Bills Posts

We went for a family visit today. On a bit of a random basis we went for a pub lunch, a pub called The Silent Woman. We had the Sunday Roast, Elayne and Meg had the Roast Beef, I had the Pork.

I’m quite happy to say that it was one of the best pub roasts I have had in a Very long time. There was no scrimping on anything, even the gravy. Really quite delicious, It’s not the first time we’ve been to the Silent Woman, the food has always been good, this was excellent.

Every time we go to the pub, we always wonder about the name, and where it came from. It appears that the pub was once a smugglers haunt, and a woman who lived or worked there had a reputation for being a bit talkative. The smugglers, to make sure she stayed quiet, the smugglers cut out her tongue.

That’s a bit gruesome.

I buy too many books. I buy more books than I can read, because I start reading a book, and whilst I read it, I happen to look at something on the net and a book recommendation pops up. I look at it and think “that looks like a book I’d like to read” and whilst I don’t do it for every book recommendation (that would be unsustainable, I would run out of money very quickly).

I’ve bought two books this week, the book before this was bought 10 December. I am actively reading that, and will finish it.

The two books I bought today, one about landscapes is a reference book. I may read it cover to cover, but I am more likely to refer to it. The other is entertainment. It will go on my book pile and I will read it after the current book (I’ve read a previous book by the author, it’s funny and entertaining so I will be reading it – OK, it’s Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell).

Also, I’m running out of space to store my books. My book shelves are a bit rammed.

I just like books!

I want to explore what I am going to call the Gosport Peninsula. I’m sure that isn’t the correct name for this area of land, but it serves my purpose, so it will do for now.

I was writing something elsewhere, and I wrote that I thought this area was boring from a geographical point of view, being very flat. Of course that is wrong. I was reminded of this as we drove on the A27 past Titchfield, going up the hill towards Southampton. The hill up to Fareham is just as high. Then there are places like The Alver Valley, and The Haven,

All of these put the lie to my assertion of boring. There are many features worth pursuing. I really should get to it.

Social media is a magic tool for keeping friends and family informed, and I love it for that. It can also be a monumental time waster. How many times have you been scrolling through any one of the various apps, only to find that an hour, or possibly even two have gone? Don’t get me wrong, there are times when that might be ok. But also I am very aware of even 15 minutes might be too long.

I end up getting frustrated with my ipad, which I happen to think is the most incredible device, and I love it, but I’m not being productive with and it’s that feeling of lack of productivity that frustrates me. So, what to do about it?

I guess, instead of scrolling through posts there are loads of free courses from some very respectable institutions, sites like free learn and coursera provide courses that can last three or four weeks with about four hours of study per week covering many subjects. Why not look at them?

It’s just doing something useful that I need to do. I don’t include my blog in the list of un-useful activities of course. I love doing that, even if I do get frustrated when there’s nothing obvious to write about.

On the 23rd of March, 23 We let Rascal go. You’d think that after not far short of two years, I’d be able to write about him without tearing up. What sparked this off today was news about another loved cat who has left us – not ours, my sisters – Clover.

Who are these creatures that come in to our lives and then leave us after way too few years. In the meantime, we shower them with love and food, and they give their haughty looks, their zoomies at 3AM and the muddy paw-prints on the newly washed pillow case & quilt cover.

The pain of the loss when they go is monumental, but then you remember the times when Rascal stole the filter sponge from Mike & Lynn’s pond. Or the time when he came home with something wrong with his eye, he’d either caught it on a bush or had been in a fight.

On that day, I held him in my arms as he went to sleep. His ashes are with Droplets, in their bush at the bottom of the garden. We sit with them in the summer months.

They are just cats, but my god, the love…

The last evening if the year, and it’s party night. But that doesn’t mean going wild. Some pleasant company, not really talking photography. We have some ding-bats to solve, of which I managed to get a few, usually I’m rubbish at those.

