Bills Posts

The topic for our next camera club competition, is Abstract. It’s prints. We spent a bit of time yesterday getting the prints ready, we got them professionally printed at a local printing office, and A3 print is quite reasonably priced there and lot of people from the club use it.

We were in a bit of a flap because the prints I got back last night weren’t right, they had a very noticeable line through it (we hadn’t checked them when picking up). I checked the images I’d sent, they were OK, so something wrong their end. Luckily when we went back today, they were able to sort it quickly.

Then we (well, Elayne – she’s much better at it than I am) had to mount them, couldn’t do that until this evening, and then label them, we finished at 6, just in time for a quick tea; scrambled eggs on toast.

We were rushing around with the prints because they had to be with the competition secretary today – or so we thought. Turns out they aren’t due in until next week. All that rushing around – oh well, it’s done now.

The print above is one of my entries. I confess it is very, very photoshopped. I’m really not good at into the camera abstracts. Its title is UIY1139, random title. – except the letters are shifted alphabetically & numerically by one from THX1138 an early 70’s cult science fiction film. No particular reason, it just appealed to me.

Want to know what the original undistorted picture was?

I should have recorded the weather stats yesterday, it would have been a good marker. The pressure reading was 972mb. Last year sometime we had a pressure of 980 something, I think that was the lowest I had seen for a very long time.

Overnight we reached a pressure of 972mb (actually, that was at 0652 this morning. I got that off an app I have on my phone – not off my weather station (A Davis vantage vue), the station is quite old now, doesn’t connect to the Internet and isn’t working properly. Time for an upgrade? I’ve added it to my wish list.

Then there was the rain. I knew there had been a lot of it, what with the flooding we encountered yesterday. One of the fun things about collecting weather stats in an analogue manner, is checking the rain gauge – 40mm this morning. It had last been emptied on Saturday.

I’ve got the diary of last years stats that I am slowly feeding in to the spreadsheet. I think for this year, I’ll do it a week at a time. I know it’s a pointless exercise, but I enjoy doing it.

We went out for a meal today, to The Chairmakers, a pub at Worlds end, Hambledon. They do a Sunday cavery which is delicious, and I am more than happy to recommend it, but this is not what today’s post is about.

The weather is bad, it has been raining for most of the last 24 hours. There are at least two ways of getting to the pub, one the shortest via back roads, the second is longer and involves motorway and dual carriageway, and some smaller roads.

We started out going via the short routes, I knew that we were likely to encounter water. I wasn’t expecting the road to go through a river. We did watch a van go through and it was up to the radiator grill. Given previous experiences with EV’s and water I was not inclined to risk it, so I turned around and went via the longest route.

As it happens, that wasn’t that bad, we were only 10 minutes late. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and it was lovely to see the family.

Elayne was asked if she could go into the shop where she volunteers. I dropped her off and drove round to Clarence Road, parking up opposite what used to be the Con Club. I made a point of having put in the car my vlogging kit (tripod & phone mount).

I was determined today to do an outside recording for Day 5 of the Talk to the Camera (TTtC) challenge, and in particular, I wanted to do it in as public a place as I could think. The front of the Con Club on a Market day seemed to be as good a place as any.

I have to confess, I was quite nervous and could very easily have backed doing this, just gone home and done my talk in a nice, quiet, safe place. But, I got set up and just started recording.

Now, I was slightly less coordinated in my delivery, and I was very aware that many of the people who walked past were looking at me. But ultimately, the videos I have been watching on YouTube are correct. People may look, but they don’t care – if they did, they would have stopped to ask what I was doing. A question I need to ask myself – what was the problem – apart from me?

The count is going to be zeroed again. I posted this after midnight! Oh Dear! That is so annoying.

I’m in a bit of a trough at the moment. There are things that i want to write about but I feel strangely awkward. Do I just do it, or do I find s different direction until I get my brain sorted? I think last nights reflected, I’m not going to change it, but I do think it’s not one of my best posts.

