Bills Posts

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.

I went for a walk this morning. It was the third time this week I’d been out. Quite exceptional for recent time. I think it was because I had something I wanted to do.

I needed to take some kit out with me on the walk, I reached a point where I felt comfortable getting set up, where I thought there wouldn’t be the likelihood of a lot of people passing by.

Having got my tripod and phone set up I added the other piece of kit and started videoing. I tested, and thought it worked. I videoed, which involved my moving a little distance away. I came back and looked at what I’d done.

It was quite clear that it hadn’t worked. I had no idea. I think I found out though, it looks like the iphone camera doesn’t support what I wanted to do. I’m exploring this. It was also clear that I didn’t know how all the controls on the kit worked.

I will have another go.

I keep a kind of diary. I fill it in when I go to feed the birds. It’s kept in the shed. There isn’t much in it; whether or not it rained since I last wrote in the diary (there are quite a few times when there consecutive days where I have not filled the diary in). Minimum, current and maximum temperatures (I moved the thermometer in to the shed whilst the builders were about, so I doubt the validity of data over the last couple of months. I really must get it back outside. How much cloud in the part of the sky I can see, measured in 8ths. Not sure why the weathermen do that, must find out. Finally, the wind direction; using my weather stations wind vane and a very convenient neighbours flag, and force measured with the Beaufort scale, helped again by the neighbours flag.

I’ve bought a new diary (A5, week per view) for 2025. Strangely The Works wasn’t selling those this year, so I got it off Amazon. I’m quite excited at the prospect of getting the 2024 diary in and analysing the data, even if it isn’t wholly accurate.

I took the header picture on this morning’s walk. It’s another of those I can’t explain why I like it photos. Perhaps it’s the lines in the clouds, the reflections in the water and the land. It was taken across the Cockle ponds, from the North East corner, looking south.

Two pictures for the price of one today. I was down at the waterfront as the Commodore Clipper came in. Very nice to see her.

There wasn’t a lot going on along the high street, but as I was walking along the promenade and turning towards Trinity Church, I could very clearly hear the Morning Chorus, it was as it always is, quite lovely.

I was very grateful for my new coat, I was as snug as a bug in a rug. Well, all except my ears. I had my flat cap on, so my head was OK, but I need to do something about my ears. I did have a blue balaclava. It had been made from recycled plastic, but it didn’t feel like that, plus it was really warm. I haven’t worn it for a couple of years, and I have no idea where it is. So it looks like I may have to buy a new one.

When you are researching a book, you get a licence to do things that under normal circumstances might be considered quite mad, and given opportunities to talk about them with reasonableness.

I am researching a book (or at least, pretending to) whether it will ever get fully written or not I do not know. In the meantime though, I have the opportunity to research a number of are generally called Pseudoscientific hypotheses or para scientific beliefs. I think these two terms are intentionally derogatory, and so I prefer the friendlier term Earth Mysteries.

If I am seriously to write this book then I need to explore at least three of these earth mysteries. They are; The existence of UFO’s, the existence of Ley Lines and Earth Energies and dowsing, a means by which such energies and therefore Ley lines can be found.

If then, I am to research these earth mysteries what do I need to do? Well, I have to confess that I have bought a set of dowsing rods! I can Dow dowsing anywhere, who knows what I will find here in Gosport? I have been finding out how to use them – they haven’t arrived yet, but if you are in Gosport and you see me walking around with them, stop and say hello.

As for UFO’s I feel I should spend at least part of a night at an ancient site, perhaps Knowleton. But, I would like a portable chair that rotates so that I can scan all of the visible sky. And for part of the night, I do mean past midnight.

One of the things that Elayne and I enjoy about the camera club is that usually, every month ends with a walk offering photographic opportunities and lunch at a nice pub. Yesterday was no exception.

Swanwick lakes are the usual thing, a nature reserve that is the result of the extraction of a lot of gravel or in this case, I think it was clay. I guess there is an argument to be had for wouldn’t it be better to not extract the clay, but leave things as they are and let nature happen? Things don’t work like that though do they?

