Bills Posts

With a little bit of planning, I’m sure I could have an idea of what I will be writing a few days ahead, unless something in particular happens of course.

At the very least, I should have a weeks worth (minimum) of posts available. That will require a bit of effort of course, and doing that kind of anticipatory activity is going to be hard.

I’m going to try and at least get some post headings drafted. Once I’ve done that, it should be a rolling programme. Let’s see if I can do this.

Very annoyingly, earlier on today, I thought of a topic for quite a reasonable blog entry for this evening. Frustratingly, I didn’t write the gist of it down, even though I was sat at my desk, and very easily have done so. Of course, I have forgotten what it was.

Really annoying as at the time, I thought that would be good. I can’t even remember the context, whether it was anything specific that made the thought come in to my head.

Even sitting and thinking and doing this bit of writing hasn’t brought it back. Sorry. At least I’ve managed to write something tonight.

It looks like people are starting to move in on the bus station. I expect demolition will start soon. I think the offices on the first floor may have been occupied until recently so I don’t know if there is much clearing to do before they start pulling it down.

Even now, I am having issues with getting up for a morning walk. I’m beginning to try and work out if there is a way I can take an hours lunch, at least I would get get thirty minutes or so of walking in. I wanted to get up this morning, but I just couldn’t bring myself too.

Of course, it’s a feeble excuse to say that it’s dark and grey and slightly chilly – it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The clocks go back this weekend. The end of British Summer Time. That expression is just not used much anymore, mores the pity.

I recall writing a piece a few posts ago, I haven’t checked to see how far back it was. It was mainly about a person not blaming his tools for his inability to produce good work.

I’ve done that in the past; “oh my camera isn’t good enough”, “Oh my radio isn’t good enough”. In this case, I am specifically thinking about my camera. I looked up the history, manufacture started in 2014 and came to an end in 22. At the time of its introduction it was viewed as a good DSLR entry camera, and at 24.2 megapixels, not a small one.

I was definitely heading in the direction of getting a new camera, perhaps mirrorless, one of the Z range? But then, I’d either have to change my lenses, or use them with an adaptor. Actually, why do I need to do this? What is wrong with my camera? Nothing at all. Why don’t I just learn to use it properly? So, that is what I am going to do. Perhaps I’ll consider a new camera if this one breaks.

The same principle applies to other thing

The source of my unhappiness is my Amateur Radio situation. This is a hobby that I have neglected for over a year. I really went a bit pear shaped with it, and could not bring myself to self to use my licence.

It’s bugging me. I know, all I have to do is pick up the handset, press the button and talk. I really do now want to do this. I can do it. A frustration, is that now I can’t get any of my radios to talk to the computer, so setting them up is frustrating, because it’s manual, so I am now thinking should I buy myself a radio for Christmas?

On Saturday, I wrote about our visit to the Kempton Steam Museum. I commented on how magnificent I thoughtt the building was, but lamented the fact that I hadn’t taken a picture. Luckily, Elayne had.

The height of the building reflects the need to house the 19 metre tall steam engines that’s it houses. We were told that the building was constructed first, and the engines taken in piece by piece and constructed in situ.

Given the size of some of the components and the mounts for the steam engines, it is a remarkable piece of engineering. Plus what they were used for, to push 19 million gallons of drinking water per day into the city.

Whilst I was in the museum, I watched an information film about the Metropolitan Water Board, and what they did about the water. It was absolutely fascinating. I’m wondering if the fils are available on YouTube. I must have a look.

We went for a lovely walk this morning, not too far, but there was loads of wildlife, especially birds, these Egyptian Geese were puttering on a bit of a display for us.\

We even saw a couple of Deer, there is a Rut on but the ones we saw were being lazy. I’ll put a picture up over the next couple of days.

Rain was forecast to start at 10:00, and to be fair it was pretty much on the mark. We hadn’t got too far from the car, so we didn’t get very wet.

It was a very pleasant morning.

I’m really quite annoyed with myself. Today, we visited an amazing museum; The Kempton Steam Museum. The museum hosts two giant steam engines, that from 1929 to the 1980’s was used to pump drinking water that had been filtered through various processes in to London. Each steam engine was capable of pushing 19 million gallons of water into the city per day.

Let’s get that annoyance addressed – I haven’t got a picture of the building in which the engines are housed. Most frustrating because like a lot of things from those times are very different to some of the functional monstrosities that have been constructed since, the building really is quite attractive. It has that sense of grandeur, with its curving brisk work and high windows.

We were lucky today, which was quite an arbitrary day for a visit, as it was a ‘Steam Day’ which meant that the one engine that is full operational would be running under steam.

Watching this 60 foot tall piece of magnificent machinery being brought into operation was a piece of art in its own right, the little engine that is brought up to pressure and then engaged with one of the giant fly wheels to start the pistons turning was fascinating.

The people who volunteer there clearly love the place, and that comes across in their eagerness to talk. Of the people who visit the museum, I suspect may of them are regulars. There’s a tea shop, and a row of seats from where you can watch the engine working. A definite feeling of calmness, as the giant engine (actually, the same size as Titanic’s engines – parts of various films were shot there).

There’s even a small narrow gauge railway that gives rides. At the moment you get three times round a very small loop, but there are some magnificent plans that I really hope will come to fruition.

All in all, a really delightful day.

I am plumbing the depths of things to write about. It’s not because I have nothing else to write about, it’s partly because I want to practice doing a bit of random writing, and partly because I am deliberately avoiding some topics that I do want to write about because the topics in my mind are not really mature. That situation may persist for a bit of time.

I did a bit of ironing. We have a bit of a backlog, so I thought I had better do some.

Whilst doing the ironing,, I was flicking some YouTube items. The one about star trackers was quite interesting. Especially the one that had a very simple set up, using the GPS & orientation sensors off the phone. I’d quite like one of those. The whole astrophotography thing is quite appealing, there are some wonderful sights to be had.

As you flick through, every so often a music video pops up. There were two tonight; The Pierces, You’ll be mine. I can remember when that one was released. It got played a lot. I’ll add it to my favourites. The other was Gotye’s Someone that I used to know. I can remember the first time i heard it, I was bored, in a clothes shop. It’s quite a distinctive tune and it got me straight away.

It certainly made the ironing more interesting.

With the work that we have had done in the house, we haven’t had access to the living room for the last seven weeks. I must admit, it’s not the work that has been the problem, the lads from Ace of Spades have been superb, even if they have consumed vast quantities of tea, custard creams and bourbons. We had to stop buying chocolate hobnobs because I was becoming addicted to them.

Anyhow, life has slowly begun to return to normal,, today we started moving furniture back in to the lounge. Thankfully. The time of living in the evenings off the bed are drawing to a close. These last two nights in particular, I have just given up trying to not sleep. That’s one episode off Grace where I have no idea how it ended, and another episode that is so clouded by the fog of drowsiness that I’m not really sure what happened.

When it comes to important decisions such as which curtains are best suited, well don’t attempt it half asleep. I’m afraid my lack of enthusiasm got the better of me, with muttering of “I don’t care” coming frequently. Not the best response to a wife who is bubbling with enthusiasm, and expects the same from you.

I’d say I’m in the doghouse, but we don’t have a dog and any cat house would be far too luxurious for me. Anyhow, I managed to wake up enough to pen something a bit better than last nights very feeble effort. Goodnight.