Let’s talk about the vlog challenge. Today was Day 4. In terms of talking to the camera, I like having a subject. Talking to the camera for ten minutes is easier if there is a subject, that’s not to say that talking for 10 minutes is easy. What has been frustrating is that of the four talks that I have done so far, three have been in the house. It sounds like an excuse, but I have had a serious bout of man-flu, and given that there are some freezing temperatures floating about it has been best that I don’t go out.

I am feeling a bit better now, so perhaps soon, I can get on with doing some of the talks in public places, and eventually, especially, when I know there will be people about.

I’ve really only just begun to read about this period in our history. Last night, we watched a film that portrayed the time of Mary, Queen of Scots in the period up to her execution. Obviously, there must have been some poetic licence in the film but there were also parts of the film that were reasonably accurate.

Much of the contact between Elizabeth and Mary was done via letter. Copies of those letters are very likely to still exist. There is also an account of the brutal murder of David Rizzo, Mary’s private secretary, whom Mary’s husband accused of cuckolding him and conspired with a group of Scottish lords stabbed him numerous times.

All inersting stuff.

So my apologies for a short post today, I’ve spent most of it in bed, as I’m haven’t been feeling too good. Really just a bad head cold (man-flu) luckiluy Elayne has been very sympathetic (tolerant) and I’ve not had much ribbing from her.

frustrating day. We had intended to drive around to Southsea, spend a bit of time (and money) and probably have a meal out. Which, of course, hasn’t happened.

As you might guess, the picture has nothing to do with thse shop in question. I thought I had a picture of all of the shops on Stoke Road, apparently not.

There’s a particular shop that sells second hand and antique items and I have to be honest, based upon what I see in the window, the odd bit of junk. But please do not let that deter you from visiting, if you are in the area.

Run by a Polish gentleman, hw collects all sorts of memorabilia and strange objects. It’s that latter that I was interested in. We had a really interesting and helpful conversation. I have to say that he has motivated me somewhat,

A couple of nights ago, I wrote about the talking to the camera challenge. Today, I started it. I did my first video down at the waterfront on the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. I may post it, but there is another small issue that I have to sort. More about that later.

I was though, quite pleased with today. I thought it was very positive.

I’m reading a book about Queen Elizabeth I. I’m not that far in to the book, but I have been thinking about who and what comes next, so here’s a brief timeline and rough dates;

• Elizabeth Died 1603
• James VI & I – 1603 – 1625
• Charles I – 1625 – 1660

I’m not sure what I am going to do when I reach the end of Charles I reign, but I know that I am very likely to read Samuel Pepys diary in parallel with any book I might be reading about Charles I. There’s a slight problem with that plan. The problem is called “The English Civil War” – I have a book specifically for that, a thick book.

I think I’ve probably defined my reading list for at least the next 4 – 6 months. Trouble with that, is that there are so many other books I’m interested in reading.

I’ve just done a quick, rough count through my blog, and there are over 100 posts where I mention vlogging in one context or another. Now if I do that again in the future, obviously just by including the term “Vlog” here, it will show up in any future search.

So the question I am asking, is am I being silly for going on about this? Why don’t I just do it? I have fairly consistently had one big issue, that is talking to the camera. I’m not at all confident doing it, and every time I do, it just does not sound right.

I picked up on YouTube a series of videos about a challenge that is going around, it’s pretty straightforward; for thirty consecutive days, just talk to the camera for 5 to 10 minutes. I’m going to do this, but there is no way I am going to make these videos public, for a start I will be discussing some personal detail – not too much, but more than I have done in this blog.

I miight post some where I’m not bothered about the content, and a lot of my filming will be done in a public place, so that will be another of my fears that I will need to face. Why am I bothering with this, and am I silly to do so? Well, I do have a plan.

I’ll talk more about that in a future post.