Bills Posts

We went to the Sailmaker for lunnch. I think it was a case of rebellion against cooking and I never complain about having a nice carvery, so that was OK.

Afterwards, we drove down to the waterfront to see what was going on in the Solent, The wind was blowing a bit of a breese, so there was some white water about. We noticed that the Solent appeared to be divided in two, with the water on this side having a distinct brown tint and over towards the Isle of Wight it had a distinct blue colouring, I’m assuming that the colouring on our side was due either to sediment that was being stirred up be the weather – or something much worse.

Either way, it was very nice to just sit there and watch what waas going on. I did check and was surprised to see that there are no cruise liners expected in to Southampton until the end of the month, there’s usually at least one in most days.

We moved around to the sea wall by Haslar, there’s a lot of work being done to the detention centre, it’s covered in scaffolding. The sea was kicking up some real splashes along the wall, I tried to photograph it, but it didn’t work well – timing the main issue.

Nice though to see the Normandie going out, although I think they were probably in for a bit of a bouncy ride once they are in open water.

We went to Salisbury today. Our first port of call was the South Coast Photographic Federation Exhibition. The members of the federation comprise the 66 clubs. For the exhibition, each club selects 6 prints from its members for the display.

I can’t really do justice here to the quality of the pictures on display. they were all lovely, some were special, the remainder were just mindblowing. If I can ever take a picture that compares with any of those, I will be very happy. It was well worth going just for that.

After the exhibition, we had a bit of a wander around the market. I resisted the tempation of trying some of the delicious smelling food on offer as I knew we were going for lunch afterwards. That was at The Bishops Mill, Good pub food, with a very nice Steak and Ale pie with mash (although I did finish of Elayne’s chips).

Once we had managed to rouse ourselves from the lunch table, we headed across to the Catrhedral. I hadn’t thought that we were planning to go in, but Elayne wanted to, and luckily we were able to join a guided tour that was about to begin. Ruth, the tour guide was very good, giving us the rundown on The Magna Carta and Lady Jane Gray’s tome (Catherine Seymour) whom I had just been reading about in my Queen Elizabeth book.

That added a pinch of excitement to the day, we were looking at something that was really quite historic (apart from the cathedral itself of course. An absolutely delightful and fascinating day.

Quite a while ago, I paid a visit to the Motte & Bailey near the Apple Dumpling Bridge in The Alver Valley. It went because I wanted to make a video of the site, but to be honest it was so feeble that I ditched it.

I want to go back and try again to see if I can do it better. with the bridge nearby, it would be a useful opportunity to practice some filming techniques, and of course, talking to the camera.

I might see if I have an opportunity to do something tomorrow.

Being Thursday, tonight was the Thursday Night Net held over the repeater on the Isle of Wight, with it’s connection to the internet, the turnout was pretty good including regulars Bill from Corona, California and Bob from Tennessee.

Dave, G7EPE the Net Controller usually gives a topic for us to ponder and tonight was no exception, and boy, did it spark some memories. The question was basically; when you were growing up were you a leggo (bricks) or Meccano (metal) kid. There was a fair mix of both on the net.

The thing was I can remember a toy I had that involved bricks, but definitely wasn’t Leggo. A little bit of googling soon brought out that it was Airfix Betta Bilda – I knew the toy began with an A, but wasn’t expecting it to be Airfix. Leggo was introduced in the 1930’s Airfix BB was in the early 60’s.

I can remember building a house with it, which fell over with just a bit of a push, because I had build it with bricks as vertical columns, somebody, it may have been Dad, or perhaps one of my sisters showed me how to stagger the bricks making it much stronger.

It really brought back some memories.

In Post 1530 https://localitystories.com/2025/01/07/1515-the-mad-rush/ I wrote about pictures we were putting together for a print competition at the Camera Club. The topic for our group was abstract. 1515 showed one for the two images that I had submitted.

