Bills Posts

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.

The thing is, I’d quite like some kind of research project. I’m not sure what, but it might be something along the lines of “The politics of Gosport between 1970 and 2000”, or it might be Gosport in the 17th Century.

It’s just the thought of doing a project greatly appeals to me. Which is all fine, but what to choose as a project?

The problem then, is no the topic, but the approach, which of the projects I want to pursue.

Now, I started typing this and then I fell asleep. So a short post tonight, but to be honest I am going to retire for the night.

I learned something new today, something which should have been so obvious, but had never occurred to me. The idea of postal history. Elayne’s side of the family have some very keen philatelists, very knowledgable, to the extent that they make a living out of it. Today, I was introduced to Postal History.

We went Hampex, a Philately (market)? Event at Wickham. I’ve held letters that were sent by ordinary people even before stamps were introduced, I never thought things like this would still exist. Absolutely fascinating – but , don’t worry, I’m not going to start collecting things like this, but it is interesting, and there are some areas of postal history that I may investigate.

One of the thing of interest was a Red Cross Communication Card, addressed to a German PoW from a member of his family The PoW camp was in Scotland, and still exists as a heritage site. I’ve emailed them with the details of the PoW to find out if they can tell us anything. Absolutely fascinating

The Waverley is a paddle steamer that goes around the country giving pleasure rides. I’ve never seen her before but I did know about her.

This is the first time that I have ever seen her. She looked lovely, and she was moving surprisingly quickly.

I’m really sorry, but I am feeling exceptionally tired, so a brief post today.

It’s a bit like the shopping trolleys in the cockle ponds – why would somebody do that?

A Burger King cup discarded in the hedge between Trinity Church and the Millennium sundial at the waterfront.

The nearest Burger King is in Gun Wharf. If not from there, it’s either Fareham or Commercial Road in Portsmouth, they are too far away, but even the The Gun Wharf is a bit of a trek, being on the waterside of the shopping area.

Somebody bought that, and presumably a meal and then they carried this all the way to the ferry, and then from the ferry to here where they dumped it. The must have passed at least three waste bins on their way, and not only that, there was a bin, probably about 10 yards from where it had been placed.

Perhaps whoever left it did so on the basis that they were making sure that the street scene staff who do an excellent job in keeping the streets as clean as they can, had work to do to keep them occupied.

Not only that, but I also saw a person pushing a shopping trolley, nowhere near a supermarket, so one of those that gets abandoned, but in this case it was being either returned, or was going to be used again. Anyway, the person pushing was a lady, I reckon she was late 60’s early 70’s – pretty near my age really.

This isn’t going to be a very positive post. One thing that you can be assured of is that I do not intend to stop blogging.

No, my issue is that I can see why anybody who reads this blog regularly (the are a number of people who do follow me, I really do hope they actually read my mostly daily ramblings. I understand that you might not put the effort into reading the posts, even I think that I do put up some pretty boring stuff.

I’ve watched quite a few videos on YouTube about blogs, and whilst there appear to be very few (or at least I haven’t found them yet) bloggers from the UK, many that I’ve followed are from the USA, and are very business oriented, but that is fine, not a criticism at all, but my blog is not commercial, and I have no intention of making it so.

Now whilst that means I can write about whatever I wish, it also means that I’m not following the “give them what they want”, which apart from the fact I’m really not a very interesting writer probably is the reason I don’t have more followers, not sure how bothered about that, not a lot seeing as I’ve done no optimisation.

Purely from a writing point of view, I would like to have more of a thread running through at least some of my posts. Any ideas?