Fortunately, in these cases, places like here at Swanwick and Paxton pits near St Neots end up as wildlife havens. So I’m not complaining.

We had planned to walk and then have lunch, but because of the rain we changed it around. Meeting at the Elm Tree Inn 8 of us from the club were out for the day. The lunch was excellent. I had the Chicken, Leek & Ham pie, Elayne had the Roast Beef with all the trimmings. Pudding was Sticky Toffee pudding with custard – of course I checked how they served the custard as usually establishments just give a token amount. They very kindly brought out a small jug so I had the right amount.

On then to the walk. It turns out that eating first then walking isn’t ideal for me, after a meal like that I could have done with a snooze, but wee got going. The rain held off and we took some care at the couple of places where it got muddy. We ended up splitting from the group as we needed to return home, and of course at some point we took a wrong turn and were momentarily lost, but we soon found the correct path.

It really was a most enjoyable day.

Annoyingly, I missed a post yesterday, and I’ve just realised that I missed commenting on post 1465 – which represented 4 years of (enumerated) blogging. Which also should have happened on 14 August. The difference between the two is the number of days that I missed a blog post, it’s around a hundred.

The day started with a visit to kwik-fit to try and work out whether we had a broken typer pressure sensor or a very slow puncture. Luckily it was the latter, apparently a very small nail in the tread. Within a very few minutes, I was on my way home.

Off to a Christmas craft fair. I did go in for a couple of minutes but quickly realised it wasn’t my thing and as agreed with Elayne I retired to the car, with her taking as long as she wished. I was quite happy, I had my War of the Roses book and magazine and a book that I had discovered in amongst Elayne’s university books that I am quite eager to read. Of course, I go back to the car got set up and promptly fell asleep. Well, not quite I did manage to get a few pages read.

I then dropped Elayne off at Trinity Church for her to go to another fair, whilst I took the car home and walked down the high street. There was a nice market going on and the street was very busy. We eventually met up at Coffee #1.

We got home, and sat in front of the TV for an hour before I got on with the Christmas letter. Not quite finished yet, but not far off.

This evening, we had a very nice meal at the The Black Dog in Waltham Chase with good friends of ours. I had Steak and Ale pie on a bed of Mash, with some broccoli followed by Profiteroles. Very nice,

The picture? It’s the centre point of the Christmas lights at Gunwharf – absolutely nothing to do with the day.

Title says it all really. From about 2100, sat in the comfy chair it was all I could to stay awake in front of the Telly. I gave up in the end,, but didn’t want to reset the posting count.

Tuesday nights is Camera Club night. This is something I really enjoy for several reasons, the main ones being; it’s an activity that both Elayne and I enjoy doing plus it gives us purpose for our photography if we ever need it.

This Tuesday was a case in point it was a competition night, The subject for our group was pastels. This is one of the two photos that I submitted as a projected digital image (PDI). I took it last year on our visit to the Longleat Festival of Light. It was mostly unedited apart from a bit of cropping and toning down the colours as in the original they were very bright.

Scoring – points are awarded by the judge. Scores range between 6 and 10 points, judges are asked not to mark any lower to avoid hurting feelings, particularly as our group can include absolute beginners and new members. My other picture scored 7.5, not brilliant, but OK.

For some reason the judge liked this picture and held it back for a later review rather than give it a score. I got excited with that, because that meant I was in contention for a Highly Commended or possibly one of the top three,

As it happens, I got 9.5, an excellent score, one that I am very happy with. A very pleasant evening, with some excellent pictures displayed.

We got back from Heythrop Park early afternoon. Luckily we weren’t too tired, because that meant we could go on the Camera club trip to photograph the Christmas lights in Gunwharf and not feel shattered and not really enjoy the evening.

Well, we did enjoy the evening. To be honest the Christmas lights were OK, nice. I also have to say that my attempts to photograph them were to be brutally honest – rubbish.

By far the best pictures were not the lights, but scenes around the area. We did enjoy the evening.