Bills Posts

I have just acquired these two beauties.

Now they aren’t DCC ready, but they are DCC compatible, so I can get them modified. That will cost me a little bit of money, but that is OK.

I also have a fair bit of track. Now, whether it is the right kind of track remains to be seen, but that is OK, it’s something to get me going.

Now I really do have to do a number of things;

• Get the Dremel sorted,
• Get the baseboard sorted,
• Get the base material for the track,
• Get the pre-wired fish-plates,
• Get the bus wire,
• Plan the layout & test with track, not fixing anything down.

That’ll do for the time being. Pretty much up to that point I’m not committed to anything permanent.

Let’s see how things go.

Yes, but a lot smaller than that. N-Gauge no less. Not the smallest (I think that’s Z-Gauge) but it is small. It has always appealed to me. Not least because you can fit a reasonable layout into a relatively small space.

I have, for a very long time, had aspirations to build an N-Gauge layout, it is one of those things I keep putting off, well, really just not starting. I am running out of procrastinations for this project.

Why am I writing about it all of a sudden? Well I have the opportunity to acquire some resources. Not sure exactly what it will bring like, but I’m prepared to give it a go.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning, so I don’t know if the two trollies have been cleared, or indeed, added to. Hopefully tomorrow.

I went to the gallery shop up and picked up the bool. It looks like it could be an interesting read. The Highways and Byways of Hampshire. I think I would like to work my way through the book and try and visit at least one location from each chapter – I think that sounds like a retirement project, so a couple of years away.

If I want (as I do) to produce a video for each place I visit as well as write about it, I need to get practicing with my vlogging so that I am proficient at it when it comes to doing it for real, so that means practice. Then we are back to the old problem of time and talking in public.

Can you believe that over thirty years ago, I bought a small recorder as I wanted to record my thoughts as I walked around Berlin, but I was too self conscious to do it. Nowadays, I can quite happily use my mobile phone and have a full-on conversation with myself but put up a camera and I become all shy – ridiculous.

The thing about the sky behind the Spinnaker is that it is never the same.

This morning’s walk was a bit cooler than it has been, no issues with that.

Once again there wasn’t much going on between the front door and the far end of the high street. I haven’t bothered taking any pictures of the new bus station. Scaffolding around the outside is still up, and they are continuing to work on the Electricals & presumably electronics. There’s still a fair bit of the groundwork to be done. I’m holding to my estimate of a month until complete, but it’s a week further on since I made the guess, and I’m uncertain about the speed of the work.

Very annoyed to arrive at the Cockle Ponds to see another trolley had been tossed in, the south east corner I think. It looks like who ever is doing it is rolling them down a slope. These people confuse me.

I was even more annoyed to find another trolley had been thrown in in the south west corner. I haven’t reported them to StreetScene. I will do if they are still there tomorrow. StreetScene are pretty good really.

Walking past the Richard Martin Gallery I always look into the windows he always has some interesting books on display. There hasn’t been anything which caught my eye for the last few weeks, but today was different. The Highways and Byways in Hampshire, with illustrations by Arthur B Connor. I’ve sent Richard an email asking if he would put it to one side. The last time I did that, he emailed back saying I was too late.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

I went out for a walk this morning. There was nothing really spectacular going on.

The seagulls were very noisy. I was relieved that we didn’t live nearer the waterfront.

There was some progress on the bus station, I think the roof is coming along they are putting in the electrics.

I missed the Contentin by about a minute.

Seriously annoying that another trolly had been thrown in to the Cockle Ponds.

It was a pleasant walk.

Sorry a bit of a short post.

When we woke up this morning, as we were drinking our first cup of tea, we made a plan for the day. It was a good plan, and we were both looking forward to putting the plan in to action.

The plan did not survive first contact with The Lad. He phoned us and within the first ten words of his call demolished our plan, and replaced it with his plan. As it happened, his plan was quite acceptable so neither of us were very stressed about the change.

Both plans included a need for me to go to the shop. List in hand, off I depart, and proceeded to fill my trolley with the various necessary items, and I arrived at the till.

Don’t worry, everything was OK, I had a means of payment, and the till operator was quite happy beavering away, then he asked that question “Any plans for the day”. Now, normally, I am almost monosyllabic at the checkout, but to today, hoooboy, did I have a topic.

Now this was all said in a laughing kind of way and there was no malice in my words. But I lamented the inability of people to make plans with any degree of notice and the flexibility we need to demonstrate on a regular basis.

The till-person interjected with the occasional “yes,yes” “dreadful” “Quite agree”. Focussed on getting my trolley contents scanned as quickly as possible. This all got me wondering.

It probably took about 5 minutes to get my shopping processed. Let’s say that’s average, that means all the shop assistants probably get through 12 people per hour on an 8 hour shift, that’s 96 people. But obviously, there’s breaks so let’s call it 80. That’s the number of conversations they are having during their working day.

I have to go now, if I don’t publish this I will miss the midnight deadline and the counter will be reset to 0.

I read a blog called The Gorse Fox. He writes about his life. Only a few paragraphs, perhaps four or five, rarely longer than that.

I found his blog years ago, well before he retired. What I liked about, apart from the fact it was very well written was that he’d given everybody pseudonyms. For example, his wife was the silver vixen, friends had names like pistol Pete and whils I can’t remember what he called his place of work, the names were Star Trek related so his workplace may have been Federation Headquarters or something similar.

I’m only talking about this because tonight’s is one of those short brush off posts where I’ve really left it too late to say something reasonable and I need to post something quickly to keep the sequence counter going.

Not got out enough this week, really must try and do better. Well, that’s one goal for next week, I should set myself another, but I really can’t think of one at the moment.

I downloaded a list of shops on the highstreet from the council website a few weeks ago it’s dated 2019 so a lot of shops have either changed hands or closed down.

One frustration is that not all the shops are showing a street number. Perhaps I could spend a bit of time working them out and what the status of the current unit is. That’ll be interesting – for me anyway, for my readers I think it will be an episode of watching paint dry.

This building always attracts my attention when I’m on the high street. I’d love to know what style of architecture it is.

The shop on the ground floor is run by a chap who is very trusting. A couple of weeks ago, I went in to get a new screensaver for my phone. He put it on and that when I went to pay with my phone he said they only take cash. Of course, I didn’t have any on me. I was apologetic and said I’m really sorry, I don’t have any. Take the protector off.

His response was to say that’s OK, you can owe me £10. Thanking him I left, and of course went back a couple of days later to pay him.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning, didn’t feel like it (that’s all, just didn’t). Planning to go for one in the morning.

I was playing with the phone, as I was walking around and unintentionally took this picture. It makes me smile.

The walk this morning was very pleasant. Nothing much going on. The new road between the cross streets isn’t taking traffic yet, but it can’t be much longer.

The bus stop is being worked on, I think there’s probably about another month’s work there. Then I am wondering when will they start on the bus station?

The Contentin came in as I was taking my usual picture of the Spinnaker.

Nothing going on at the Cockle ponds, oh… wait, yes there was – trolly had been tossed in. Streetscene are pretty good, I expect it will be gone tomorrow, if not, I will report it.

That’s about it really.