Bills Posts

For several years I would happily arise at 0535, get ready and go for a walk, only very occasionally varying my route. And then, several months ago I stopped. I had stopped for a few weeks during covid, but once the family understood that at that time of the morning. I carried, and then a few months ago I stopped. Completely.

What it boiled down to was me just feeling that I didn’t want to get up. I found the thought of getting up to be quite stressful. The only way to stop feeling stressed was to accept that I wasn’t going to get up and go for a walk as I normally did. It wasn’t the walking, I was quite content to carry on with my lunchtime walks, and. walking at the weekend.

I am kind of coming out of it. I go for a walk in the morning, sometimes. Not at 0535, an hour later, and I’m not walking three miles as I usually did, two at most. That’s a time thing, not ability.

That’s the situation at the moment. I don’t know when I will get back to my original activity.

I’m sat at the desk thinking about what to write about for today’s blog. I probably should write about the civil war again, but I have written about that several times recently and I don’t want the blog to become single topic. To be honest, I don’t think there’s much danger of that.

Here’s another thought – The diary of Samual Pepys. I’ve tried a couple of times to read it but for some reason it hasn’t worked. Perhaps I should just dip in to it. The other thing I should do is try to read a letter from Gilbert White’s A Natural History each day.

I’ve just been watching a youtube by Ali Abdall, he’s introduced me to Expressive (as opposed to creative) writing. Seems it’s a bit emotional and quite personal. If I were to do that I think it would stay on paper.

The picture? That’s one of the very narrow streets of Mdina, Malta. No relationship to the story.

This picture does not feature Portchester Castle. Unfortunately, I don’t have one that does. This isn’t a piece about the castle, it about books that talk of the English Civil War.

I have a bit of a dilemma, I bought a book a while back by Diane Purkiss it draws upon the personal experiences of the people who lived in those times through letters, memoirs and other resources and is almost a diary type book in its own right. I had decided that if I were to read this book, I would need to commit to doing so, and thus it became the next book on my list.

But then, I was doing a search on the internet of episodes from that time that were happening in Hampshire, and I came across the story of. Basing house. And before you ask, the ruins of Basing house are about one mile from the centre of Basingstoke.

Although not a castle, it was nonetheless it was a grand house and it was pivotal in Hampshire’s involvement in the civil war. Ending as it did after being besieged for several months.

It is the main feature of a book called, unsurprisingly, The Civil War in Hampshire. Even Gosport receives several mentions in the book, written in 1904 by the Reverend G. N. Godwin, which surprisingly, is freely available on the Internet. I confess that I am inclined to read that first, not least because it refers to Gosport, and the clubmen which I thought was a Dorset phenomenon.

I don’t think it is a dilemma really, I know which one I am going to read first.

The picture? Oh, that’s the remains of the Palace of Knossos of Crete. Which I think guarded the labyrinth in which wandered the mythical beast the Minotaur, half man half bull. But that, as they say, is an entirely separate story.

I haven’t done a post for a few days. I just haven’t felt like it. Tonight’s post is going not much better I’m afraid sorry about that. I’ll slowly try and get back to normal. Just bear with me.

You know when you watch a Science Fiction movie and that astronauts are all in their seats waiting blast off, and just before they go their chairs tilt over slowly, so that they are on their backs with their legs up ready to go?

Well, today I got to experience something very similar to what they show on the screen, and I’ve got a good feeling of what it’s like when it happens. Luckily, it was near the end of the working day.

Buying an office chair can be a bit like dipping into a box of chocolates. You can never be sure what you are going to get. We usually buy our chairs from the same place a couple of miles down the road, they tend to be ok, last a few wear out and we replace it. I don’t think I’ve ever had a duff chair as a new purchase. Before this last one.

I was sat at the desk, happily working away, and occasionally I do lean back – I can’t remember if I did this time, I don’t think there was a crack. I don’t know if plastic makes a cracking noise, but there was a distinct thump as the chair tipped back taking me with it. actually it cushioned the impact – also partially protected where it crushed my recycling bin. The only pain I experienced was a stitch as I got up.

It was a fairly gentle experience.

With a picture from Rome.

Not comparing towns, commenting on the pronunciation of Civitaveccia which is done with a hard capital C as in Church whereas I had been saying it with a soft C as in Citizen. I’ll have to break my habit as the former is correct.

I managed to get out for a bit of a walk this morning. It was rather nice, but I confess I think would rather have stayed in bed. But not to worry.

Sorry, a feeble post today. Late to bed and I’m feeling tired.

Yes, it’s still a picture from the cruise, but no, this isn’t about the cruise. Instead it’s about the book I am reading.

Have you ever bought a book, not knowing what to expect, but as you get into it, it become so exciting that you become almost breathless with what is happening and the anticipation of what is going to happen next?

This is what this book is doing to me. So what is it this tome of excitement? Is it a book of high eroticism? Or perhaps intensely action filled? Well, actually, they’d guess it’s more of the latter really, with none of the former unless you are the type of person who, if you will forgive the expression, gets their rocks off…on rocks.

Rocks violently crashing into rocks with sufficient force to liquify them, and fold them into the alpine mountain range, with the ripples running through the earths crust to end up at the Lulworth / Purbeck Monocline. All happening at the lightening geological speed of several hundred millimetres on years.

The book? Oh yes, it’s the Geology of the Jurassic Coast – The Isle of Purbeck, Weymouth to Studland by Paul Ensor and Malcolm Turnbull. Seriously, a riveting read.

Our third port of call was Livorno. Normally Livorno is the gate way to Florence & Pizza, we’ve been there before, so we decided on a different adventure. We wanted to experience Tuscany, which saw us on a coach heading for Sienna.

Sienna on a map looks pretty much as being in the middle of this classic area of Italy as it’s possible to be. It’s entirely understandable why it is such a popular area. There is no doubt that the iconic cypress trees and gently rolling countryside make for some beautiful scenery.

Of course, you do have to have a love of unremitting hot weather. Now, I don’t mind a bit of hot weather but not all year round, it was lovely to experience, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I wonder if there is a time of year when it’s a bit cooler?

Our visit to Monaco meant Azura anchoring at Ville Franche and the passengers being tendered in to the port. The tender could be a locally hired craft or one of cruise ships craft. In either case each craft can carry 100 – 150 people.

To smoothly get anything upto 3000 pax’s off and back on ship before it departs to its next port of call. There were two boarding points, our transit was quite smooth with the only delay waiting for the tender to load.

A five minute move across the water brought us to the port authorities. I’ve already written about our trip here; https://localitystories.com/2023/09/11/1101-out-of-sequence-monte-carlo-monaco-monte-carlo-or-bust/

Processing back through the port involved a bit of queue probably fifteen minutes or so, a short walk to the tender.

I remember being slightly frustrated at Elayne’s choice of seating location. I can’t remember why I was frustrated though. Perhaps I was because I was feeling a bit hot and bothered.

Either way, it had been an interesting and lovely day. As usual, we were pleased to get back on board.

The Capital of Corsica is Ajaccio. Of what we saw it’s was neat and well kept. We hopped on the road train which gave us a tour with a couple of photo stops on the way round. The first stop was at a big monument to Napoleon.

I know who Napoleon was of course, but what surprised me was the degree to which he is revered by Corsicans, and perhaps the French?

I have never thought of him like that. This wasn’t the only monument, there were statues including one of him surrounded by his four brothers.

He was born in Ajaccio, and his house is just off a small but very busy street. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to visit it.

Things like this remind me just how much I don’t know.