Bills Posts

On the bus. I wanted to give my bus pass a run, so I took the X5, which runs from The Hard in Portsmouth, via Fareham and a few other places ending up at Central Station. I wanted to visit a particular shop which is about a mile further on, and was easy to find.

The day went quite well, the journey took nearly two hours end to end, and I achieved what I wanted to at the shop. After which I walked back to West Quay, had a bit of a browse, mainly in Waterstones, which in the main was a bit frustrating but did give me an idea about something, so not a total loss.

It’s always a bit difficult to resist the draw to visit the Apple shop, but I managed to. I didn’t feel the need as I don’t need to upgrade any of my hardware at the moment.

I managed to find the bus stop for the return journey and had to wait about half an hour for the bus. But the journey back went OK. The transition from the portsmouth to the Gosport bus was very smooth, no waiting so that went well, and got home around four-ish.

It was, I think a successful day.

Not a recent picture.

I am in conflict with myself as to what to write about. I’ll think of a possible topic, and another part of my brain will say; “You can’t talk about that”. What I can mention is my ridiculous inability to get up on four out the five days of past working week.

It’s not doing any good, it doesn’t help, but I have been in that annoying condition of just not being able to get up in the morning. Deeply frustrating.

Next week I must somehow find away of walking at least three miles per day.

Sometimes I get the urge to write with a pen. I do my best to make sure that the lovely cartridge pen that Alex gave me at his and Sian’s wedding, I love using it. I had to cliean nib the other day. I was changing from blue to black cartridges. I was surprised how much ink was flushed out. Anyhow, I have box of black to work through, then I may go back to blue.

I have an A5 type journal, I try and write in it every day, even if it is only a sentence or two. I did about two thirds of a page earlier today. Not about anything particularly interesting, but there you go. I have also decided to have another go at learning to touch type. I’m reasonably proficient at about 15 words a minute (pathetic I know against a real touch typist), but I my worry is that I have such a bad habit in the way I type that it will be difficult to unlearn. The system I am using says in about two weeks I should be able to do it, but it will take me about six months to become anywhere near proficient. That’s a bit daunting, but I’ll give it a go.

The NHW for the road where we live is something I set up several years ago now. I think it has pretty much fallen by the wayside. I don’t interact with the neighbours in the capacity of NHW Coordinator. It started going down hill as the move away became a prospect.

For some reason I was reluctant to knock on peoples doors, but I made myself do it, very much with Elayne’s support. There was one instance where I wrote down the email addresss of one family who was interested, but I obviously did it wrong, because the address never worked, it was always knocked back by the broadband supplier.

I was talking to someone who lives on the road adjacent to ours. He was telling me that he used to be the coordinator for that street, but had to stop doing it when he became heavily involved in another aspect of the town.

I would like to revive the fortunes of our NHW scheme, but I have plans, much bigger plans. I’m not going to talk about them now, but I am working out a strategy to achieve what I want. I did ask the chap if he would become involved again. Sadly, he said no, but I understand why.

Tonight we went to HEDCA, one of the local community centres. It’s where the Gosport Camera Club meets. It was the first night of the 24/25 season. We are both going to join. Here is an outside activity that we can both share and enjoy.

GCC seems to be an active club with a membership somewhere between 30 – 50, I’m not at all sure of the figure. One of the things that strikes me about the club is its very full programme of activities. Some of which are quite inspiring. I definitely want to have a go.

Now here is one thing that I haven’t done much of and that is to write about my sadly neglected friends in the amateur radio community. For neglected they have been over the last year or so. It was just something that went badly wrong within me that took me away from one the proudest activities that I have ever done – becoming a licensed amateur, and yet I didn’t think I have touched a radio for over a year. Why? I really can’t answer that question, but I do know that I regret being in this position. Yet I am now almost afraid to thumb the PTT. I am sorry that I’ve got myself in this state. I need to do something about it.

Do the two hobbies conflict? I don’t think so, if anything they can complement the other.

This is the back of the bus station or the side that faces on to the waterfront. I read today that the bus station was built in 1972. I was a bit surprised by that, I would have said the mid ‘60’s.

I have to say that wearing the spectacles of 2024, this is souless. Mind you, I don’t know what the waterfront looked like back then. I can imagine that it wasn’t as sociable as it is now, but I really don’t know without some research.

Anyhow, I think that the new bus station will come in to service by the end of September. Which, according to what I read, means that by the end of November, the 1972 carbuncle will be a pile of rubble.

What comes next? I’ve seen some conjecture as to what that will be and it will be quite acceptable. Including cafe, and band stand (possibly a bit old hat) and what else? We’ll have to wait and find out.

But, this will be an interesting project to follow.

Same machine, different view – unrelated to today’s post.

We went to two car boot sales today, starting with Titchfield, a bit smaller than the last time. I think people may have been put off as there was a yellow thunderstorm warning. Think people come from quite far afield.

I didn’t buy anything except a very nice bacon and egg roll for breakfast.

We then moved on to Bridgemary. A lot bigger, but by the time I’d walked half the stalls, I’d had enough. I found a seat, and then met up with Elayne when she was ready.

We had an ice-cream, I made a bit of a mess. It was a 99, it was melting fast, all over my hand, which became sticky and yucky, so I needed to find somewhere to wash my hands. Luckily it was nearby.

We have been very busy all day. Rushing around moving things. As a result we are very tired. Sorry for the very short post.

The new bus station is I reckon not much more than a month away from coming in to service. There is still work to be done to the actual bus shelter, the apron is ready, and groundwork is being done.

I thought when I went for my walk this morning that I don’t have any pictures of the old station which, I think as soon as the new bust stop comes in to service, will be demolished.

I don’t think the town will show too much disappointment at that. Aesthetically the building really isn’t anything more than functional. I recall the days I spent in Poole bus station, even though it was attached to the Arndale (as it was then) centre, it always struck me as being very impersonal. I had a similar feeling here.

I think it worth mentioning my ability to get and go for a walk this morning, without difficulty. I again woke up at 4AM, but this morning I told myself that I hadn’t made a decision as to whether I was going for a walk, so not to stress over it. And I didn’t. Admittedly, I did get back to sleep, and awoke again at 6AM, so I was quite late getting out once I’d fed the cat, but I had a bit of a project in mind, so I went.

Slightly colder this morning, but put my cardy on, and that worked OK. I reckon it will soon be fleece weather.

It is getting silly. I woke up around 4AM, and couldn’t get back to sleep. There’s no point in reading the new.. I would if there were a good news newspaper,

As time marched on, I became increasingly stressed at the thought of getting up to go for a walk. Ridiculous I know, especially as going for the morning walk is becoiming central to my desire to resume my facebook posts. And yet, as soon as I decided that I wouldn’t get up and go for a walk, the stress faded like the densest fog before a glaring sun. Only to be replaced by feelings of guilt at not going for a walk, and relishing in that fact. The trouble was, the guilty feelings were definitely not as bad as the stress.

So I didn’t go for a walk, and I didn’t do a facebook post. And I am still fat! Indeed, my brain and my body are not in a good place. Perhaps chocolate will help. I am of course joking.