Bills Posts

I have no idea what footfall in the high street is normal between 12 – 2 ish, so I am assuming that today was normal for the time of the year. I make that point because when I went out first thing to put some rubbish out I said to Elayne that the sun was out and bright and it was a glorious morning, but the air was freezing, and by the time I went for the walk, it hadn’t warmed up that much – if at all, actually.

I would expect there to be more people about, it is after all lunch time. Even with the temperature as it was (what was the temperature? I don’t know). there were people sat at tables outside, and the cafes looked relatively busy.

I ended up at the ferry terminal, there’s some maintenance going on along the bridge to the pontoon I did read something about it a few days ago, I’ll have to see if I can find it.

i walked into the Falklands Gardens and had a look around people were on the phone, having lunch, or just enjoying the day.

I noticed the little boat which appeared to be moving at quite a clip. Apparently there is a speed limit in the harbour, 10 knots, but I don’t think it applies everywhere, I’m sure it was going faster than that, and nobody seemed interested.

It was a very pleasant walk.

The Local Transpoprt Plan for Fareham & Gosport of which Hampshire County Council have issued a draft version for the public to comment on it and the proposed associated strategy.

The only snag is, I suspect it is too boring for you, my readers.

i have to say that i am currently on Page 18 (of 47) and it isn’t the most exciting document I’ve ever read, to the extent it will probably take me two or three nights to wade through it.

The thing with Gosport is that walking and cycling in the area are, surprisingly, quite well catered for, there are quite few routes that incorporate cycling, perhaps the main one being the old railway trackand numerous others around the town.

The bus service is really quite good. Speaking selfishly as I don’t know if coverage across the whole of town is as good as it is for me all I know is that I can walk to the high street, and typically within 15 minutes be on one of two fast buses to Fareham,, and a few slower buses if need be. They take advantage of the track of the old railway line up to Fareham which has been turned into a fast route for buses and cyclists. Although that has been marred recentlky by a bout of serious anti-social behaviour, that was quite destructive. It seems to have been resolved now, but I’m not sure what the outcome was.

It strikes me that there are only a few things that could be done, such as giving the buses more priority at traffic lights, but I don’t see how they could do that. I suppose that something might be said about it later in the draft document. I’ll have to wait and see.

I know I am not the first person to retire. But it is the first time I’ve done so. Some of my friends may argue that retirement from the RAF counts as the first time, but this time it’s different. If things go according to plan in just under a month’s time, I will stop work, and never have to work again. Of course such profound plans rarely survive first contact with tax loving governments.

People have been asking me what I am going to do when I retire? Stock answers might be devoting more time to my hobbies and interests. Well, I suppose in a way, I might be doing that. More on that in a bit.

Of course, an obvious thing is to volunteer. I could do that, but I have very specific things in mind – not going to write about them now, but may do – when I retire!

I have a number of interests, and each of them offer an opportunity for blogging, and in some cases vlogging. I’ll definitely be doing that. Quite a bit of it if plans work out.

That takes me back to what said a couple of paragraphs ago. What am I going to do when I retire? Well, rather than go into a long explanation, I’m just going to say “I’m going to be an author – I’m going to write a book”.

It was another competition in the club tonight. Prints. The Group B (us) topic was open which means anything goes. The group A topic was Architecture. I have to admit that the Group A’s interpretation of what an architectural image was as varied as the 30 plus images submitted by the group. That gives me a little more confidence when it gets to our turn for the topic.

Elayne really was on form again, getting a Third place for her golden abstract image, I am really chuffed for her. Sh’e loving the whole thing.

My best scoring print tonight was the header picture, which got me an 8.5/10 which is quite respectable. I did have two other prints in as well, they didn’t do quite as well. Not to worry though, it’s the trying that counts.

It was a most interesting and enjoyable evening.

I managed to get my morning walk in between 8 and 9 this morning. I have this thing going on trying to find good times to walk down the high street. I’ve spent several years doing the 0600 – 0700 slot. That had it’s good and its bad sides. I reached a point where I really didn’t appreciate going out at that time. I’ve found that I can get up, I just don’t want to go out. I’ve said not long ago, that I can get up at that time, and go to work, and then take a long break at 8, to walk then.

