Bills Posts

I had turned off Clarence Road heading toward the high street, I heard a seagull making that sound which I associate with “There’s a threat to my nest” and lo and behold the screaming seagull is back, only a couple attempts. I have to say, it was nice to see.

Something is about to happen on the new road, there was a sign saying the road is going to be closed for five days from the 1st of July. One question that is going through my mind is a lack of traffic control. As my chiropodist said, he could envisage a situation where a bus is coming a long and a person on a mobility scooter crosses the road. There will have to be something? Won’t there?

I’ve been thinking about my walk and making it more interesting for you and for me. I’d quite like to have a mining project, just something to keep my eye on, so here are some thoughts;

Part 1 is from home to Clarence Road. At the moment nothing is happening there, but thee is a lot of history, from the railway station, the fortifications with Queen Victoria’s railway, the barracks.

Part 2 From Clarence Road to the high street, only the cross streets and what is happening there. That is coming to a conclusion, and in a few weeks, I’ll be monitoring traffic flow to see what is happening.

Part 3 is the high street itself. One aspect that is going here is the number of “inactive units” – closed shops. Why are they closed? What are other towns doing to make their high streets successful – and some places have.

Part 4 will be the new bus station, the Falklands Gardens, ferry terminal and old bus station (that will be a major upcoming project, and will impact on;

Part 5 the waterfront and esplanades, including the Haslar Marina Pier Wall, the Millenium sundial and Trinity Church.

Part 6 The Cockle Ponds, and the rout home.

Why am I doing this? Not sure really, but it’s made for a kind of reasonable post.

A while ago, Elayne told me that I should do a post (on face book really) about what Cockle Ponds are. When I went for yesterday’s walk I made a point of taking photographs of the information boards around the ponds. I’ve spend a bit of time this evening transcribing them.

I have to say that I hadn’t realised the importance of the ponds from a couple of perspectives. I’m not going to write about those now, saving that for the post. What i will do though, what I normally don’t do – what ever I post on Facebook I will copy here.

I realised that I hadn’t take quite the photo’s that I wanted so I was able to get them this morning. I think they are OK/

My intention was to do a post sometime over the next couple of days, but I may delay it whilst I try to explore the history of the ponds a little deeper. It’s all very interesting.

When I’m out for my morning walk, whaikt I like to do is get the sun lined up behind the Spinnaker. Today’s picture was no different from the hundreds of others I’ve taken, except I really quite like this one.

Last night, I didn’t do a post. I think about ten minutes before I went to bed, I thought I must do a post, but then I became fixated on reading my book, and after just a few minutes fell asleep, having forgotten about the post. Most frustrating. Counter is back to zero.

I’ve been thinking about hobbies, comparing today’s interests with interests from my youthful era, which would include; stamp collecting, photography even amateur radio plus others. But those hobbies don’t seem attractive to youngsters anymore. Perhaps making tik tok, gaming, what others?

I can’t help wondering if people will rediscover the delights of the hobbies they are what appears to be mostly missing out on.

We spend a fair bit of time in the garden, just sitting, taking things in. We love it. Part of it, actually quite a big part for me, are the birds. I love that they visit the feeding stations whilst we are in the garden. I think they have learned at least to a degree that we are no threat to them.

Take today for example. After completing our gardening tasks for the day, we sat in our usual place, just enjoying the day. Birds over-fly our garden at great speed, heading for places I know not where, for purposes I know not what. Whatever or wherever it is, they were doing it at great speed.

Then a pigeon heading north came over the roof, and performing a very graceful loo- cap to rest on our roof. Sparrows seemed to appear out of nowhere and would then take off at great speed. The Starlings were either be on the bird table or trying to get at the seed in the hanging feeder. To cap it off a couple of magpies may be nesting in our neighbours chimney.

So why then do I call pigeons fat Alberts? It’s because they remind the C-130 Hercules aircraft, a real workhorse transporter. They too fly with dignity and style. It’s their nickname as well.

I don’t have a picture of the ivy, but we have a patch out the front of our house that needs trimming back plus the growing plants that cover our shelter are getting a bit wild and need removing.

At least part of the weekend then, will be taken up with this kind of activity. As is usually the case, I’m not really looking forward to it, but once it is done, I usually feel very satisfied.

I’m then thinking about getting out for a bit, perhaps taking a bus ride, just so I can use my bus pass.

Let’s see how the day develops.

No, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with sparrows, or my forgetting to do a post last night. Except a blind alley which is causing me a lot, and I mean a lot of frustration.

I’m playing with a spreadsheet, and I am trying to do something with the INDEX and MATCH functions, working on an array. The really annoying thing is, that I’ve done it once, and it works perfectly.T

I want to do something similar, further along in the spreadsheet, and do you think I can get the wretched thing to work? No, I can’t.

The hanging feeders have attracted a flock of half as dozen or so sparrows (house and garden by the looks of it). What I noticed was that the occasional one would be attracted in the morning, and may be a tenth of what was in the feeder may get eaten.

