Bills Posts

Apologies for the quality of this image. The little beauty it shows a Grey Wagtail. We have had one of these visit us every year for at least the last four, if not five years. This is the female, the male has a distinctive black throat.

They are beautiful birds, and I am so proud that she honours us with her presence. but I do fear for her. There are so many cats around. But it is lovely to see her.

We didn’t have anything ready for dinner, so at 6AM this morning, I was booking a table at the Inn By the Sea in Lee-on-the-Solent for Breakfast. A good breakfast will do us for most of the day. Our visit to the pub was the first sinnce November, they have had a fairly major refurbishment and it does look good.

The breakfast they served up was of course to the expected standard – excellent.

We went and did a bit of shopping, Elayne likes to have a good browse. I had a quick check, bought a paper and went back to the car.

I would have gone for a walk, but it was raining. You might say, it’s been a lazy day.

One of the activities that I wanted to do having retired is vlogging. Now, there is a danger here, and that is burnout. By committing to an unrealistic and unsustainable schedule.

I’m actually not going to say oh I’m going to do a video at interval y days / weeks / months.

I’m just going to try.

Now I am really retired, I have no excuse.

It’s Thursday. Today we’ve had Aurora since yesterday. The night wasn’t the best. Aurora had a bit of a session between around 0100 – 0330. We did get some sleep, but we were tired when we woke up. Still, we had a pleasant day. Lunch at the Gosport Garden Centre – I had the Leek, Ham & Mustard pie, with all the veg – I think the chap behind the counter gave me a generous portion, because it was getting near the end of lunchtime. Better that the food get eaten than disposed of. I was happy with that. I made a point of telling the staff just how delicious I thought the pie was – and it was really nice.

I was having a bit of writer’s block. I haven’t been out for a walk for several days. The title of today’s post reflects my frustration that I can’t think of what to write about, so the plan arising from that was to write a sentence or two about a range of topics, including what I could do at the Gosport Shed, and what’s next at the U3A.

Next Monday will be interesting. I won’t be able to go to the Shed for the Monday Morning Meeting because I have two U3A sessions arranged: Stargazing in the morning, and Philosophy in the afternoon. I’ll let you know how I am getting on with those.

I had two jobs outside to do today, the first was to go back to the print shop where we get out competition prints done. It would be our third visit this week, and the most awkward. The first set of prints were just wrong. We decided it was a comms issue – our problem. The second was to pick up the re-prints,which they very kindly didn’t charge us for. It wasn’t until we got them home and looked at them (They were printed correctly, and looked good, until we realised that there Was a line down all of them – a pressure line in the paper from the printer. Very awkward. In a competition, any judge would immediately notice, and we’d lose points. I’m going to have to take them back, and ask them to re-do them. Like I say, awkward.

The second job was much simpler. To pick up my prescription from the Chemist.

I could do both these tasks in a nice Simple roundabout route.

So, why didn’t I do it? In a word Rain. It was absolutely hoofing it down, very heavy and persistent from before 8AM, until around 3PM. By the time it did eventually stop I couldn’t go out as Elayne was due back with Aurora, for our weekly two-day stint looking after her.

So, It will have to be tomorrow. Minor problem, the forecast does not look good.

I had another U3A session today, my first visit to Exploring Art. The session is run by Maggie, whom I know through Elayne’s Women’s Institute.

There were about 10 of us in the room. This weeks topic was funerial art, which I have to confess, I expected to be quite depressing. But actually, it was fascinating.

Maggie did her presentation, which lasted about 10 – 15 minutes, and then there was a bit of a discussion. Then there was an opportunity for other members of the group to get involved. I think four had prepared PowerPoint presentations, with around five to 10 slides – each of the presentations was very interesting, and I’m thinking I could do that. I’m just waiting for Maggie to send out the programme. I know that the next session is a visit to the Institute of Naval Medicine, to look at some of the art they have there.

Maggie also mentioned the possibility of a couple of trips to London, but I will wait until the programme comes out before commenting any further on that.

Yes, a very enjoyable session, I shall happily attend more.

These two rather forlorn wrecks lay at the western end of Forton Lake. I think the one in the foreground is probably much older than the one to the back, The shoreline here is at the back of what is now St Vincents College, but until 1969 it was one of the Navy’s main training bases – I suspect there are still a few veterans around who probably have (not so fond) memories of their time there.

This was taken as I was heading towards The Gosport Shed, where I was going to attend my first Monday Meeting, and spend a bit of time there.

The meeting was interesting and fine. I particularly enjoyed the auction – I didn’t bid on anything, but it was interesting to see the kinds of things people were putting in.

I spent a bit of time with the chaps who look after the model railway, and I think it brought home some of the issues I would likely have if I were to try and build my own layout.

I spent a bit of time with the computer people. One bloke is working with some interesting stuff there.

It was an enjoysble couple of hours, and whilst Mondays could easily be a regular things there, I’d like to work out when I can go again with any degree of regularity, especially as I have lined up two more sessions at U3A (philosophy and stargazing) as it happens both on a Monday, but only once a month, so not too bad.

OK, I did do a bit of housework this morning, so that is all the main jobs done.

I spent a bit of time on the computer, having a chat with ChatGPT about swing trading. I like the idea of it, but some issues have come up meaning that i’m very likely to not bother with it – as much as I like certain parts of it.

I seriously considered going out for lunch. As I wasn’t sure how Elayne would feel when she got back, I just had a sandwich. As it happens, that was a good move as Elayne was hungry when she got home, and we just had to wait until 1730, when our favourite Chinese takeaway opened. They did their usual excellent service, with the food being delivered 20 minutes later.

We watched a couple of the 1990’s series, An unsuitable job for a lady, Helen Baxendale plays the main character, I’m not sure of the time between the first and 2nd seasons (yes, I know I could look it up). I was surprised at how much she had changed between the 1st and 2nd seasons, so much that I genuinely thought it was a different person for the first couple of minutes.

I had another enjoyable net, the C4FM net (a digital mode used by Yaesu radios) is a regular event, and that’s pretty much bringing an end to the day – apart from this blog, of course.

I am more than slightly ashamed to confess that I haven’t been anywhere today, exxcept to the bins, and to the bottom of the garden to top up the birdfeeder, which the starlings promptly emptied.

I have done a little bit of housework, and have a bit more to do tomorrow.

I haven’t turned the TV on today, but have spent a bit of time on the computer, but not really doing anything useful.

Tea was sausage egg & chips done in the air fryer, apart from the eggs. Very nice it was too.

I was very late to bed last night, but strangely haven’t snoozed today. I’m going to try and be a bit more sensible tonight.

I thought about the blog two hours ago and intended to do it, but got distracted by YouTube rubbish, but at least I’ve managed it before midnight.