Bills Posts

Out for my morning walk, I’ve started taking photos of the shops that have closed down on the high street. I’m not entirely sure why I am doing this, I think it may be something to do with my thoughts on revitalising the high street. Not that I have any plans mind you. I’ve found the website that gives the rateable value of the shops in Gosport. That’s quite interesting. Still not sure what I’m going to do with that.

I’ve also started watching the bus station, both old and new. I’m trying to work out what is going on at the new site. The picture clearly shows the trenches for the foundations of the new bus shelter and in the immediate foreground is what I think is called a terminus, the point where a bus will actually stop. It looks like the first one of several.

Behind it though, and obscured by the green barriers is a row of paving slabs positioned in a way that doesn’t make sense to me, so not sure what is going on there.

I shall keep an eye on it.

These wheels and levers are typical of the signalling infrastructure for the old semaphore signals. I confess, I have always found them fascinating.

When I’m at a railway station, more so on my own than when I’m with somebody, I like to walk the length of the platform. In the past I used to watch the cables and levers, waiting for them to move, and if there was a level crossing, I’d see if I could watch the man in the signal box spin the wheel to close the gates. I loved seeing the cables and levers move.

When I do finally get around to building my model railway I would love to have a set of signals set up to work the same as this, i think it would be really too difficult to set up, given the intricacies – I certainly wouldn’t be able build the interlocking that in real life prevents things from going wrong. I’m not even sure these things are available – I’m willing to bet though that somewhere someone has self built that kind of set up.

During our day at the Watercress Line Gala event, we thoroughly enjoyed the train trip form Alresford to Alton. We broke the journey at Ropley, the main engineering depot. I talked a bit about our visit there. I mentionned an angry little train, as in the header picture. it’s the little engine Kilmersdon. Every so often, Kilmersdon would burst in to life generate a lot of steam and rush off down the track.

It didn’t take me long to work out that this engine was being used to give visitors a driving experience on the footplate. What tickled me was the furious burst of activity as the train rushed off for a couple of hundred yards, and then slowly trundled back, letting off a second jet of steam.

It gave me a real feeling of the train being very annoyed at having to scuttle backwards and forwards. But, you can’t deny that the little green engine is very cute, and was lovely to see it giving so much joy to people.

Elayne found out a couple of days ago that the Heritage Railway The Watercress line was running a gala weekend. We thought we’d go.

We went to Alresford, my thinking was that as a paid car park, it was likely to be less busy than any of the other stations on the line. As it happens, that was the case, and we found a parking slot quickly.

It was fairly expensive – we hadn’t booked online, I did look but all of the slots were taken for today. But that was OK.

We had a lovely time, I really enjoyed seeing the trains, standing in the steam and smelling it and the smoke from the coal. I spoke to a few of the staff / volunteers, not sure which. They all love being there.

We got off at Ropley and walked in to a guided tour around the engineering sheds. Given that this is a volunteer outfit, they are doing a wonderful job, but as the guide was talking, it was obvious that all of these heritage lines survive through working with each other and an astounding amount of support from members of the public and some very wealthy fans of railways. Not only that, support is global – Did you know that the wheels of trains have steel tyres, and that these are only made (to order) in South Africa? No, neither did I.

Fascinating stuff. More tomorrow, featuring angry little trains.

This shows a small cargo vessel, possibly a tanker passing P&O’s Britannia which is on its way to Stavanger.

We were parked up down at GAFIRs having fish & chips, well actually sausage but you know what I mean.

It was the first time in quite a while since we last did this. Partly because it has only recently become a viable proposition with the increasing length of daylight. Very pleasant it was too.

Britannia was the second cruise ship we’d seen going out today, with the first being Aurora, quite a bit smaller than Brittannia, but still quite a neat compact looking ship.

A very pleasant hour.

The bell tower isn’t really leaning, it’s all in the perspective.

The 11th of May 2015 is the date when I first came up with my “Locality” idea, actually it’s a pretty feeble name, but it’ll do the job. What it boils down to is focussing my interests on the area where I live.

I used an app called Day One to write a fair bit of stuff about my idea of locality, I would have loved to have gone online back then, but I didn’t feel able to. I have really enjoyed these last three and a bit years of an online blog, and really do want to keep it going.

One way of doing that would be to reinvigorate Locality, which I confess I have let wither a bit. But, I intend to correct that. So, I am likely to re-join the Gosport Society, they have some good presentations at their events. I could even start going to council meetings again. I’ll look in to that.

But, the main part is exploring the local area. There are plenty of places to go, walks to do, and things to see.

So, let’s get on with it.

My apologies for the brief post. Placeholder only. I will try to do better tomorrow.

I managed to get up this morning I went for another walk, the first time in quite a while since I’ve been on two consecutive walks. It hasn’t been the going out for a walk it has been the getting up that I gave up on. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I’m back to the old routine, but I have to acknowledge that it does appear that this time of the morning is the only time I feel comfortable doing any kind of exercise.

Anyhow, back to the walk. I followed the usual walk I wondered if I would see the Brittany Ferry as I walked down the high street. Not as I was walking down the high street, but it was about to come in to the harbour as I arrived at the waterfront. I was wrong about the ferry being the Pont Aven, it was the Contentin. It was nice to see the ferry come in.

I took a bearing on the line down the middle of the path, it’s not exactly 270 degrees, more like 267, but there again, I’m not sure how accurate in taking the bearing I am. No problem with the compass app on the phone.

The water in the cockle ponds were millpond-like. And it was very clear. I have been looking to see what life there is in the pond, some insect-like beasties, and a couple of very small fish and a pond weed is sprouting.

It was a very pleasant walk.

I went out for a walk this morning. It was a little bit chilly, but a very pleasant walk. There were a few people on the high street, and as I was getting towards the end of the high street, I saw a Brittany Ferry sailing by. I think it was the Pont Aven, definitely not any of the regulars I’ve seen, it was the wrong shape.

I paused at the bottom of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall and debated whether to go out to the end, but for no particular reason I decided not to. There’s a line of blocks an inch and a bit wide that goes from the milenium sundial to Trinity church, the line runs due East to West. I wonder if it is the start of a ley line?

I went over to the Cockle Ponds. There were a couple of people around, I didn’t know them, but we exchanged pleasantries which was nice.

There was a shopping trolly laying on its side I was surprised that it wasn’t already in the pond. Then, in the smaller pond I saw the kids scooter in the pond. I looked around to see if there was anything else in the pond. I can’t help wondering who would throw a kiddies scooter in the pond? Why would people throw anything in?

When we went to Chichester yesterday (See post 1271), I only took a fleece with me. There was bright sunshine and I expected to end up carrying it. You’ll gather that turned out to not be the case. I thought it was reasonably mild as we left Gosport, but as soon as we got out of the car at Chichester, it was obvious that there was a real bite to the air and the fleece only just made it tolerable, so I got away with it.

It was a. very similar situation today, I pretty much only left the house to go shopping, the bite was still there.

That could take us on to a wider discussion about the weather. I think it is probably easier to say that my least favourite season is the summer. Now, don’t get me wrong I really do like a lovely bright day, what I am less keen on is heat, I tend not to like really hot weather.

The other three seasons are quite capable of giving us a lovely bright day, more consistently perhaps Autumn and Spring give us those delights. The light from the lower sun in those seasons gives us some truly glorious pictures and makes walking an even greater pleasure.