The header picture was the second one I entered. This one, I entitled uplift. I think with hindsight, I could have called the other “Pressure” as it was a very distorted picture of a barometer. Heavily manipulated in Photoshop. This one one the other hand, is a very distorted picture of a leaf floating in the cockle pond. Here’s the original;

Anyhow, my first picture. Entitled UIY1139 (a play on the 1970’s cult science fiction – one on from THX1138 wasn’t massively well received by the judge, who gave it (in my opinion) a rather paltry 7.5.

Today’s picture though was a bit different. For some reason the judge quite liked Uplift and had it held back from giving it an immediate score. Being held back means the judge wants to have another look at the picture at the end of the round. That’s because it may have been in the running for a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or Highly Commended – Not that I expected any of those, let’s be honest, it’s not that good.

As it happens it didn’t get any those instead receiving a more respectable 9 – I was happy with that.

I think I probably need to say something about the judges at these competitions. I’ll save that for a future camera club post.

With myself. We got back from the camera club quite late (I’ll write about the club tonight) we were both tired and pretty much went straight to bed. I read my Queen Elizabeth I book (she’s just been given Mary’s death warrant, it sits on her desk unsigned) for 15 to 20 minutes, turned over and went to sleep really quite quickly.

I slept through until just after 5, I decided not to go for a walk instead we would get up early and give the house a quick going over ready for Elayne’s WI event tomorrow.

I picked up my iPad, as I usually do and when I’d finished looking at the news did a quick review of what’s on at the Tate Modern. There are two exhibitions I’d like to see; Technology and Art before The Internet and photographing Britain in the 1980’s. I’m seriously considering getting membership.

It was roughly around then I realised what it was that has annoyed me. I hadn’t done a blog entry the previous night (so you’ll get two today). The day count then, is reset to zero, and starts again. Really, really annoying.

I managed to get up and go for a walk this morning. I was rewarded when I arrived at the waterfront just in time to see the Spirit of Adventure, a very graceful 58,000 ton ship was gliding in very gently. Lovely to see.

I paused for a couple of minutes to watch the ship and then move on to the Cockle Ponds, where I was greeted by water so still that it’s difficult to tell whether I’ve cheated with this picture;

I have to confess that I came very close to not getting up, it was so warm in bed, I got up yo give Misty a drink, and decided to stay up. As usual, I’m glad I did.

To be accurate, the title words bear no relationship to each other, One begs a question; Does your cat do this? Sits at the door to the toilet, miaowing at you. You open the door, cat goes in, stands there miaowing until you sit on the toilet, trousers down (excuse the detail, it doesn’t happen otherwise) cat stands with it’s back towards you, tail wrapped round your leg as best as any cat can, miaows for a minute or so, and then walks off? No I don’t know why ether.

I attend two regular radio nets, the Thursday Night Net and the C4FM Confusion Net on a Sunday, using the new radio that Meg bought me for Christmas is a delight, it is so nice and clear. The nets themselves are so good, I’d use the word entertaining but that decries the educational and community spirit that the nets contain.

Just an interesting day.

I had bought a gadget through Amazon, when it turned up, I realised that it wasn’t quite what I wanted. I went onto Amazon and set up the return, which I have to say is very easy, and one aspect of the service that I find quite impressive.

Anyhow, I had to take the gadget to a drop off point, it’s a shop which is close to the waterfront. I took an opportunity to walk in to town, and have a look and see what was going on, just as a side, I walked down the high street doing a talk to the camera, I have to confess it was a bit nerve-wracking, but it was OK.

I did the drop off, all went OK, and then decided to go for a stroll along the waterfront, and head back to Morrison’s. There was a model yacht event, today involved trimarans. There was a bit of a breeze blowing along the pond, it always impresses me is the way these little boats get up a fair turn of speed both with and against the winds.

A flock of geese came wheeling and squawking over the ponds, finally settling on the smaller one, probably 30 – 40 geese, it was a lovely sight.

It’s a picture of a bunch of exhausted pups at the end of the Tuesday evening photo session, they were looking seriously cute.

The weekend is coming up. Not sure what we are going to do yet. We aren’t planning to go far though. Possibly in to town, to have a look at what is going on at the market.

We had KFC tonight. It made a bit of a change, we always order too much, so there’s some for lunch tomorrow.