts from the time of Jame’s coronation of James VI of Scotland as James I of England in 1567. Through to the start of the English Civil War.

We’ve been having some decorating done, and our bed doesn’t currently have a headboard,so I can’t prop up my pillows. Laying pretty much flat on my back trying to read what is a quite heavy book has not been very practical. Hence, I’ve had to stop.

Instead, I am reading a paperback, much more manageable this one is about TED Talks, how to do them – really it’s about how to do public speaking. I bought it because I like the style of the writing, it is very easy to read, apart from being very informative.

I managed to get out for a walk this morning, even though I was really quite tired. Not having a rough night, just waking up and Elayne wanting and making a cup of tea. I did get back to sleep, but managed to wake up in good enough time that I felt able to get out.

I’m glad I did, the light down at the waterfront really was lovely, even if the air was cold.

It’s 2130, it’s dark and I’ve just realised that I don’t have a recent picture of the garden.

The weather has been glorious, bright warm sunshine. We got out in the garden. Cut the grass, Elayne has been cutting back bushes. We filled the. Brown bin. It’ll annoy Elayne that the bin isn’t due to be emptied until a week on Tuesday.

It’s Mothering Sunday today – we. Knew that the chances of getting a table would be non-existent, so we didn’t try. But we did go to the garden centre hoping to get a hot meal – no chance we were too late, the servers was cold.

We came back and had Brains faggots, peas and potatoes. Lovely.

I went to Dorset today. It was lobvely to see the family. We had fish and chips for the chippy on South Street, that used to be my favourite after having been to the Rex (the cinema).. I’d get a pastie and chips – I used to like their pasties. Lunch was very nice.

It was lovely to have a wander around the town. I have no idea if I saw somebody I might have known. We reminisced about the different shops that have closed down or, indeed, may still be running. I even bought something in a shop that is celebrating its 100th anniversary of business this year.

We had a walk around the market on the quayside of the River Frome. These three ducks made me chuckle. They were a literal demonstration of the expression “Swimming against the tide” and staying perfectly still. They seemed entirely nonchalant about their zero progress.

This last picture is of St Mary’s Church – this is a special place for our family. Many memories, both happy and sad were created here.

As I type this, I’m trying not to fall asleep. I’ve done that usual Friday thing of leaving this too late.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. Other than feeling tired I didn’t have a good excuse. It had been raining though.

After the washing machine broke down the repair man didn’t take the drum so I had a trip to the recycling centre this afternoon it was at 4pm. The traffic was bad.

Sorry, I’m rambling. Goodnight.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been walking around the cockle ponds and there has been an Egret feeding. They are very nervous birds and would normally fly away as soon as I got within about 40 yards. This morning, as the ponds were being emptied, this one was seriously focused on the bottom of the pond and completely ignored me. Even when I was within about 10 feet it didn’t budge and it was me that walked away rather than it flying off, which is the right way it should be.

Anyhow, last night, I made the effort to get to the latest council meeting The instructions say to arrive at the chambers by 1750. I had to rush and arrived at 1754, I really didn’t expect to get in, but luckily, one of the councillors was running almost late, and let me in. The meeting started at 1800.

I guess the main thing that was discussed was the Governments proposal for devolution, that is changing the local government structure, merging smaller authorities into bigger units. The council were against anysuch move, as were members of hte other parites.

In the end though it turned into one of hte shortest meetings I’ve been to yet, closing at 1825, not even half an hour. Still it was interesting, and I shall look to go to the next one.

The Camera Club held a Macro (close-up) session, so we took our cameras and macro lenses. The session was well attended and there were four table set up with different aspects that we could play with. The header picture is not really a macro picture,, but it is one of the best I’d taken.

I’m not making excuses but it was the first time I had really used the lens in anger. What becomes clear is that I need to practice – a lot.

It was good though that I had an opportunity to use the lens under controlled circumstances. Tomorrow’s post will be about tonight’s council meeting which I managed to attend.