Bills Posts

I haven ‘t given up, either the blog or writing a book. The thhought comes back to me every so often. Of course, if I don’t actually get on with it, whatever book I might think of writing will never get written. I guess you either have a book inside you, or you don’t. There’s only one way to find out.

I get mixed up between writing fiction or non-fiction. Sometimes I think it must be easier to write a work of fiction. After all, you can write pretty much what you want ( with some limits; libel, defamation, copyright and so on). Non-Fiction requires a knowledge of the topic and commitment to accuracy that I am not at all confident of carrying through.

Occasionally, I have a thought about an idea for a book. I’ve ones in the past where I’d quite like to write about ley lines, in both fact and fiction, of course I recognise that there is no basis in fact for the more fantastic aspect of ley lines. Also, if you put a ruler on a map and draw a straight line between two points of interest, there is a pretty good chance that some other objects of interest will fall on or near the line.

I had a thought today, it was as simple as I could write a novel about something happening in Gosport. Perhaps making the town the centre of some kind of conspiracy. I immediately started worrying about writing about real places, can I do this?

I’ve ordered a copy of Pauline Rowson’s first book, (2nd hand, 50p) She writes crime novels based in Portsmouth. I’m going to go through the book, and every place name she mentions I’m going to look up – is it real or fiction? In what context is it being written about?

Should be an interesting exercise.

It has only just registered that I didn’t do a post last night. I don’t know why, I just didn’t get around to it. Nothing in the town is inspiring me at the moment.

Normally, when I’ve been doing this blog, my mind is in one of two states. Pretty much as it is now, empty of things that are really bugging me, or buzzing with a topic that I’m keen to write about.

At the moment, my mind isn’t buzzing, there’s no particular topic that is driving me. It’s not that I’ve lost interest, that’s still there, but I am just not being driven at the moment. For example consider vlogging. I’m pretty much all set up to do it. My iPhone camera is perfectly acceptable for the purpose, I admittedly need to buy an at least reasonable microphone. I’ve pretty much, I think, conquered my fear of filming myself in public.

Even to the topic. I’ve said many times that Gosport is stuffed in history, even back to the small part the town played in the 1640-1650’s English civil war, through to Queen Victoria and on to D-Day and the eventual departure of most of the navy.

There were even factories here, that produced world-renowned equipment, that have closed now.

It’s the need to be inspired, and I’m not quite there yet.

This morning was quite pleasant. Not cold, but the dark is now with us. The roadworks on the cross streets are progressing, but it seems slowly. the pedestrian surface is, I think, a form of block paving, I’m not sure of the proper name. I’m guessing that will have to come up if the road is to be subject to the regular pounding of traffic.

I watched earlier in the year as the work crews dug quite deeply to get to the services, it was a real tangle. They very professionally installed an access port. Other services are much closer to the surface, I wonder how much of a problem that will be.

I haven’t been watching the work on the south cross street, but that is progressing along much the same line.

The work on the bus station itself has barely started. There’s a small island with a few trees and bushes between the bus station and the road, the shrubbery has been mostly taken up. I don’t think they will start demolishing the bus station for quite a while yet.

Perhaps, for the time being at least, I won’t be getting up at the early hours I used to, but we are moving into that time of year that regardless of what time I do get up it will be dark. If it’s dark and I want to take pictures that are steady I have to carry my tripod.

It is a pretty good tripod. not too heavy, but very stable, I am more than happy with it, with one minor exception; It’s awkward to carry. What I am after is a way of carrying the tripod that means that I can walk without fear of tripping. that it doesn’t get in the way, yet when I need it it is easily and quickly accessible.

That obviously means a strap. I did buy one. The way it secured to the top of the tripod was fine, the bottom less so. Perhaps I was attaching it wrong? You’d think that youtube would have something, and it probably does, but I can’t find what I’m after.

I shall carry on looking.

