Bills Posts

I have used the colour version of this picture before. I think because I haven’t been quite as prolific with my camera recently for some reason I haven’t thought about black & white imagery until this evening for quite some time.

Then, as I say this evening I suddenly thought I haven’t made a b&W photo for a long time, and I like B&W, so I had a look at some of the pictures I have taken recently.

I took this photo and liked the light in the colour version. I like this one as much, but it has a more atmospheric feeling to it. The person in particular adds to the atmosphere.

For no particular reason, I have scrolled back through this blog. I thought that I would write about post No. 627, the halfway point to today, but actually, if I were to write it today, I suspect only a few things would have changed – it rained then, and it’s raining today, the major difference is that I didn’t go for a walk.

I went back to what I think of as the proper start to the blog was the day I committed to writing a blog post for every day of that year – 2020 – 2021, the first post was on the 14th of August 2020. I was so please that I did that.

I’m not sure that the quality of my posts has improved significantly, if at all. I also won’t deny that doing it has been a bit of a challenge in places. We are not quite off three and a half years, as it happens that will be before the end of this month – another milestone to mark.

I think that an ambition would be to find a focus for the blog. Perhaps the (I hope) the move to Dorset will give me that. There is certainly a sense of anticipation there. I do have thoughts for a couple of projects. Let’s see how things go.

It looks like this central line of tiles down the path points due west. I put the compass app on the phone on it and it gave 270 degrees.

Behind me when I took the picture is the millennium sundial. At the time of. The morning I was there today, there were not a lot of people around. Actually there were no people around. There were only a few people around on the. High street. To be honest, I hadn’t really wanted to get up, but pretty much forced myself to.

The walk to the waterfront was straightforward, I even followed my old path, there were a few people on the highstreet, not surprising really, it was a a bit later that when I have been there. Nothing at all happening in the harbour except the Gosport Ferry of course.

I did see one of my friends to say hello to, but that was it. I do intend to try and get out again this week.

I think it was the weekend before this one just gone we went into town, the first time in a few weeks I think.

As usual, we went in different directions. I have to confess that apart from something interesting to photograph there isn’t that much to draw me to the town centre, unless I have something specific to do.

The one thing I do quite like to do is look at the books in the various charity shops. Mostly, the shops don’t have a very good selection, not many books generally poorly presented.

In contrast, the British Heart Foundation had the largest selection of books that was fairly well organised. I’ve bought several books there

That weekend I was heading towards the BHF when I met up with Elayne, she told me that BHF had closed down. The shop had been cleared out. I was a tad disappointed.

Now, there is only The Works. By far the biggest selection of books in town, but none that I am interested in at the moment.

The thought occurred to me, that if I were ever to volunteer to work in a charity shop, it would be on the understanding that I controlled the book section. I would definitely organise the section by topic and then author alphabetically within the section, but are there areas I’d focus on. Science fiction of course, detective (especially local authors), and of course non-fiction.

But then I got to wondering how a bookshop works, especially second hand ones. Then I remembered Shaun Bethell, who runs the bookshop in Wigtown. He’s written several books about his bookshop, the one I read was quite amusing. I might read another one.

I quite like the idea of running a bookshop.

The Contentin makings its turn to the east to head towards its berth. This picture is absolutely nothing to do with the topic of today’s post.

Chocolate plays a continuing part in my downfall. I find it very difficult to ignore the stuff. Today hasn’t helped things. I have four chocolate eggs and their contents to eat. Now, I am determined to try and control my weight, so what am I to do?

I’m not going to throw them away, but I may very well give them away. This deserves some serious thought. What doesn’t help at all is that three of the four eggs have orange flavoured contents, which I love. It’s going to be hard.

This is another picture form yesterday’s walk. Going over the milenium bridge that covers the gap between Priddy’s Hard where the Explosion Museum sits and Weevil Lane next to Clarence Yard. Took this picture, and when I looked at on the big screen I thought “Elephant’s tusks”. These are the arms that support the bridge when it is raised. I’d like to see that – I think they post opening times (which I believe isn’t very often). I’ll have to look into that.

I’m not fully sure who the Durotriges were; a collective group of tribes that lived in Dorset and else where in this part of the world (including, I believe, The Isle of Wight as has been recently discovered). There’s the Durotriges Project being run by Bournemouth University I’m following them on Twitter, and haven’t got the scope of it yet. I’ll find out a bit more about it.

The Beakers were a Bronze Age culture that left their mark by including in graves their characteristic bell beaker, properly known as the bell beaker culture, evidence of their presence in Dorset has been found in the hill fort Maiden Castle, near Dorchester.

Lots of interesting stuff here.

It was another walk, an afternoon one as I am off today. Plus it’s a walk that I haven’t done for quite a while. Down the side of St Vincents College, over Grove Road Rec and. Priddy’s Hard through the explosion museum and over the bridge.

The light was quite stark but that made me think that the shadows were quite stark and I thought it might make a good picture, but whilst IO find it a bit. Interesting, I don’t think it has worked in the way I wanted it to. It is though, the best picture I have from today.

It was the longest walk I’ve done for quite a while, it was a bit breezy, but it wasn’t cold. A very pleasant walk.

When I was out for my walk yesterday, I was quite taken by the light – I was walking toward the town and waterfront, the sun was low on the horizon, and for quite a while, straight in to my eyes. Really, quite uncomfortable.

This point from where I took this pictures was one few areas where I had some respite and I was quite taken by the light. As is quite often the case, I just grabed this picture.

When I got home and looked at it on the bigger screen I was really quite taken by it. I also think that the person on the other side of the read adds to the image, both their positioning and shadow.

It’s just one of those pictures which purely by luck I really like.

I managed to get out this morning. It was a bit chilly, but I had a very pleasant hour and a bit.

I must admit that I got to the harbour expecting to find it empty, but I was greeted by the arrival of the Brittany Ferry Contentin, which was nice. Looking at the ferry it strikes me that its primary customer base is commercial traffic – lorries. There might be a few cars, but they will not be the primary.

I noticed the strange craft that I have seen quite frequently around the harbour; it’s difficult to describe a platform, with an engine a small crane and a cabin perhaps big enough for two people. It looked like there were two blokes on board.

I had moved down to the Haslar Marina Pier Wall and gone out to the end of it, as that would get me as close to the small vessel so that I could try and work out what it was doing. Once in position, I could see that they were lifting the small mooring buoys and it looked like they were checking the state of the anchor chain and possibly cleaning the buoy. I saw them lift one out, and the bottom half was caked with seaweed & possibly mussels.

I took a walk over to the cockle ponds. It’s been quite a while since I walked around them. I have to say that the water looked very clean. Like I said at the top, a very pleasant hour and a bit.

It’s going to be another bad post, I literally cannot think of anything to write about. In the past I’ve said that when I suffer from writers block, write about the fact.

I’m sat at the desk, pondering various topics, but really nothing is registering at the moment, so it’s going to be another short post I’m afraid. Sorry about this.

This paragraph is written a good 30 minutes after the original post was published. I have been lamenting the lack of posts relating to Ley lines. I had forgotten about Google Scholar where upon doing a search produced a cornucopia of material, much of it freely available.

Too late to start exploring tonight, but tomorrow promises to be interesting.