Bills Posts

The Keep of Portchester Castle from inside the castle walls. Of course, absolutely nothing to do with garden railways.

I had a conversation with Elayne today. To be honest, I was surprised she’s almost enthusiastic about it. I really can’t see it happening though, so I might as well give up on it. Weeelll, not quite but mostly.

I got my windows computer working today, for the first time in several months. I would quite like to programme one of my radios with some of the scanner frequencies of the local area, I’ve actually started thinking about radios again. For some reason I can’t fathom, I am still very worried about it though. I might even turn the radio on at some point. All this stems from the last year.

When I came back from Cambridgeshire earlier this week, I had to buy a ferry ticket for the trip to Gosport. Ferry tickets are always a return so I was left with a journey that really wasn’t much use to me.

I had been reading my Plantagenets book, and it mentioned Portchester Castle. In 1205 King John was planning a return to France to regain his Normandy Territories, he was trying to build his army of invasion and needed support from his aristocracy. William Marshall had an almighty row with the King and wouldn’t support his attempts to return to Normandy.

I thought it would be interesting to go an have a Quick Look at it, so I used the ticket to go to Portsmouth and then my bus pass to go to the castle. I didn’t pay the £11.50 to go inside where you could go to the top if the keep, but it was a lovely day so I walked around the outside of the castle, and then went back up to Portchester and caught the bus to Fareham, and then on back to Gosport.

I thought the contrails made the tower look like it was blowing its top.

It was a deliberate break in posting, but it’s good to be back. Of course I’ve lost the day count completely, and actually, the serial number in the heading is purely sequential and has, for quite a long time, born no resemblance to the number of days of postings but remains a valid count of the number of posts.

I went for a bit of a walk this morning, just slightly longer than usual, it was early in the day, but later than when I normally get out. Made a bit of a change shops were open, and a lot more people about.

The Star Care, a reefer container ship was being escorted out by two tugs, nice to see. It looked like the Model Yachting Club was being opened up and a session being run. Didn’t see any models out.

My brother-in-law has put some effort in to convincing me that I need a garden railway. I have had thoughts about where it could go, and a very rough idea about what it may look like. But, how much effort will it take? Elayne didn’t seem totally opposed, at least that is until she sees how it could affect the garden. Personally, I’m not convinced.

My apologies for not posting over the last couple of days. Having a bit of an interlude. All will be explained. Please bear with me.

A rather dramatic sky over the cockle ponds. A poor worker always blames his tools. Mine are mainly a clumsy microphone, yes that’s it my mic is clumsy. The frustrating thing is that if you use a cabled microphone, you obviously have a long cable to deal with. A wireless microphone on the other hand is whole other order of inconvenience because you can’t just Bluetooth or wirelessly connect your mic to your phone, it has to connect via a receiver, which means a wire in some cases.

I’ve used the small lavaliere mics before, and they do work well, but the clips can be flimsy, and the last one I had I lost the receiver. It fell through the gap between the boardwalk planks of the Haslar Marina Pier wall.

I’ve got a better mic now, the receiver (and the transmitter, the actual mic) are too big for that to happen again.

All I need to do, is get out there and use it.

Really tired tonight, will try to do better tomorrow.

For the first time in a very long time (pretty much a year) I managed to get up every day, Monday to Friday, last week I managed to get up every day for a walk.

I would very much like to do the same this week.

The roadworks on the cross roads is due to start tomorrow, what are they going to do? Then there is the new bus station – I think the driving area is pretty much complete, block paving is being laid, once that is Dow I assume that the bus shelter will go up.

I’ll keep an eye on things.

The Cockle Ponds

If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll see a duplicate post to this. Sorry about that.

Most mornings when I go for a walk I end up going around these ponds. They are a perpetual source of interest to me. I think two main ones are the frustration I feel when I find someone has thrown a shopping trolley in to the ponds, and the delight I experience at the wildlife I often see in the ponds, mainly I suppose the Jelly Fish, which I haven’t seen this year probably because I took a break from the morning walking.

Elayne suggested that I do a piece on the ponds.

What follows is a praraphrasing of the four information boards that are around the pond. I don’t know if the information on the board is copyright, although the facts are in the public, I am assuming they are;

Model boat building and sailing have taken place at Gosport since the 1890’s involving different styles of model yacht.

The model hatching we see today started around 1913. Members of the club would have built their own vessels. Quite often they would have been helped by staff from Camper & Nelson the famous boat yard.

Over the century, Gosport has hosted several world class championships. Large crowds were a regular feature.

Actually, I gave up with the paraphrasing at this point.

Walpole Park was created in 1869 on the area known as Horsefield, which was used previously by the army for exercising horses. The model boating sailing facility originates from a mill pond coupled to Gods Port (later called Gosport) creek, in the reign of Charles II and is shown on maps from 1678. It was changed into a cockle pond in 1751. The pond was created by a wall separating it from the town’s moat.

The Walpole Park lakes are not only an important leisure facility, they play an integral part of the local nature scene for wildlife, with the lakes being designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Ramsar Site Wetland of International Importance in. 1971. Gosport BoroughCouncil and the. Gosport Model Yacht and boat Club (GMY&BC) manage the lakes, whilst Natural England maintains a strict monitoring programme on the waterfront quality.

The Walpole Park Lakes are known throughout the world with skippers coming from all over the globe to race their yachts on these famous and unique facilities. A flat concrete path encompasses the lakes the larger of the two lakes being 230m long and 54m wide with the smaller one being 110m long and 55m wide. Typically 1.5 m deep holding approx 3.5 million gallons (15000 tons) of salt water which is obtained from Haslar Creek via a control valve.

The ponds were renovated under the unemployment work programme after the Great War. The official opening on 1st august 1921 was attended by approx 3000 people.

The Millenium celebrations and development of the Gosport Waterfront made funding available via the Heritage Lottery Fund, together with support from Gosport Borough Council and the Gosport Model Yacht and boat Club, for a new pavilion in Walpole Park known as The Compass Point. This houses the Club Room and Boat House on the ground floor and a cafe bistro on the upper floor.

Model Yachting keeps the name of Gosport circulating the world with the Worldd International Radio A Class Championships, held in 2005, with skippers travelling from as far as New Zealand to compete. These unique facilities coupled with a dedicated club membership, visitors and the continued support from GBC ensures model yachting will continue well into its third Century at Walpole Park.

Model Yacht Racing (1960) – YouTube

The waterfront was quite busy this morning, especially around the ferry terminal looked like excited school groups waiting for a trip. As I moved down the esplanade, the noise of excited school children slowly gave way to the sound of the wind.

The wind was whining, moaning, it was being blown through a building. It was a different sound that brought about the eerie feeling, it was the clanking, more tinking, the sail ropes against the masts, when that and the wind and the water in the harbour are the only sounds. It’s weird, and most definitely eerie.

Because I took a break from my morning walks, I have probably missed out on some natural history at the Cockle Ponds, so I was really pleased to meet this little beastie, clinging on to the side. I think it was looking for breakfast. Usually, when they realise I am getting near they scuttle off below the surface, but not this one, it did not move.

It’s a good sign, and hopefully means that I may still see the jelly fish this year.

The little shrimp like beasties are there in their thousands, and I know there are some small fishes in the ponds as well. I know the ponds are part of a site of special scientific interest, I should find out why, I think I looked at this a couple of years ago, I’ll have to see if I can dig out that research.