I went out to the shed to get the birds breakfast ready, and did looked at the rain guage (19mm) the thermometer and the barometer. Only to find that the needle on the barometer was all the way over to the left, clearly now working. That was a bit disappointing.

It only took me two minutes on the computer to order a replacement, and lo and behold it turned up just after 8PM this evening, you really can’t complain at that.

Having put the food on the bird table, I stood in the kitchen and watched. The pigeons were at it straight away. I’d put the cable ties around it, at least that was stopping all the pigeons only one managed to get on the table. IT won’t stop the squirrels obviously. There were three of them about! I’m hoping that the starlings did get a look in.

I’m sat here, having written the title of today’s post, and thinking OK, what can I write about? It’s the unfocussed thing. There have been times over the previous 1124 posts when I have been fairly obsessed over things, whether that’s history, vlogging, books, photography, the birdtable, the weather, walking, not walking.

there have been times when I could churn out a post in almost seconds. I have to confess that has become slightly more difficult over the last few months. But, whilst I feel massively guilty at not writing every day, the recent holiday has shown me that there will be times when I simply won’t be able to write every day (or I could write if I was inclined to). But there have been a couple of times since coming back, when I haven’t written.

I’ve watched several videos about blogging. They all stress the importance of maintaining blogging at a known frequency. The thing is though, all American blogs seem to be very business-oriented. This is not a business blog. I’ll do what I can.

Feeding the birds is an activity that gives me intense pleasure. There is of course the grey wagtail, which I don’t see every day, but I am fairly confident that there is a squadron of starlings that drop in for a refueling session at least once a day, and individually over the course of the day.

I love it when the starlings arrive, they are an absolute rabble and I know that there can never be enough food to feed them all, and the thought of any of them going hungry seriously distresses me. But I am comforted to a degree by the knowledge that my bird table is probably one of many across the town, and I think the various squadrons either have their own area. I remember I was out on a walk and I stood for a couple of minutes watching the garden of a house where the starlings were even busier than they are at our place. there must have been a couple of hundred of them all diving in in batches. I think starlings are quite communal, the way they were working in batches. I think it would be quite interesting to study their behaviour. One of their roosts is on top of the church at the bottom of the road.

Then of course, there are the pigeons which are forever trying to get on the table, and quite often succeed defeating my anti-pigeon measures.

I have to confess that I’m not even trying to stop the squirrells. Quite often, they get on to the table after the starlings, in which case they are getting the leftovers and I don’t really object to that.

It’s not unknown for me to get in to a situation where I have more than one book that I want to read, and can’t make up my mind which one to stick with. Currently, I have three books on the go;

• Terry Pratchet’s Mort
• The Geology of the Jurassic Coast
• My Trading Room

I’m not being consistent about reading books alternately I might read one for two or three days, plus I tend to only read them during the last hour of the day and usually, not the full hour, so as you can imagine, it can take me a bit of time to finish a book.

Sometimes I deccide that I am going to focus on one particular book, and that becomes it, but not this time. I really can’t make up my mind which one to read through.

So, I shall stick with the three for the time being.

I don’t have a picture. Not of what I’m writing about at least.

we were pottering about doing bits and pieces and Elayne asked me to do something in the garden. As I exited the back door, a bird took off showing a flash of yellow and streaking away with a bit of a squawk. I went back in and said to Elayne “I’ve just frightened off a small bird. It’s either a blue tit or a grey wagtail”.

Having said that, I looked out of the kitchen window and there it was, a grey wagtail doing its little bobbing dance. Absolutely beautiful. I have no idea if it is the same bird, but it seems likely. The last time we saw it was towards the beginning of the year, just before we were thinking about getting the garden furniture out, and here we are now, thinking about putting the garden furniture away.

Having just googled it appears that grey wagtails, unlike their pied counterparts which move between us and North Africa, the grey moves from uplands to lowlands. And here we are, and there it is. What an absolute delight.