Bills Posts

Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. It’s just that every so often, my interests rotate. So, once again I find my interest in my Nikon rekindled except I can’t find any of the batteries for it, and my interest in toy photography is back so I am once again watching Sir Dork videos on you tube (yes, this is a real person, and he’s quite good at it), some I am going to try something a bit silly in the morning, when I go for my walk. It may, or may not work.

Sorry, this is going to be a short one. My brain has just decided that it can’t be bothered to think any more tonight, it’s too late, I want to go to bed and read a bit.

For the first time in nearly three weeks (actually, it’s only a day short) I did an early morning walk of Gosport town centre. Not my normal walk, in that I cut it short by about a mile.

I enjoyed the walk, the weather was lovely the sun shone with a delightful warmth, even at 6AM shorts and t-shirt were perfect clothing. I thought I would follow up on my post from yesterday, written in anticipation.

The wild patch near the railway station was exactly that, a mass of grass with the occasional dot of colour, yellow flowers going to seed.

North cross street is slowly being torn up. Presumably in preparation for traffic. They are doing things to south cross street. I’ve not looked at that. I will try and remember to do so tomorrow.

Very little change at the waterfront, except the lightship does appear to be back in service, which is really good. There’s some construction work going on next to it. Only small wooden huts, but I can’t work out what they are going to be used for – they look like fast food places.

The cockle pond water was a bit murky, I couldn’t see the bottom. No sign of jelly fish. Not really surprising, but the miniature crayon fish appear to be present in large numbers. I’ll keep an eye on them.

That was it then, I more or less went straight home afterwards.

If things go according plan tomorrow morning, I will be waking up early enough to go for a walk, even if it is only to the waterfront or back.

I’m quite keen to see how the towns wilding patches are doing. I walk past a couple of them and they have been doing nicely.

Of course, there are the road and construction works. We walked in to town on Saturday. So I’m reasonably up to date as to what is happening in the moment, not the specifics of what is happening or planned. Obviously, nothing will have happened over the weekend.

We noticed that there was a string of lights on the lightship. I’m wondering if it is back in operation as a restaurant, that would be quite nice.

Then of course there are the cockle ponds. What’s happening there? Have the jelly fish gone, what about the shrimps. What’s going on in the ponds?

Hopefully, we’ll find out in the morning.

I’ve left it too late tonight, sorry. We had a walk in to Gosport this morning, well nearer midday really. The hight street was Pretty busy. We were surprised to see a number of Morris Dancer groups around the town. weatherspoons was particularly busy.

When we reached the waterfront, we stopped and asked one of the dancers what was going on. He told us that it was Gosport Morris dancers day of music, and that they always invited groups to join them. The groups were done in Gosport, and were making their way over to Portsmouth to carry on for the afternoon.

Now, I have no particular desire to get involved in Morris dancing, although it does look like a healthy (although, I suspect there’s a good drinking aspect) activity. It is I suspect similar to bowls in that the social aspect is very demanding – there were groups from as far afield as Yorkshire for todays event. Having said all that, they are very entertaining to watch, although I do wonder how many might end up with either a good bruise, or possibly a broken thumb if they accidentally get whacked with their rather substantial sticks.

It was a real pity that we missed the dancing, I would really have liked to have seen that. Now that reminds me about the Sam a band – Gosport has a very good one. I really must try and find out when they are playing next.

Between the train in the header picture, and the entry in Gosport’s next entry in the timeline that says “1540 Gosport described as a little village. It isn’t so much Gosport as a little village that I want to write about

Rather it is a little community hidden away in a quiet corner of the town. The village of Little Woodham. Little Woodham is a 20th century recreation of a 17th century village. We have been there before.

The village is active in the sense that it becomes populated by people playing their part. We had a good chat with a lady button maker and met a surprisingly young man who was able to tell us a lot about his life as a bodger. He was working away at his lathe, this time making a chair leg, to replace one broken earlier. One of the many little bodges.

I’d quite like to go again.

These manholes are all covered up now. They are getting ready to take traffic. It’ll be interesting to see how things are progressing in town. There were signs of activity down at the bus station as well, not much, a bit of fencing, that kind of thing.

The only problem will be that it will affect the tourist office. I think it will have to move to one of the currently closed shops in town.

Also there’s a business, bicycles, but I get the impression they do a lot of charity work. They serviced ours a while back and did a good job for a reasonable price.

I’ll have to review my blogposts for the timeline. Did I do one for when the plague hit the town? Or I think it was the fortifications? I might have done one for that. I’ll have to see. I think it may be the 1600’s next, when Gosport got its name – if I recall correctly.

For the last two and a bit weeks I have been cat sitting. No three mile walks in the morning, working 6AM – 9PM, through choice, rather than watch TV. It was fine, I’m not moaning at all.

The morning walks have a tendency to feed my writings. Not going out has made the writing not as easy as it should be. That’s been quite a challenge, and I am looking forward to getting back into the old routine. One thing, I’ve had no pain in my leg today. I’m kind of hoping that the relative inactivity has done it some good.

I think I might take next week to review where I am with my interests and see where I can develop them. That should give me something to write about.

I haven’t been out much today. I walked to the local store, it’s only 5 minutes away through a small patch of trees. I’m very aware that I have taken practically no pictures over the last couple of weeks.

I thought I would take a couple of pictures of the leaves. I was playing with the camera. The header picture is almost right. I’m going to have another go tomorrow.

I quite like the picture, it’s simple but I like it.

I’ve been trying to think when the urge to write bit me. I think it was around 2006 time. I have a reporters notebook from around that time, where I was writing down thoughts and intentions.

I think I can safely say that, to be honest, things have not changed that much. In some cases I am still writing about the same things, even saying the the same things in my writings. That’s really not very good is it?

There are a few areas where things have progressed though, partly driven by technology of which this blog is my prime example. That coupled with my locality project, have definitively broadened the scope of what I write about.

Just occasionally though, I hit a dry spot. Just for a few moments I considered not doing the blog. Only a few moments, and then I looked at my last hand written journal (which is still going, it has a few pages left, but is most;y used for quick notes and the odd musing these days.

But having considered not doing it, I thought no, come on Bill. You’ve been going on about reaching 1035 posts, you really are not from it now. It would be silly to give up. And yes, indeed, it would be silly.

Leg, actually – what did you think I was going to say?

For a while now, I have been getting a pain in my lower left leg. It’s below the knee, and it isn’t there all the time. It’s more than a bit frustrating, to the extent that I think I will be off to get to get some advice from the doctors.

I have to admit that voltarol definitely helps. I am wondering if using a foot stool as I do in the evenings makes it worse. There was a point where I had been sat watching tv, foot on footstool, Stood up, extreme really quite difficult to walk pain. Today, very little pain all day. This makes me thing that it is muscular. Is it a case of taking it easy? I have been trying to do that, but I also need to get out. A walk into town only takes 15 minutes, and done at a casual pace is hopefully not too much of a strain.

I have one more week in Waterlooville, and then I am back to normal – and the morning walk, which I haven’t been doing lately? I hope to resume them.