Bills Posts

When I wrote yesterday that I thought the bus stop might have arrived. I was right.

The various parts of the bus stop were parked all over the new bus pan or apron or hard – what do they call it?

Anyhow, it looks like the support structure is here, what’s missing is the roof and the glass. I’m assuming that if I got for a walk tomorrow, I will see at least a partial construction.

The rest of the walk went OK. I bought a book about the diary of a nobody, which apparently was a series in Punch that became famous and loved. Why have I never heard of it? Anyhow, I think I will talk a break from late medieval history when I finish the Plantagenets. Next after the diary will be the Tudors. All good, interesting stuff.

No, I can’t think of a link between them. Perhaps the pilots use them to get to and from work?

Managed catch the pilot cutter coming in to the harbour. The first one in quite a while.

I saw a lorry today, heading towards the ferry. It looked it might have the components for a structure. I wonder if it was the bus shelter?

Sorry a short post today.

That’s what it seems like I have been doing for a long time. And yet, what a nice weekend we’ve had. We walked in to town yesterday morning, There were quite a few people out and about as the weather was a quite pleasant,

We called in to the Discovery Centre (our local library) because Gosport Camera Club had their annual exhibition on display. I have to say that there were some very impressive pictures on display. It’s really nice that this is something that Elayne and I can do together, so we will be joining in September.

We walked down the high street, there were only two or three stalls out for the Saturday market. We called in on the various charity shops. This really had me thinking about how inadequate our access to a decent book area is, but not to worry. We called in at Cafe #1 for a drink and then took a slow walk home.

There are Waterstones in whitely, Fareham and Portsmouth and I think there may also be an oxfam bookshop in fareham there also rather good 2nd hand bookshops in Ryde on the Isle of Wight and in Chichester. We are then locally, quite well served.

But not in Gosport, there is a Works and each of the charity shops does have a small selection but it is like they are afterthoughts. Now, if I were in a position to volunteer at any of the charity shops it would be on the understanding that I’m allowed to significantly increase the book selection, which I would catalogue and seek to sell online.

Would that be allowed? I really don’t know, and I’m not in a position to do anything about it. Just me thinking out loud.

I really didn’t want to get up this morning. But, somehow I managed it. It’s usually the case, when I feel like that, that once I get out of the house I feel OK. That was the case this morning.

The sun was already throwing its heat about, walking towards it was almost painful, I kept my head down until I was able to get into shade.

I spent the time I was walking down the high street taking pictures of the shop units on the south side of the high street. I’ve spent a few minutes working through the pictures. A lot of the shops don’t have street numbers, but I have a list from 2019, I’m trying to match shop units to street numbers.

I’m wondering if the new bus shelter will go up next week. The opening up of the new station can’t be far away.

The Cockle Ponds were mill-pond like still. Not much sign of life apart from the small shell-fish things, the occasional crab, and gulls. No sign of the jellyfish.

I was reading a set of minutes of the regulatory board, the one that deals with planning permissions. It detailed what was going happen one of the buildings on the high street.

It’s going to be demolished and replaced by a block of flats, although it will include at least one commercial unit. If I’m going to keep a track of this one, I will have to adjust my morning path slightly. Not difficult to do.

There is a meeting of the board next week. Do I go? I think the public can attend.

They are preparing the ground for the bus shelter. The concrete busway must be nearly matured which means the will be able to bring the shelter in on a lorry. I reckon another three weeks will see the new bus place being used.

I started the survey of the north side of the high street. Easier this time, just take a picture of the shop frontage. I’ll have to re-do the southside.

The rest of the walk was ok, nothing exciting happened except The Contentin came in and over the cockle ponds an egret had seriously angered a gull. There was much screaming and shouting as the chased the egret.

Somebody has thrown a bicycle into the cockle pond. Amazing. Why do they do this?

I attended a full council meeting tonight. It was quite interesting. It’s clear that there are two factions at least with no love for each other. It will be interesting to read the minutes when they are published.

When I left the house for my morning walk, there was water in the air, like the remnants of a thick mist, not rain. I had put a cardigan on as a buffer against the slight breeze, but the water made me suspicious. I went back inside and swapped the cardi for a raincoat. Good job I did. As well.

I was about 200 yards down the road when the drizzle started, I stopped, paused, thought “I don’t want to get wet” turned round and headed for home. Just a few yards and the drizzle stopped. I stopped paused and thought “ I really want to do the high street, plus I’m wearing a rain coat”. I turned round again and returned to my morning walk.

I’m not happy with my efforts on the high street. For one, it started raining again. My notebook was getting wet. For two, it’s very frustrating not every place has a street number, I was only doing the southside today, and with the lack of street numbers a n the rain, it wasn’t easy. In the end, I took a picture of every shop that east of one of the big chain shops.

Rather than my notebook, I might as well just take pictures. More tomorrow.

I should add, but for the raincoat I would have been absolutely drenched.

If it isn’t raining in the morning, and I am able to get up for my walk, I am going to go down the high street counting shops. I’m pretty sure someone will have done this before, but I am repeating that work, purely for my own satisfaction.

I shall be counting shops by type, it should be an interesting exercise. I have a list of the shops from 2019 as produced by the council I know that some of them have closed down, so it will be interesting to compare. I’ll let you know how it goes.

On my walk the other morning, I once again came across a shopping trolley that had been thrown in to the cockle ponds. I would really like to understand why people do this, because it confuses the heck out of me.

The apology; I wrote and posted a brief piece last night. After a short while, I re-read and thought that it was just a little bit too personal, so I deleted it. By then, it was closer to midnight, I was in bed, so I pretty much fell asleep very soon after the removal. Some people may have woken up to a link to a non-existent article, and I am sorry for that.

Hopefully, tonights post will still be there in the morning.

It has been well over a week since I got up for an early morning walk, the routine is back to normal, but I have a bit of a mission. To catalogue the high street, luckily I have a spreadsheet populated with the number and names of all of the shops in the high street, admittedly it is from 2019, so I know it isn’t 100% accurate, I’m going to use it as my starting point and work out which shops have changed hands or closed down completely, and which are still very active.

In theory, it should be good to have a reason to get up. Let’s see how things go,