The really early walk had its nice times, quite a lot of them actually – mainly, the #Breakfastclub and the dog walkers as we got to know each other – they were as regular as I was.

I have to confess that the 8 – 9 time is actually quite boring. Obviously, nothing is open apart from McDonalds, Greggs and a couple of convenience stores – I actually prefer the American term – Bodega. There might be a few more people around, but they are all in a rush.

I had an interesting chat with a chap who was working in the demolition site. He had SOIL on the back of his dayglo jacket. He was quite keen to talk. He was collecting soil samples to test for contaminants. He had no idea about what the plans were for the site. He said that he lives in Hythe, and that they had a similar situation of an unexploited waterfront.

It was quite a pleasant walk.

The University of the Third Age or U3A as it is known, is an institution that I am planning to join in the New Year. All U3A branches are organised into groups with various interests. I’ve been through the groups offered by The Gosport Branch. There are several that I am very interested in and will definitely make an initial visit.

In addition to the groups, there’s a monthly meet that is open to all members , that usually includes a talk. It’s usually on a Wednesday, and because of Grand Daughter Duties anything on a Wednesday or Thursday can be awkward, but I’m sure I will be able to get away for one, at least.

I do wonder if I am taking it all a little bit too seriously. The groups are meant to be fun, I think. But I will have to wait until I actually start going.

There is one minor problem, there are some topics that aren’t covered by groups that I’m interested in. I wonder what can be done about that? – That’s a rhetorical question, I know the answer, but do I want to do it. Certainly not for the first few months. I have been chatting with ChatGPT about it, and it has actually come up with some quite good suggestions. I’ll keep those in the mind.

The header picture is another one of the Marwell Meerkats, this cutie is relaxing on a nice warm rock.

just very briefly, after last nights post, I’ve managed to get a couple of widgets on to my lock screen, one for written notes and one for voice notes. They work fine. Haven’t had any ideas to use them yet, but that will come.

I have a couple of jobs to do in the morning, but then I am thinking about what to do for the day. I do have a partial plan, but we’ll see how things go.

There were a couple of times today when I had a flashing thought about some random topic to which I think “Oooh – I could blog about that”. Of course, I can’t remember what those thoughts were, which is really frustrating.

I need some means where I can very quickly make a note of the idea. There are, as far as I can tell two ways of doing this; One is to have a pen and paper and just note what it is. The other is to use the device that is nearly always by my side regardless of where I am and that is my phone. But, how to use the phone, I need a really quick way of adding a note (I’d prefer to use the notes app)

I’m working my way through the instructions on ChatGPT, but something isn’t quite right as I can’t see the app as a widget, which it is supposed to be. If I can do it, it should be really useful.

I seem to recall that I first heard about The Internet, was in the mid to late 80’s. That was through the print out of the Star Trek game, written in BASIC (Beginners All Symbolic Instruction Code) Only snag was at the time, I didn’t have access to a computer so that I could type the programme in. But I do recall that the printout had email addresses with @ sign so proper internet addresses.

Then in the early 90’s I got my first internet connection, 14K dial up modem of course, it was painfully slow, but it worked. At some point I upgraded to a 56K modem, in today’s terms, slower than a snail, almost stationary, but again it worked.

My first proper service provider was Compuserve – not really a genuine internet connection, but they did have some interesting forums where we had some interesting discussions, and arguments – oh yes the arguments. They were good. What’s sparked this post off you ask?

Today, one of the blogs that I followed made a post about (it being his contention) that photography is not art. It was actually quite a rant about his objection to it being labelled as such. The nature of the post / rant immediately took me back to those Compuserve days. In a way I miss them. I even made contact with one of the regular posters from those days – her name popped up in article. She runs a quite well known gallery / museum. I dropped her a note saying him, and reminding her of those days.

She did at least acknowledge, but I did wonder if she was cringing as she did so.

Back to today’s ranting photographer. I did put a reply to his rant. I couldn’t resist it. What about, I asked, Abstract photography? And left it at that. I wonder if he’ll respond.