Bills Posts

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.

You might have to try and expand this image to see what it is. A picture of the Portsmouth waterfront, taken as a panorama, but not in the usual way.

This time, I had the phone mounted on the monopod, base of the stick stayed still, but I swept the phone in a large arc. It has worked, but I think I will have to research them-do it in daylight to get a better effect.

There are a couple of other ways of using Panorama mode, gives a quite surreal effect, I’ll have a play with those as well. I might even suggest surreal to the camera club as a competition for next year. Not the same as abstract.

I went to a Gosport Borough Council meeting tonight. I had read through the agenda pack which had been published last week. To be honest I expected it to be a bit frosty, and whilst everybody was unfailingly polite that did not prevent the offering of barbs.

The last meeting I went lasted barely an hour, tonights session was two and a quarter. It was quite interesting though. I already knew that MacDonalds was returning to the High Street, but also Bon Marche as well, which will please Elayne. We were also told about a new butchers and grocers that are to open on North Cross Street.

The controversy was about the 24 hour CCTV that had been cut by the previous council, the conservative group were calling for its re-introduction, and were rightly accused of hypocrisy (actually, my word – but that was what it was) and people from Alverstoke are not happy about flood defences. Understandable.

There were about ten people like me, sat in the public gallery. One of them had brought popcorn. Obviously expecting an entertaining evening. I had the agenda pack up on my phone. That was quite handy for keeping up with the proceedings. There were a couple of things that I didn’t understand though. So I’ll have to research them. All in all, very interesting. I’ll look to see when the next one is due.

I finished The Wars of the Roses Monday Night, and was pondering what to look at next on my journey through the 16th & 17th centuries. I was debating whether to skip over the Elizabethan era, straight towards the end of the Stuarts, possibly picking with Pepys.

But then I listened to a brief YouTube offering on the Elizabethan period, and it seems there was a lot of drama during her rain (if anybody who knows their history is reading this, they are probably cringing at my woeful ignorance and the description of “quite a lot of drama”) sorry about that.

Frustratingly, Dan Jones, the author of the Plantagenets book and the Wars of the Roses books that I have just read doesn’t have a book covering the Elizabethan Era, so I have to look elsewhere, so have gone for Anna Whitelock and her Elizabeth’s Bedfellows. Given that Elizabeth was known as the virgin queen, that should be interesting.

I did pause over the title for tonights post. I almost called it “Vlogging”, because I think that is a bit limiting, because there are many things on my mind. I hasten to add that most of it is good or very good.

I’m after a piece of music, the only snag is I don’t want to pay for it. If you ever watched Jack Hargreaves and his Out of Town series, the introduction music evokes that feeling of being in the country. That’s what I want, something that reminds me of the being amongst the fields and the trees, listening to the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees, the skylark twittering over head.

Also, I’ve caught myself looking in the window of a particular shop on Stokes Road. It is a second (possibly 3rd, 4th, even 10th) hand shop for unusual objects. One segment of my vlog will be interesting and strange object of the week, or month – whichever.

Just to confuse the issue, the picture was taken yesterday. Not much going on today. We had our GrandDaughter over for the night and the best part of the day. It really is a delight to watch how she changes over the first few months. We were able to give her back to Mum and Dad at the Chairmakers, a pub in Denmead, that does a rather fine carvery.

Having had a very nice meal, it’s time to sit back with lovely company,m enjoy a cup of coffee or tea and then head for home. Having fed the cat, I was set up to go on the Confusion net for an hour, which was enjoyable.

I’ve now finished the Dan Jones’ The Wars of the Roses and am now faced with a quandary. Do I find books relating to the Elizabethan (the First, that is) and the Stuart eras, do I read Pepys’ diaries, or do I jump straight to the Civil War? In the meantime, I haven a couple of other unrelated reading projects that I am interested in, so I am doing a bit of time slicing with them.

I might give the history thing a rest for a(nother) book, before coming back to it.

Storm Darragh has been blowing a bit of a hoolie, just a tad of a gale. THe Isle of Wight ferries have all been cancelled, which really kiboshed one aspect of the day. Much to our dismay and annoyance.

Friends from along the south coast and the Isle of Wight were due to join me today at the Royal Maritime Club in Portsmouth for breakfast. The cancellation of the ferries meant that only the “mainlanders” were able to make it.

I have to confess that I wasn’t sure if the Gosport ferry would be running. I did check Twitter (X) to see if the ferry people were saying anything. They weren’t and as it happens there were no issues with the ferry.

Breakfast was lovely, although it had had a bit of a price increase from £9.95 to £12.50. Still it was a buffet breakfast, and very nice too.

It was seriously lovely to see my friends from the radio amateurs community, the only sadness was that the Isle of Wight contingent was missing. The upside of that is that we will have to do it again. It looks like the end of January could be on the cards.

Not too bothered though. Next Saturday is the Isle of Wight Radio Society Christmas meal, on the island. So a trip across for me. Which reminds me, I need to book my ticket.