Bills Posts

We have plans for tomorrow but I don’t have plans for Sunday.

If I had it in me, I could do one of the videos that I’ve been thinking about.

I managed to get out for a lunchtime walk today, not far. Only just over a couple of miles. I walked past the cockle ponds which was nice. There has been some refurbishment going on which is good..

I walked down the road that goes past the trinity vicarage and also the gates to Gosport’s Bastion 1 – part of the Ramparts. I was very surprised to see the gates to the Bastion was open.

I did check to make sure that it was ok to go in. It was. It was very nice to be able to go in and have a look around.

Over a period of time, I will flit between interests; history, astronomy, railways, photography (actually, that’s pretty consistent – it’s getting out my DSLR that I do infrequently) but the one activity that is really consistent is writing. I can’t think of a day certainly over most of the last three years, and whilst a bit on and off over a much longer time where I haven’t written something.

Sometimes, especially when I’m having difficulty in deciding what I am going to write about it can get very frustrating, but I have not yet reached a point where I just do not want to write. But, but, what really is incredibly frustrating for me is that I cannot focus on one topic to write about. That drives me up the wall.

I do keep on getting thoughts along the lines of “oh, I could write about that” now I’ve mentioned in the past that I have tried doing creative writing. I found it difficult because I feel I lack imagination. Having said that though, I am having a thought about something that I may pursue. I would prefer to be in Dorset to do this, but I don’t have to be. So, I think I am going to give it a go. I’ll let you know

I had every intention of getting up for a walk this morning. But, when it came to it I just couldn’t do it. I recognise this is pathetic, and I am now getting quite worried about my lack of exercise. Even when it came to lunchtime, I had intended to at least get a couple of miles in, but when I looked at the clock, it was 1220, and I had a meeting at 1PM. What with lunch, I knew I wouldn’t have enough time even to get to Morrisons for some essentials.

Ok so I did do a little bit of walking on Saturday, about three miles I reckon, but this is now getting silly, and I need to do something about it.

Sorry, pathetic post today. I will try and do better tomorrow.

I bought a book on Saturday, about the subject. Even the sales assistant commented on the slightly gruesome cover. It’s a period of our history of which pretty much know nothing, just a couple of things that happened here in Gosport.

I wonder what impact it had on Dorset? I think Corfe Castle may have had a role, and possibly accounted for it’s destruction, but I’m not confident about that.

Although a violent part of our past, I’m keen to read the book. I’ve even bumped it up my reading list. Let’s see how it goes.

Ok, perhaps the header picture is not in the garden, but there’s a link between the pleasure of seeing these geese and just sitting in the garden.

We sat at the top of the garden, there were some light fluffy clouds, and a couple that looked as though they could drop a load of water, it stayed pleasant most of the afternoon.

The seagull stayed surprisingly silent on the neighbours roof. It was probably laughing at the pigeons attempts to get past that anti-big bird measures, against which the squirrel was able to just slip through.

The butterflies were flitting about, I confess I have never paid much attention to how they feed, I think they have a long proboscis that uncurls so they can drink the nectar. I guess their main role is pollinator. I’m not really sure.

There were a couple if insects that were either dragon or May flies, quite big, bluish in colour flying around the garden. Occasionally they would meet up for a fraction of a second. I like dragonflies, they remind me of helicopters. Really though it’s the ornithopters off Dune that mimic them.

A delightful few minutes.

I asked ChatGPT. Which nations have a propensity for queuing neatly? It turns out that amongst nations listed were included the UK, Japan Singapore.

I was in a queue earlier this week. We were mostly very patient, but what changed that were people taking a long time to deal with matters that really should be dealt with during non-peak times, especially as the people who were at the counter were not tied to being there at peak time. It didn’t help of course that I was time limited and was becoming apparent that I wouldn’t reach the counter in time.

Nobody said anything of course, but the lady in front of me was rolling her eyes at me. I broke away from the queue.

Why am I writing about queueing today? We went over to Portsmouth via ferry. The queue seems to be one of the few situations where it can be chaotic and not raise temperatures. It was orderly in the sense there was no jostling.

As we were standing there, my mind was drawn back to driving on motorways and the ways in which traffic can clump and traffic flow in general. There’s probably a deeply mathematical explanation, way beyond me. But interesting nonetheless.

I haven’t seen any of the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible films. I can imagine some people being as shocked about that fact as I have been when people have told me that they’d never seen any of the Star Wars films.

This weekend we are going to see the latest film. It’s a bit frustrating that it’s a two parter.

The original 1960’s tv series had used to be a favourite of mine. I wonder if the film will match the memories?

Back in the ‘70s I did a Geology O’Level. When I was at school I really quite enjoyed geography, mainly the physical side rather than economic, how ox-bow lakes are formed the weather cycle, things like that are really fascinating.

I thought that geology would be an extension of that. Well, not really. But it is nonetheless fascinating and as wide ranging. The course involved an introduction to fossils and included a trip to a site which was well known for the ease with which fossils can be found. During our explorations I even found one, a belemnite – they are pretty common though. Of course it’s the Dinosaurs that are the big ones to find.

Then there is the rock side of the subject. We learned about Moh’s scale of hardness ranging from Talc at 1 to Diamond at 10. We also learned about the three main types of rock; igneous, a sedimentary and metamorphic. I delighted in using the geologists hand lens, I still have one downstairs.

Learning about the various geological periods was fascinating and associated with that are Orogenies – Mountain building periods when the earth’s crust buckled and bent to for ranges like the Rockies, the Himalayas or the Alps. The Alps in particular were formed between 66 and around 3 million years ago. The impact of the time can be seen here in the UK particularly the Purbeck Monocline which can clearly be seen in the rocks around Lulworth Cove, these are the ripples flowing out from the Alps.

The topic is fascinating.

I couldn’t let this post go past without commenting on a visit to France a few years back. We made a point of having a tour around. After leaving the ferry at Ouistreham we drove along the Normandie coast and learned about the impact that WW2 had on the area. That really is a separate story.

One thing we really wanted to do was to see the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry is embroidered on a cloth over 200 feet long and roughly two feet wide. The tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Normandie invasion of England by William The Conqueror.

It was absolutely fascinating, and amazing to think that it had been created over a thousand years ago.