Bills Posts

The annoying and frustrating thing was I’d had a really quite good week up until Thursday evening. We’d had scrambled eggs & tomatoes on toast for tea.

Thursday nights is a special night, being the night of the Thursday Night Net. Something I’ve doing for most of at least the last five years. Pretty much as soon as tea finished, I started feeling queasy.

The feeling got worse I was in no fit state to do the net. I was lucky that there was still a couple of hours I sent a message to our WhatsApp group and luckily a good friend stepped forward. I was free.

Lo and behold within a few minutes I started feeling better, very quickly I was feeling a bit better. Admittedly. I slept for a bit, I felt really tired but not queasy.

I’d made a conscious decision not do a blog post.

I think because I had slept earlier, I had a real problem getting to sleep.

This morning I phoned my friend who had stepped in. Explained in a bit more detail what had happened. With real regret I was going to have to step down from chairing the net.

It’s a release but also a lot of guilt.

You’d think that being closer to 1200 posts I would by now have developed a more consistent topic rather than being a bit all over the place.

What do I want to write about? Perhaps the most obvious topic would be my work specialisation but actually, no I don’t want that. It’s not that I’m bored with it I most definitely am not, but it’s nice to have something which is completely separate to that, away from it.

What I’ve been doing over the last few years on Facebook, and the other topic that I’ve been writing about my locality project. That is, writing about the local area. Finding out about the history, wildlife that I see on my daily excursions (I’ve been taking a break from them lately).

I have a lot more to explore on things like the birth of Gosport, the 1650’s civil war and D-Day, the navy presence the impact of its departure. Lots of things to write about.

Tomorrow I’ll do one of two things write a bit about thoughts on fiction, or ponder the next question.

I have written about vlogging in the past. I think I may have mentioned the two people whose style I would most like to copy.

It’s strange how the brain mixes things up. I was convinced that one of the people whose style I’d like to copy appeared on the 60’s tv programme How. That programme was conceived by one of the stars that I still admire, some of his programmes are on YouTube, particularly out of town whose main presenter was Jack Hargreaves. There was just something about him; calm, informative pleasant. I hope was like that in real life, not just on tv.

The person who until now I thought was on How, and which it appears never was is the scientist Magnus Pyke. I think it was his tendency to wildly gesticulate, he made his presentations interesting.

If I were to do some serious blogging I could see myself in “the studio” being calm and relaxed like Jack. Outside, that’s a different story, and I think Magnus’s enthusiasm would be entirely appropriate.

Tomorrow, we shall return to the subject of writing and ponder the question; what have I got to say?

We are carrying on with some things that I have been reading about in the Write Now magazine. One of first articles I read posed four questions, I’m going to spend the next few nights answering them as honestly as I can. The first question is;

What kind of writer do I want to be?

I thought it was a really famous person who said “Everyone has a book inside them..” what people don’t then do is finish Christopher Hitchens quote “which is exactly where it should remain!” Christopher Hitchens is famous. I’ve heard of him.

I’d like to think there is a book inside me. Trouble is, I haven’t found it yet. I keep on trying though. I’ve talked in previous posts about how successful full I was when I attended the creative writing course in the local college. There you are see, I’ve mastered the art of deep, deep sarcasm. I haven’t answered the question though have I? I’m also good at this procrastination thing. Another thing I read in the magazine is stay away from long words.

I have the odd idea about writing fiction. I’ve never taken it beyond the odd idea though. I’d have a go at non-fiction, but what topic? I think lack of self confidence prevents me from specialising in anything particular.

Published? Yes, I think so, I’d like to be. Chance? Well, not as long as I don’t try.

I know this isn’t a very good answer. I’m not sure I can at the moment.

Thursday was a busy day. Finishing work around midday, I headed up to Fareham for a Christmas meal with work colleagues. A very nice meal it was as well, a chicken & bacon terrine, traditional turkey and Christmas pudding. Nice portions, I felt quite full. I had a couple of 0% alcohol Peronis. I have to say that the peronis were very good the meal was delicious.

In the evening I headed down to the Gosport Wetherspoons there was a leaving party on for a boss. There were lots of people there, so I haven’t seen since before lockdown. A very pleasant evening.

Saturday was a bit different. I caught the wightlink catamaran over to the Isle of Wight for the Isle of Wight Radio Society Christmas meal, the 8 bells inn in Carisbrooke we were there last year, and both times has seen a very nice meal.