We did have some “What is it” photos to look at, taken by Mick, he’s pretty much the club expert at abstracts, so he did some excellent pictures. A couple were really confusing, that was pretty entertaining.

The quiz was put together by one of the members was very good we all enjoyed it. We did manage to get some right, but I’m not going to linger on the end result.

An excellent buffet spread was supplied, which was very pleasant. All in, it was a very pleasant evening. We are back in on the 7th of Jan and we have to take our print submissions for the next competition which will be on the 14th. The subject for our group is Abstract – that should be interesting.

Whether I will go for a walk in the morning really depends upon how I feel when it’s time to get up. This’d morning, that wasn’t an issue, I got up at 0546, and managed to get out.

It wasn’t a very eventful walk, perhaps the one thing was as I walked by One thing that did stick in my mind was as I was walking past one housing block were the five shopping trollies locked together lined up outside.

The trollies were from two different shops, I could tell because of the colour of the handles. I couldn’t help wondering how long that would go on. Will they still be there the next time I walk? I wonder if the neighbours know who is taking them? I was asking myself why as as a community they allow it to happen?

I didn’t see any ships come in, the Gosport Ferry was working though. That’s about it really.

You might be aware that over the last few months, if I talk about the book that I’m reading it has been a history book. I wanted to find out about the Plantagenets so I bought Dan Jones’ book on the subject. I’m going to describe it as an easy read, in the sense that the book was easy to pick up and carry on reading. It’s a long book so at an average of 5 – 10 pages per night, you can imagine it took me a bit of time to get through.

When I finished it it felt reasonable to extend the reading to The Wars of the Roses. I found that I really liked Dan Jones’ style of writing, and luckily he had written a book about the topic, and included the rise of the Tudors. I felt that gave me enough to focus my reading a little more, and so the next (historical) book I will be reading is one about Queen Elizabeth I. Now, here comes the dilemma;

I’ve never been really sure about my politics, now, I have made a point of staying away from writing about politics, mainly because it upsets people and I don’t want to do that (in the event that people actually start reading this blog, I know I have a few readers and I am very grateful for you, and I don’t want to upset you, so I tend to not discuss it. But the book that I also want to read is British political ideologies – I figured, if I understood them, it might help me work out where I am.

I don’t intend to write here about what I find out about them, but I will be having some conversations with ChatGPT. The dilemma is that I want to read both books, but can’t do it at the same time. I guess it’s going to take a bit of time to work through them.

I went over to the Isle of Wight today, to have lunch with my friends from the Isle of Wight Radio Society.

Last week, I’d bought a ticket for the foot ferry from Portsmouth to Ryde Pier, the particular ferry was due to depart at 0915, but the company that runs the ferry, WightLink, are quite flexible, they don’t mind if you turn up before, so instead of the 0915, I wanted catch the 0815 (same boat, it’s a quick journey).

I missed the bus that I needed to get me to the Gosport ferry terminal.

I missed the Gosport Ferry that i needed to get the 0815 Catamaran.

As I was waiting for the next ferry, I could see the cat coming in to the harbour. By the time the Gosport ferry berthed on the Portsmouth side, the cat had docked, unloaded loaded and was docking, so I was getting off the Gosport ferry just as the boat I wanted to catch was untying and reversing out.

Which meant that I ended up catching the ferry that I had actually booked.

But I got to the bottom (landward) end of the pier just in time to see the next No. 9 bus pulling off.

Luckily, I only had to wait 10 minutes for the next bus.

The bus ride had been excellent, I’d had time to have a bit of a wander around the high street.

It was really nice to see my friends at the Bargeman’s Rest in Newport, the food had been excellent.

I was able to get the correct ferry back.

Sat in the chair in front of the TV, watching YouTube, Elayne has gone out for a meal with her friends from the shop where she volunteers.

I’ve just fallen asleep with the ipad on my lap and when I jerked awake, the case went in direction, and the ipad in the other. Luckily, everything is OK, but I am now too tired to put down anything else tonight. I will try to do better tomorrow.