Bills Posts

A news story this week that the troubled ferry that conveyed passengers between East and West Cowes. The current ferry installed in 2017 has, I think it fair to say, had a troubled history. I understand that for various reasons it hasn’t undertaken a significant amount of it’s scheduled journeys.

The irony is that the rusting hulk of the preceding ferry, No. 5 (the current is No. 6) languishes next to the Gosport Ferry Terminal. I see it every time I go to the harbour waterside.

The. old ferry can’t be brought back into service. Apparently, it wouldn’t meet the requirements for the change drives, apart from that it looks rusty and old. To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me to find it semi-submerged one morning. It also looks incredibly rusty.

A sad end to a service provider that was fast and respected – even if I had never travelled on it (except I may have done – once).

I was determined to get to the waterfront and shoot a bit of video. Well, I did after a fashion. Firstly, I’m not sure that the microphone is working – It wasn’t showing a flat battery, but I’m sure that it’s not right.

I got to the Falklands Gardens probably around 10 past 7, there were a couple of people in the area already which I kind of expected but was disappointed nonetheless. I clearly haven’t got over my inhibitions about having people around. This is unfortunate because I need to have the confidence to be able to speak in public. That, in its own right, is funny as I have no issues speaking to an organised group.

So, what am I bothered about? Is it that I am self-conscious about appearing to talk to myself? I suppose that could be it. Perhaps I should just get out there and do it. Part of it of course is not having anything prepared. I had an idea whilst out this morning.

I’ll give it a go.

We went for a short walk today. We drove down to Stokes Bay and parked up in the Pebbles car park. It was quite a blustery day, but we both had good wind proof coats on. We quite enjoyed the walk up towards the diving museum, and turned round after 20 minutes.

Coming back, the wind was behind us pushing us along a little bit. In the distance we could see a large ship making its way in, not taking long to be able to see that it was a container ship.

Elayne asked what ship it was, and where it had come from. It took a minute or so to log in to the Marine Traffic app, and only a few seconds to locate it and identify it as The Cosco Hope, 141,823 gross tons, she was built in 2012, 366m long and 48.32m wide. She had left Charleston on the third of March.

The Cosco Hope has a TEU of 13,092, meaning it can carry that number of twenty foot containers. As to what the cargo was, I wonder how many Amazon or wish packages were on board. At least that will always remain a mystery,

I only ask the question in the header because I felt in some respects having all that information (and I haven’t given you everything that Marine Traffic provides) takes away some of the mysteries in life. It’s like a lot of things, you only need an app on your phone and you can find out things.

Actually, I think I prefer it like that.

I apologise about last nights post, it was very uninspiring. Anyhow, we managed get to Romsey today.

On the edge of the New Forest, I haven’t quite worked out where it sits in history. Romsey itself is mentioned in the Domesday book, so it’s been about for quite a while. The Abbey, in the picture is big, to my untrained eyes it’s on the scale of a cathedral but it isn’t. We went inside. IT had a timeline set up on a board and people who have been associated were listed.

Fascinating names like; Edgar the Peaceful, Edward the Martyr (who was murdered at Corfe Castle) and Ethelred the Unready. I feel I should know a bit more about them.

We went back in to the town centre, which really felt like a centre An enclosed, round-ish…square, with four roads converging on it, but plenty of pedestrian space and obvious place for cafe-culture. If I’d had any choice in the matter I’d have banned cars completely. Making it completely pedestrian.

Oddly, particularly impressive was the bakery, It had a display of breads that made my mouth water, but it was the queue, it was there as we walked past one way, and even longer when we came back. If it had been shorter, I would have been tempted to join, but we were limited for time.

Anyhow, it was a very pleasant trip out.

Romsey could well be worth a visit. A market town since the 11th century. It seems there is a lot of history in the town.

It’s a place that Elayne wants to visit, as do I.

There isn’t much else that I can say at the moment.

Sorry this is a short post, just don’t have much to say today.

Last week, I emailed the Ordnance Survey. I was after a wall map with a particular level of detail and as it was very customised it wasn’t available even as a customised map. The response to the email said that it would take up to five working days for them to respond, which they did today.