By the time for bed, the flock had been back almost emptied the feeder. They are also eating two fatballs per day. Lovely to see.

I was looking for a general picture of the high street. I was very surprised to find that searching back through all of the pictures I have taken in the last year, this was the closest I could get.

Gosport is like any town, it has its good bits, and it’s bad bits. I, personally, think that the high street could do with a bit of work. It remains to be seen of course how the new traffic flows on the cross streets will work, but as a shopping area, there are a couple of things missing.

As you might expect me to say, the first thing we need is a decent book shop, doesn’t have to be one of the chains, a good second hand one will do, especially since the closure of the British Heart Foundation, which had by far the best book section, and even that wasn’t fantastic, OK to moderately good I would say.

The next thing is a good technology shop. Now, there is CEX, but that is a 2nd hand place for tech. Where are the Dixon’s and the Tandy’s (Radio Shack)? They went decades ago.

I’m fine with the cafe culture, that’s OK, but is that tghe only thing to draw us there, when there isn’t a market on? Even then, when it’s not a “special” market, they do tend to be unexciting. I’m sorry, I’m having a bit of a down on the town at the moment.

When you pause for a second, and think just about the history that abounds in the town, you realise what potential it could have. All you need is the people with the vision and the nouse to make it happen.

Yes, yes, I know. The birds in the picture are not sparrows. I started getting serious about putting hanging feeders out a couple of weeks back.

I had been putting fat balls out, but the birds appeared not to like them. I admit, they were cheep. 150 for £17. Who would. Think sparrows would be so fussy? They barely went near them.

QI bought some that I thought were of a better quality, and the birds are getting through about two per day, which is north bad going, but they are still not the ones I really want. I haven’t given up looking.

Then, there is the birdseed. This no-grow, no waste seed is sitting a four slot feeder, and the birds are almost emptying it every day. IT seems that there is a group of about half a dozen sparrows that have adopted our feeding station. We can be sat in the garden and they always appear from the eastern side, I do wonder if they move between stations,

I love it, I love having birds in the garden. I wish I could get them to understand that I would never harm them, and that they are quite safe from us (not sure about the cat though).

I would like to plan some blogging activities. In order to do that I need to do things. Like for example, getting up in the mornings and going for a walk on a regular basis. I can’t be 100% certain of doing that, but I will try.

I continue to read The Plantagenets, we are approaching an interesting time in history, and I’m only a third of the way through the book. The author, Dan Jones, writes a very readable history. The book refers to Portsmouth, but frustratingly, not Gosport. But why should it? Although the town and its fortifications will form an important part of the defence of Portsmouth, if not England, the Manor of Gosport only came in to being in 1204, granted by the Bishop of Westminster. That importance will not become reasonably important for a couple of centuries.

Vlogging remains a determination of intent on my part. But what and when remains to be determined. In the meantime, as I mentioned recently, I should take the opportunity to practice filming in public. I need to get my tripod and wireless mic out again.

Then of course, there are the various activities that are afoot in town, the activities that the cross street and the bus station developments are progressing, but as I have done a fairly extensive update on facebook only on Friday, I shan’t be doing one tomorrow.

Let’s see how we get on shall we?

I went into The Range today (well, it was yesterday, but that’s part of the distraction, I’ll write about that in a minute) I was looking for Ericacious compost, which until a couple of weeks ago I had never heard of, and of which until a couple of minutes before walking in to The Range I had no idea what it was for (Thank you Gosport, for having an excellent 4G service, and to Google for supplying the answer) that it is used for plants that prefer acidic soil. They didn’t have any out the front so I walked in to the gardening section as I turned into the aisle which as it happened had bird & pet food in it, I saw the discerning pigeon I walked slowly and it trotted along, pausing occasionally I presume to consider the benefits of mealworms over guinea pig food, it did not seem in the least bit bothered by my presence, until of course, i intruded into its personal space, at which it trotted off at speed.

I should explain the mix up with yesterday and today, I am writing this at ten minutes to one in the morning. Having realised that I hadn’t done the blog (and I had a good idea of what I was going to write as that is in the previous paragraph) I have been playing with excel and was having so much fun (no, seriously, I was) that I lost track of time, and it was only when I picked up my IPad to do the nights post, that I realised the significance of the time and thought “Oh Dear, I’ve missed the boat, and now the counter will be back to zero” – so frustrating.

Anyway, I am now going to post this, shut down my I-Pad so that I have no screens to upset my internal clock and return to my book on the Plantagenets. That’s getting interesting, King John is upsetting everybody with his harsh justice, and inclination to tax everything and I think we are heading toward a big event (said somewhat tongue in cheek, as I think I know what’s coming). It’s getting so exciting. So, I’m going to say good night and wish all my readers well. Apparently, there are 67 of you now. Thank you so much for sticking with me.