Bills Posts

I have been chomping at the bit to go to a full council meeting since the last one. I must admit that after tea it was later than I wanted so I had to rush to the council offices, which luckily are only about 12 minutes away.

I did a little bit of preparation, downloading the agenda pack for the meeting so that I could access it with my iPad in aeroplane mode. My Apple pencil was charged and I was ready to take notes. I also had a notepad with me that I could use.

The session started well, it came out that there were three motions to go through, including a deputation, they were;

• Support for the Climate And Nature Bill
• Support for the “Hands Off Gosport” Campaign
• Support for the Stubbingtonn Study Centre (which is threatened with closure by Hampshire County Council

I knew I would start having problems when the discussions around the motions were finished and the council was ready to move on to the next agenda item. By then it was around quarter past 8, and we had only just scratched the agenda.

With the introduction of next year’s budget and the associated 20-minute speech, followed by the twenty or so minutes offered by the opposition, it was now past 9PM, and discussions around the budget had only just begun and there were at least four or five other items left on the agenda, meaning we could easily be there for another two hours.

Too much I’m afraid. It would be too late, and so, much to my dissatisfaction, I decided to leave. One other thing I wanted to do was after the meeting had (fully) finished, I was going to sit out on the high street and record a few minutes of video giving my impression of the meeting.

Well, I did that – but to be honest it was more about how the whole thing went, but I recorded about 10 minutes worth, which will of course never see the light of day on YouTube.

Tonights Camera Club competition was “Open” for our group, which mean that we could choose any picture we wanted. Mine was the header picture, which I had called “Reflect or photoshop”? Under normal circumstances, the judge would look at it and say It’s a perfectly good reflection and that would be it. But because I’d asked the question the judge paused to think and look at the picture, and said those magic words “I’d like to hold that one back”.

Elayne also had some pictures in the same competition. Now, she has said that I’m not allowed to use her picture, because someone might steal it, because when the judge saw the image, he was really quite taken with it (it is a good picture), and uttered once again, those magic words “I’d like to hold that one back”.

Now, when a judge holds a picture back, that means that once all of the pictures have been seen, they go back to those which have been held because they want to have another look at them and the picture might be in for an award; First, Second, Third or Highly Commended.

I knew that my picture might be technically good, but it wasn’t really special. His second look resulted my picture being scored at 9 – that is 9/10. Good, but not high enough for an award. Of course, I’d be lying if I said that I was fine with not getting an award, who doesn’t want to get one. But, in reality, I knew what the situation with my picture was and it really didn’t deserve an award.

From this you could by now have deduced that if I got a nine, and the title of today’s post 9 and a Third, the Elayne must have got a Third, which means that at the next club night, she’ll get a certificate. You could also conclude that I am very, very proud of her.

I was out for my morning walk. I pretty much followed my normal route. I was quite surprissed at how few people were out and about. Even at the ferry,

I did a little bit of videoing but apart from that and the Gosport Ferry there was absolutely nothing going on, no ships moving not even a fishing vessel of a private craft. The walk had been normal up to the point I reached the bottom of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. For some reason, I decided to walk up to the end. Something that I have only done a couple of time in the last 15 or so months. Nothing special about it, it was just nice to do it.

When I got back onto dry land, I was going to record a bit of video, but the Morning Chorus was really building up to a beautiful crescendo, much better to listen to than me rabbitting on about something trivial.

I haven’t done anything on Facebook for quite a while but as I was walking by the side of the cockle pond I was suddenly taken by the thought of putting something on FB. Well, I didn’t do it this morning but if I feel the same way tomorrow (assuming I go for a walk) and I have time, I think I will put up something.

As you read tonights post, you will very quickly realise that the picture bears absolutely no link to any of the content of the retest of the post, except perhaps the picture shows the underneath of something, but that link is so tenuous as to be ridiculous.

We paid a visit to our Dorset family today, celebrating Meg’s birthday. We had a lovely meal in the Kings Arms in Stoborough. I cant even remember if I have been inside the pub before. I do though cclearly remember being served through hte window in the car park, the window I think was the off licence part, I can remember buying cockles and (not at the same time) crisps and a pickled egg, and also I seem to recall, the occasional pork pie.

It’s always nice to go to that part of the world, I know it so well. Perhaps the main feature is Creech Barrow, perhaps the highest point in the Isle of Purbeck. But even that has sunk, as the result of mining of clay.

As a kid I can remember sitting by the roadside watching the clay lorries drive by loaded. Do you know, I can’t remember them driving back empty – but they must have come back the same way.

One of the features now very popular with tourists is the Blue Pool. created out of one of the clay pits I’ve just been informed via ChatGPT that the pool is 30ft (9m) deep. Strange, I thought it was much deeper than that. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of the pool. All interesting stuff.

I went over to Portsmouth this morning. Some of our friends from the Isle of Wight Radio Society came over and we went to the Royal Maritime Club for breakfast. TRhe RMC does a very nice buffet breakfast which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially as I didn’t have to pay for it. One of our friends from California, KF4MCG Bill had very generously sent the money across for us. As we usually did (we’ve done this three times now), we retired to the comfy chairs in the central area and sat there for at least an hour, just chatting away. If they come to fruition, Steve M0RQD The Repeater Keeper for GB3IW has some very exciting plans.