After the meal, I got the very kind people to give me a lift back to Ryde. I took the opportunity to visit the Ryde Bookshop (one of those 2nd hand bookshops, absolutely rammed with books).

Very, very occasionally I buy a writing magazine. I knew I’d have a wait, so I might as well have something to read. And hopefully something to write about.

We had a bit of a discussion last night about what we were going to do over the weekend. I thought that I would go over to Portsmouth and spend a bit of time on Commercial road.

I had two reasons for doing this; To visit Waterstones and because the Christmas market will likely be on there will be a Bratwurst stand, so I was intending to have one.

Elayne found out there was going to be a Christmas Fair in Trinity Church. So the plan became; Take Elayne to Trinity, Take the Car home, walk to the ferry, and if Elayne was not there meet her at the church.

It’s been a very cold day. When I did my usual journal activity taking the usual weather measurements it was cold, 0.2C. It was also misty, very misty. As I was approaching the waterfront, I was faced with a solid wall of grey that looked as though it was only a hundred yards or so down through the harbour. Initially I could see nothing at all of Portsmouth! It thinned very slightly and something came through, but of the Spinnaker – Nothing.

It was even thicker for the return trip, and the ferry sounded its foghorn twice on that trip. I have to say that it was a bit unnerving.

I have never seen it like that before.

There’s a thing that I want to write about, but it’s really quite personal I’ve already mentioned it in recent posts, so it is in the public domain, but I want to write about it in such a way that doesn’t expose me personally any more than I want to.

It’s the depression / anxiety thing. I apologise for keeping on about this, but I do find iit frustrating, but it does seem very targeted. It’s all around my personal life and doesn’t seem to have impacted work very much. When something happens at work that might trigger an anxiety attack, it affects my sleeping, but then I get up the next morning and get on with it, I suppose because I have to. But when I have an episode in my personal life, I can. do something about it, because I usually don’t have to.

A good example of this is the Thursday Night Net, an amateur radio event that happens every thursday between 8 – 9 PM, when I host a, well, it’s not really a discussion it’s mostly people talking about (usually) some aspect of amateur radio in which we are interested. Anyhow, the point of this is that over the last few months I have been having some pretty severe desires to give it all up. Not quite to the point of throwing up, but extremely uncomfortable.

So, what can I do about it? I have had in the past some experience with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, perhaps i should look up how to do it again?

Write something that is. I really should. But what to write? Anxiety attacks (relatively mild, explains a lot no idea why, but probably not depression) and veruccas. of which, I have one – not a dislocated toe as I thought. No, perhaps not. Too personal? Possibly. I have no possessive thoughts on the verucca, so have started a determined campaign to get rid of it.

Keeping a hand written log of the weather is fun. It warmed up a little today, up from the not quite zero only a couple of degrees. But not by much.

Feeding the birds has been good these last few days. Lots of starlings and the wagtail, both of which I love. The pigeons and squirrels – four of them on Sunday. I am less enamoured of them but accept them.

Are these emerging signs of a return to relative normality? For the first time in really quite a long time my interest in vlogging is rising.

A have had a bit of a problem with kit, specifically wireless microphones. I don’t understand why but mobile phones don’t have a way of directly interfacing with a wireless mic. There is a need for microphones to have a transmitter, and the phone a dedicated receiver. That’s frustrating, but so be it.

A while ago, in an earlier vlog-attempt, I had bought some small wireless mics. They worked very well but…the microphone clips weren’t very good, it was way too easy for the mic to be dislodged. Also I knocked the receiver unit out of the phone and it dropped between the planks of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall, down into the depths of Portsmouth Harbour. Immediately rendering the two tied microphones uselaa (I’d did try with a different receiver- no joy).

I subsequently started entering what I’m calling a depressive phase, and did nothing about it.

That changed yesterday, when I became once again, enthused. I’ve started looking at mics, and I think I’ve found a set. Bigger units, with more robust clips. Also they support a plug in mic. That will allow me to use different configurations haven’t ordered them yet.

There was some beautiful light this morning. At this time of year, I guess it was because of getting out quite late this morning.

Worthy of a couple of pictures today. The new feature? Well, I have an iPhone 12, when I was taking pictures this morning, I noticed a bar in the middle of the grid lines that I have displaying. Now, I’m sure somebody will pop up and say it’s been there for years, but this line was new to me, and I found it really useful because it shows when the phone is on a level horizon.

That’s really useful for me as I have a big tendency to take crooked pictures.