The OS don’t do the kind of map that i want, but they sent me a bunch of links to companies that do, so perhaps over the weekend, I may get a chance to have a look at them.

So, what am I after and why? Well, I want two maps the first is a very localised one to the area that I am interested in, and the other a map of the whole of Dorset.

On both maps (I think I’d almost prefer them to be monochrome) I want, roads and town and place names, but not a lot of detail, but able to locate specific areas, but the main elements are churches and prehistoric sites.

Why would I want that? Well, it’s research for my book. I’m looking for Ley Lines. And I’m all excited about it.

I actually managed to get out for a walk this morning, only a quick stroll down to the waterfront. I was just going to visitor and then come straight back, except there were two tugs loitering. I checked Marine Traffic and there was a Brittany Ferry coming in. The tugs wouldn’t be for the ferry, all the masters have a ticket that allows them to navigate without escorts through the channel and in the harbour.

It was the Columbia Star. Unfortunately, she was too far out for me to wait for her, but I could wait for the Pont Aven which was only just outside the harbour, and I felt as though I had enough time to get to the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall, arriving at the end just as the Pont Aven came in.

It’s interesting at the moment half way down the high street efforts are well underway to turn a pedestrian area into a road suitable for vehicles, buses? Or busses and cars. What used to be the taxi rank and ferry drop off now looks like the lunar landscape as it is being turned into the new bus stop, and the bus station looks more dilapidated every day.

Even at 8AM, the high street looks sad.

Cenozoic – Now that’s a word to conjure with. I had never heard it before yesterday, and it cropped up when I was doing a bit of research on a particular place (to be revealed in a minute).

Cenozoic – what does it mean? Well, the dictionary definition is; relating to, or denoting the most recent era, following the Mesozoic era and comprising the Tertiary and Quarternary periods. So, quite recent then – only within the last 66 million years apparently – who’d have believed it?

So the place that I was researching (No, I’m still not going to tell you where – only a few sentences to go – and don’t jump ahead) turns out. to be the highest Cenozoic hill in England, and I see it every time I go to my part of Dorset, it is very iconic, and I always think of it as Dorset’s Mountain because of its conical shape (if you know the area, you’ll know where I’m talking about).

I did a post a while ago about the Purbeck Monocline, the almost right-angle curving of rocks around Lulworth Cove, which has been described as one of the last ripples of the Alpine Orogeny (mountain building period). It turns out that the Purbeck Monocline was formed in the mid-Cenozoic roughly 30 million years ago so in a way, that and Creech Barrow (Yay, yes that’s the place) are geologically related.

Unrelated and aside; do you find that phrases stick in your mind? The Purbeck Monocline is one of them, another is the Louisianna Purchase, I’ll do a piece about that.

Just to add to my frustration; I don’t have a picture of either Creech or Lulworth Cove for you – I’ll have to change that.

Oh Dear, this is not good. I had written this post last night, and saved it as a draft intending to add a picture and then published. I was distracted and forgot to do that – so two days without a post, which means you may get another post later today – really, not good.

I’ve clearly been having some problems with postings, notwithstanding the issues I been having with binge-watching, so I thought I would revert to a strategy that I’ve used in the past when I’ve had problems keeping going with posts. That is to produce a list of topics that I intend to write about.

Now, the list will be very broad, and I may even write two or more posts around a single topic; conceivably, I could create a post every night for the coming week about the same topic, I set myself no constraints in that area, but to-pics I expect to cover are;

• Photography (including Vlogging)
• Walking
• A TV or youtube programme I’ve watched
• The book or magazine I’m reading
• A tweet I’ve read
• Something I’ve readd in the news
• Something I have or haven’t done

I think that should get my thoughts going and potentially result in some interesting posts, which remains to be seen.

We were binging a boxset again last night, the same box set as I wrote about last week. This was the end of Season 7. Only one more season to go before the series ends. Annoyingly, we were so engrossed in it that by the time we finished I looked at my watch and it was after midnight. Like last time then, I managed to reset the counter back to zero.

Sorry for the short posting. I’ve not long got back after seeing the second part of Dune, tired now so it’s going to be a short one tonight.