Bills Posts

Streetscene is a Gosport Council department. As the title suggests they look after the streets. To be fair, I think they do a pretty good job, I often see them whilst out on my walks, and will often stop to have a chat.

They are though, facing an uphill challenge and keeping the town clean and tidy is a bit of a painting the Forth Bridge job.

The situation I found this morning is a good/bad example of position streetscene are in. I will be sending a variation of this scene to them. The bit missing from this one is the actual location, I have another picture that gives you a good idea.

I would very much like to understand the mentality of the people who do this, because it confuses the heck out of me.

This is the second trolly, possibly about two yards out looks quite forlorn.

I do have a couple of other pictures, from a different angle, but that are not as sharp as this (not that, by any means, do I claim this picture is pin sharp). Anyhow, these two little beasties were on top of or recycle bin, so I thought I’d grab a picture.

The thing is, with snails, they are fascinating creatures, I remember reading a story from Gerald Durrell’s My Family and other animals where he watched a couple of snails mate and how they did it makes you realise that there are very few things in nature which aren’t quite wonderful really.

I have a problem with snails, that Elayne doesn’t have, I can’t pick them up, horrible slimy things – sorry, but they are. But fascinating nonetheless.

I thought pipes and the light caused an interesting shadow.. Once again, nothing to do with the top[c of this post.

It’s strange isn’t it? How things work, that is. Within only a couple of minutes after publishing last night’s post, I went on line and did a search and it was on a site that I have visited before, I found a map of Hampshire.of the size that I have been looking for, even if it isn’t exactly the content that I’m after, and at a reasonable price.

I believe that it will be a basic road map with not much, if any historic detail. What’s I would like is that, a map of the county with historic detail. At least this map might give me some ideas of interesting places to visit.

I’m looking forward to getting the map on the wall.

The picture (if you’ll excuse me stating the obvious) is nothing to do with the topic for today’s post, but in away symbolises my problem. The picture is nothing to do with maps. If I had a picture of the map I want, I could have posted it, but I don’t.

I don’t have a picture of the map I want because I can’t find it. I would assume that my need isn’t particularly onerous. To put it simply, I’m looking for a good sized map of Hampshire. I’ve tried Ordnance Survey, and I can only assume that I’m doing something wrong, I just can’t get it to work.

I know there have been some major historical events and places in the county. You would have thought they would have been readily charted. My search thus far has been fruitless. I shall continue.

We went over together to Portsmouth for a birthday celebration we were going to a restaurant for a nice meal and then a visit to the cinema.

We caught the ferry across the water in the harbour was quite choppy. Whilst it was a little bit breezy there was a continuous stream of small boats moving along their channel I did wonder how much of the choppiness was down to bow wave & wakes.

We had a bit of time before meeting up for the birthday celebration, so we sat at the waterfront, under the spinnaker. We noticed a couple of people abseiling down the tower. Not something I’d be inclined to do.

It was a lovely afternoon, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It’s worth noting that the crossing back to Gosport was much calmer, and there was no traffic in the small boat channel

Jane Austen, Gilbert White and Charles Dickens are all famous or well known and were people with connections to Hampshire.

There are also places that are of interest, a lot of them associated with the run up to D-Day, Winchester, which has a significant History, and of course places like Highclere which is famous for a variety of reasons.

I’ve been looking on the web for people & places that relate to the history of Hampshire. There are just a very few of course, but something tells me that there is a bubbling story, which I am missing out on. I can see a trip to the Portsmouth Municipal Library to try and identify a book, because I am sure there is more history here, and historical people, hidden here.

This is The Manor House at Longleat. I wanted a picture of a really nice old house.

I went on a trip today, it involved travelling on the A34. As I was driving along, quite near to Newbury, I went past a sign saying Highclere.

Now, you will either know, or not know the significance of Highclere to an awful lot of people. That’s.because Highclere is the home of Downton Abbey. Ordinarily, I stay away from programmes about “olden times”, but during Covid times, we were binge watching and one series that came up was this one.

With a high degree of scepticism we (I) sat down to watch the first episode, it was OK, so we watched another. We ended up buying the DVD’s because for some reason they weren’t being streamed. They are now of course.

We were so frustrated when the series came to an end, and were delighted when two films were made, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I believe there may even be talk of a new series. Times will have moved on, cast will change, but if they stay true to the series, I can see lots of potential for that. It would be really nice if it were to happen.

I would very much like to visit Highclere, it will always Downton Abbey in my mind.

I know that it is really only mid-week, but we are well past the midpoint, which I take as lunchtime on a Wednesday.

Now we do, as it happens, have some plans for the weekend, but I’m not really talking about those. It’s more a case of harping back to is it a locality weekend? Not really because of those other plans. But I have been thinking about what I could do.

I would quite like to go back to Amberley Museum. Looking at the year, there’s a lot on; https://www.amberleymuseum.co.uk/whats-on/ with a few events that I would very much like to go to,

The other thing I would quite like to do,m is see how easy it is to get there by bus, and if that is even possible. I’m sure it must be – why not take advantage of my bus pass?

There’s some planning to be done here. I will investigate.

Here is a special message for Mar & Clivek; You’d like Amberley.

Also; the BBC series Chivalry and Betrayal: The 100 years War is not available anywhere, not on iplayer or anywhere else as far as I can find. Most frustrating. Anyone have any suggestions?

I’ve been reading about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, quite a story really, and fascinating stuff. Of course the problem I have is that this wonderfully interesting history has absolutely nothing to do with Gosport. Indeed Gosport won’t exist as a place for another couple of hundred years or so, even if only a a manor, created by the Bishop of Winchester.

In the meantime, whilst Henry and Eleanor are rolling about in hay, what will become Gosport is a bleak windswept marshland, Although two areas of which will become (eventually) suburbs of Gosport, namely Rowner and Alverstoke, are doing quite nicely.

But nothing is happening there as far as I can tell.

We’d had a really lovely weekend away, visiting Mark and Helen, I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to the drive on the M25, but actually it wasn’t at all bad. I think it’s one of the clearest trips we’ve had in a very long time.

The car behaved very well, both on the journey up and back we used only just over 50% of the battery. Range anxiety pretty much gone.