After we finished, I walked up to Commercial Road, and spent a bit of time in Waterstones. I always look in the new book section., and a book leapt out at me; The Meteorite Hunters by Joshua Howgego. The book title gives you the subject. I had a look around upstairs but didn’t find anything. Any how, I was heading out of the store, and thought Nope, I”m going to have another look at that book, and of course I bought it.

I wasn’t sure where the fast bus for Fareham stops in the town centre, it was easier to get a bus back to the hard at Gun Wharf, found that the X5 was due to depart after about 15 minutes, I got the book out and started reading. Very good it is too. It also saw me through the journey to Fareham. When you add into the trip, an E1 from Fareham to Gosport, I used my bus pass three times today. So apart from the book, it was a cheap day. Very Nice.

I’ve just had a quick look back at the posts I’ve made over the last week. Of the seven posts three are about reasonable topics and four are slightly more than just marking time. Well, that’s how I feel.

The trip to Salisbury, the Camera Club and what we did on Sunday are reasonable posts.

The trouble is, there are things (well, to be honest, mostly one thing) that I want to write about, and I know that there are a number of you out there who read my posts (thank you for that by the way). What I don’t want to do is bore you by droning on about talk to the camera or vlogging. they are the focus of my mind at the moment.

Even last night, when I really should have been able to do a good post The Thursday Night Net, which was an hour and a half of fun chat, education and yes, entertainment. I’m making excuses but part of the reason for the OK, but not really good post was my being a bit tired.. Bit of a feeble excuse really.

One good thing has come out of the week, is that I managed to get out for four walks, admittedly, one of them was an afternoon rather than morning and I didn’t go this morning because it was raining.

I’ve been preparing for the council meeting next week. I’ve had a read through the agenda pack – not every word. There was a long attachment about council tax, the implementation more than the regulations. I don’t know what the implications are for Gosport. i’ve downlooaded the pack to the ipad, I am going to try and keep up in the meeting. I have a plan for when the meeting closes. I’m going to take the tripod and set ujp and talk about interesting points. just get my views on video close to the event. One thing I will be looking for are points and barbs (is that two things)?

I’d like to say that I will do better next week. Will I though?

Thursday Night is TNN Time. TNN is the Thursday Night Net. Conducted via a repeater on the Isle of Wight. Tonight, there were 12 people on the net. The question asked tonight was an interesting one; how do you explain Amateur Radio (AR) to the public. That isn’t meant to imply that “the public” is stupid, it definitely isn’t.

I started writing about how the repeater worked, but realised as I was typing that what I was saying really wouldn’t make sense. But I realised as I started to explain how a repeater worked that I was still leaving out a level of information. After I got four paragraphs down, I deleted them all, because they really didn’t. make sense.

Beyond saying it is very educational and quite simply fun, it’s not as easy as you might think. I’ll think about it and have another go, another night.

I managed to get out for a walk this morning. I know the title of tonight’s post says between the rain, and although it had rained at one point, I couldn’t tell you how big the gap was between the two rainy periods.

I’m reading the Agenda Reports Pack for the upcoming Gosport Borough Council meeting due for 5 Feb. I thought I would go, and hopefully make some notes commenting on how it went. That should be interesting.

The walk this morning went OK, I have to say not particularly exciting, no ships coming in, just the Gosport Ferry doing its thing between us and Portsmouth. At least the sky is brightening in the east. That’ll be adding some light to the morning photos.

I went out for a walk this afternoon, when I’d finished for the day. I thought I would have dinner out as we were going to the camera club this evening.

One the “You Tubers” I watch is a lady called Kim Grant, she’s a photographer from Scotland, and does videos that a kind of mix of photography and mindfulness. Anyhow, last week, she was just chatting away and mentioned something called “Sunset Snacking” as it sounds, having a snack watching the sunset. I thought that sounded quite nice. I thought I’d give it a go, so I bought sausage & chips from our favourite chippy, and sat on the waterfront eating them and doing a talk to the camera at the same time.

There are in my store 17 minutes of video of me stuffing my face and talking about talking to the camera and my plans for vlogging. Don’t worry – it will never see the light of day on YouTube, but it is the most relaxed I have been in front of the camera in a public space.

We had an interesting evening at the club, three of the members gave us brief talks on their journey towards gaining certifications from The Photographic Association of Great Britain (PAGB) and the Royal Photographic Society. We saw some amazing pictures and learned a lot about the process of gaining a certification, and the quality of the work needed. It also brought home how totally subjective judging photographs is. All good, interesting stuff though.

The Sun set snacking? A nice idea, but I’m not very good at it. By the time I had sat down to eat, the sun had already set and even worse, I was facing due east, I wouldn’t have seen it anyway. I guess I’ll just have to have another go.

If you are able to have a closer look at the fronds of the palm trees you’ll see that they are a bit blurry. That’s not my shaking the camera. The walk was a bit windy. A very brisk south westerly. There was quite a nip in the air.

I was down for lunch when the heavens opened, hail – I haven’t seen a storm like that for a very long time, The house literally shook with the thunder, I caught the lightning and counted 8 seconds before the clap.

The ground was covered in hail. I went out a bit later and checked the rain gauge. 20mm since yesterday morning.

After all that it was quite a pleasant walk.