Bills Posts

A few posts ago I wrote that I’d had an idea for a book. I’d given up on the idea when the move to Dorset fell through because there were certain aspects of the county that were crucial to the story.

The idea hasn’t gone away. Today, a book I’d ordered arrived, UFO’s over Hampshire. I think that book will become fundamental to my revision of the plan for the book. Of course, it could all be a complete fantasy and nothing will come of it, but it won’t leave my head, so I am going to play with it.

If my plans don’t work out, at least I will learn more about the county, and visit some interesting places.

A slight change of routine this morning. I needed to get a few bits and pieces from the shop after my walk – too much to carry. I drove the car to the shop car park and left it there ready for when the shop opened.

I walked the length of the high street, one area has been marked for re-development, it’s quite near the council offices, but is either one shop or three, nothing happening there. The bus stop on the cross street is still covered, so not active.

There were a surprising number of people about. Mostly youngsters quite noisy, shouting instead of talking. Oh well. I reached the new bus station, it really is nearing completion. It looks like all the glass is in and the electronic displays are up – not active at the moment, but it can’t be far away. It’s getting to the stage now that I’m expecting it to be open, and then the demolition of the old bust station will commence. Someone told me that will be this week.

It was definitely colder this morning. A fleece, my jacket and flat cap were the order of the day. Well, it is autumn.

It’s not often I use the same picture twice, I try to avoid doing that, and usually if I do it’s because I’ve forgotten that I’ve used it previously. Tonights re-use though is quite deliberate.

On Sunday, we visited the New Forest (as I said last night) but before we went looking for pannaging pigs, we visited a small lake at Eyeworth. What a delightful setting it is as well.

Nearby though was this. When I first saw it, I thought it was a chimney and wondered what was underneath, but then I read the little sign next to it that it was a post box which had been placed there for the convenience of the workers at a gunpowder factory that had been operating since the 1860’s, but it was mainly to save effort by the postman, this being the time before delivery vans.

The site though is only a couple of miles from The Rufus Stone, which marks the site of the death by arrow of William Rufus, King William II. In turn the stone is near the pub the Sir Walter Tyrrell, named after the knight who shot the fatal arrow. Sir Walter escaped to France in fear of his life, but it appears that everyone hated Rufus, so he was never threatened.

But all this made me wonder about The New Forest itself, which I know was dotted with WW2 airfields, some remains of which are still visible, but what other little gems are there? Something else that is worthy of investigation.

This is a postbox in the middle of The New Forest, and is only indirectly involved in the story of today’s post in that it is within the area of interest of today’s post. More on this in a later post.

The subject of which is partially about pannage; The New forest has an abundance of oak trees, which produce an even greater abundance of of acorns, which are poisonous to the New Forest ponies and other animals.

Acorns, on the other hand, are an excellent food for pigs. So, at this time of year 600 or so pigs are released in to the forest to stuff themselves with the fallen food. https://www.thenewforest.co.uk/explore/wildlife-and-nature/pigs/

I found out about pannage a few years ago, whilst on a RAYNET event in the forest, and did get to see a few of the pigs. I thought it would be nice to go with some friends and photograph the pigs.

The only problem is finding them. The thing is, we didn’t. Find them that is. We took a few other pictures, one being this postbox. Had lunch at the Walter Tyrell. A pub in the forest. As it happens, I had Pork – from the forest. It was lovely, and I’d highly recommend it.

It was a very pleasant day.

I do have a few people who receive notifications about new posts on my blog. To you, thank you for sticking with me. I don’t know where you are, but if you are in the USA and are affected by Hurricane Helene, I sincerely wish you safety.

The header picture was taken a couple of days ago, and the clouds were building up. We have had some rain, but it held off to give us a lovely sunny day to day, if slightly chilly in the shade.

A year ago today, was also, like today the Alverstoke Michaelmas faire, it gave us a very pleasant couple of hours to have a wander around, I even bought a couple of books.

At the end, unlike last year we were able to return to our car which was nice and dry. I’m bout going to say any more about those memories.

I’m really tired so this is going to be a very short post. It’s the alverstoke Michaelmas day, marking a particular point.

OK, I wear glasses. I had an email today inviting me to book my next routine test. That’s fine, I’ll go ahead and book. Normally, I go to one of the large chains, but…

I would very much like a pair of rimless half moon reading glasses. I spend a lot of time with the glasses perched on the end of my nose, I’m like that now, with my eyes flicking above the rims of my glasses, I think that a pair of rimless half-moons would be just right.

Problem is, the shop I normally, go to doesn’t do them. They do have a pair of rimmed half-heights but that is not what I am after.

|I might have to investigate one or two of the private opticians to see if they do a line.

At writing a post tonight, I ended up deleting everything. It wasn’t a lot, only a couple sentences, but I really wasn’t confident about what I was writing, so it was best left unsaid – at least publicly anyway. Beyond that, there really wasn’t anything that was driving my writing tonight.

Well, that’s not strictly accurate. When the move to Dorset was in prospect, I had what i thought was a reasonable idea for a book. Of course that fell through and I put it to one side.

I’m considering resurrecting the idea. Part of the motivation is to drive learning more about the county, visiting different locations. I’ve had the initial idea, will it work? Only way to find out is to get out there and do it.

It’s all down to the planning. Earlier on on this blog, I had a thing where I had a rough idea of what topic I should be writing about on any particular evening, whether it be the waterfront, writing about writing, the weather the latest book that kind of thing.

I lost it a while back, the habit of writing to even a simple plan. It worked even if only for a while. So, perhaps I should develop a similar plan. Of course , it’s still going to be a collection of random articles. Unless that is I can come up with a regular common topic.

But do I really want that? A regular common topic? Isn’t part of the fun of this blog is that you can never be really sure what I am going to write about? You’d think after 1412 posts I’d be getting a. Bit fed up with it, but I don’t appear to be.

I need to have a think about this.

As you might expect, the Hampshire Archives contains an absolute wealth of information about Gosport. I’ve asked for a quote on the reproduction of The Gosport & Alverstoke Minute Book for 1894 – 1897.

I think that that time frame might cover the dispute between Gosport & Alverstoke as whether it should be Gosport & Alverstoke or Alverstoke & Gosport. That resulted in at least a debate in the House of Lords, that resulted in a parliamentary decision..

The website indicates that this might cost £30, as a one off I’m happy to take that chance. Apparently, it’s a requirement of any reproduction that I can only use it for purely personal reasons, which I think includes commenting on it here. Anyhow, I’ve asked what I need to do to get permission to do that – I would expect that a personal non-profit blog should be ok for at least commenting on.

I’ll let you know how it goes.