Bills Posts

Back to work on Tuesday, and up until 0630 this morning I haven’t left the house, except to put the bin out. No exercise.

I woke up this morning at 4AM. For the next two hours I knew that I needed to do some exercise. I’ve been thinking about when I could go for a walk. I could go at lunchtime but for some reason, I can’t bring my self to at the moment. I could go after work, but I can’t bring myself to for some reason. The only time when I should feel comfortable is in the morning. And that is where the anxiety is hitting.

Until a few months ago, I had absolutely no issue with getting up at half past five and walking three miles. At the moment I am barely managing 6,000 steps. I’m definitely not agoraphobic but I can’t get up at 5.30, I can barely get up at 6.30, actually 7.00am is no problem, but that is pretty much too late to go for a walk.

There’s a hurdle here I have to get over.

These last couple of days I’ve been thinking about vlogging and the need to practice outside. It increasingly looks like the morning is the most ideal time to do this. So, here we have two insurmountable issues that are mutually exclusive. Which one is going to win?

I have been thinking about what other activities I wanted to work on. One of them obviously is this blog. I’m pleased that I am working on it again, I hope it continues.

Another activity I am very keen to work on is vlogging. Even if I never publish any of the videos, I want to get confident in front of the camera. As I think about the idea of camera confidence, I think it strange that I have no fear of public speaking, but I’m nervous of speaking to a camera. Something wrong here.

What do I need to do? In a word, practice. But when?

I didn’t make any public New Year’s resolutions for 2024, here we are though. What plans, what goals do I have for the year? Well, for one I would very much like to improve my programming skills so I’ve committed a monitor to my raspberry pi 400, and going to have a go at python.

I hope I’ll get a chance to go for a walk along the Purbecks and also the Dorset ridgeway. There are a few megalithic sites there. I am also very keen to visit places like Avebury and Badbury Rings. it would be very nice to be able to tick off a few of the sites in The Old Stones directory.

Of course I want to lose weight as well. I need to get back in to walking.

Whilst it’s the time of year when people start thinking about holidays, we kind of have started, but it’s not very serious.

I’ll have to think a bit more about this.

As is a bit of a tradition on New Years Day, we went to the amusements, and spent a few pounds on the penny arcades. It’s something we only do once a year, so don’t begrudge it. Feeling a bit peckish we went and got some doughnuts, nice and sugary and just a bit crumbly. As we stood eating them we very quickly garnered an audience. One that was very keen to share our meal.

The crumbs on the ground were quickly squabbled over and eaten, but that wasn’t enough. A couple of the little darlings were making like hover birds at around hand height eagerly eyeing up the food. With one them getting a tad impatient and settled on my hand long enough to grab a morsel.

As you can imagine I was captivated and rapidly creating more crumbs. What a seriously delightful encounter. I know they are hungry, and if I were able I would make it so there would no hunger, but I can’t. But for just a few seconds, I was feeding the birds, and I loved it. Absolutely the highlight of the day.

Difficult to choose the most iconic picture of the year, but here it is.

At New Year’s Eve last year, I wished you all a prosperous and happy new year. I knew it would happen at some point, but on the 20th of March we said goodbye to Rascal, with many tears. The only certainty was that he’d had a good life with us and we love and miss him.

In June we revelled in the delight and happiness of Alex & Sian’s wedding, it was a really lovely day.

We had a lovely holiday we were particularly pleased to visit Malta, and to once again meet an old friend The P&O ship Azura.

I have, for the time being at least, given up my early morning walks. I am going to have to sort something out with that as it is the most convenient time for me to take some exercise.

There have been things this year that I would have wished hadn’t happened, and things happening that delighted me. For you, I hope the good has outweighed the bad. And of course, I wish nothing but goodness and happiness for 2024.

I have a 10-trip ferry ticket. The problem with the ticket is that it has an odd number of trips taken. It means that I would end up with a trip that I either couldn’t use, or would have to buy another ticket for the return journey, perpetuating the issue of the odd number of journeys.

There was another option: I could journey around the harbour by another means and make the one trip back to Gosport to bring the ticket back to the correct level. Luckily I have a bus pass. I can do the trip around the harbour, which will only cost me some time. I thought I could get off the bus at commercial and have a bit of a browse.

I also considered that I could get off in Portchester and walk down to the castle. that would have been quite interesting. Anyhow, I caught an E2 (fast bus) to Fareham, and as there wasn’t a fast bus due for Portsmouth, I got on a No. 3. It did go around the houses a bit, but that was OK as I saw places that I hadn’t visited before. Because the weather was a bit dodgy, I decided not to get off at Portchester.

I caught the 11:32 E2 in Gosport and arrived in Portsmouth at 13:25 I took the opportunity to have a Burger King and then went on to Waterstones. Whilst I do enjoy having a look around the bookshop, I sometimes get a bit frustrated as I can’t find the book that will answer the question of the day. Today, I couldn’t even formulate a question.

From Commercial Road I walked to The Hard, and didn’t have to wait long for the Ferry. I ended the trip at Gosport with a ticket that has an even number of trips remaining. I walked home from there. It was a mostly successful day.

The Christmas break has been quite busy, we’ve been doing stuff nearly every day not all of it specifically related to Christmas. I’ve three days of the break left before returning to work.

I was fortunate with last Saturday. Our visit to Longleat gave me material to cover the break to today. And so, tonight without revisiting Longleat, I don’t have anything new for the blog. Today’s activities involved family, and I don’t wish to write about them.

I was sorry about last night’s post. It is clearly inadequate. I will try and do better tomorrow.

The house at night. Quite impressive.

I’m sorry, long day tired. Off to bed. Good night. Sleep tight.

A really good reason to visit Longleat at this time of year is to experience the festival of lights. Each year is a different theme this years being fairy tales.

There must be a mile or more of lit up themes such as the one in the header picture including; Peter Pan, Hansel & Gretel, Rumple Stiltskin, Winnie The Pooh, Snow White and more. Very nicely done, it is a wonderful experience and for children magical.

One show that impressed me was at the fountains where they had an arc spray which they were using as a movie screen, very, very good.

It was a delightful day and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I can think of only one negative comment; the price of food. Beyond that well worth a visit. Especially the red panda.

Whilst we were waiting to board the boat for the lake cruise, watched the staff cleaning out an enclosure. A sign said that the enclosure was for Red Pandas, but it looked empty.

The river cruise was entertaining, the host was very funny and the trip lasted about 20 – 30 minutes. After we disembarked, we walked around the other side of the compound and realised the compound wasn’t empty.

Just around the corner, we came across a party of people who were inside the compound, they were obviously on a VIP visit because they were feeding a red panda. This incredibly beautiful little creature was perched on a bench happily wolfing down carrot sticks. We found out the panda was a female and had recently had babies.

They are an endangered species, so that she was breeding is incredibly important. Watching her was a captivating experience. She would gently take an offered carrot and chomp away at it. She was not in the least bit bothered by being surrounded by people.

Without a doubt a beautiful animal, what saddened me was that her species is in danger, I wish we (human beings) could live in harmony with other occupants of our planet.