1224 – A Tad Shocked

Yes, I am a bit. I was doing some research into what was on the Internet regarding UFO’s purely out of interest for my book you understand only to find that a person in the 1960’s no less was suggesting exactly what I wanted to make one of the key features of my book.

Now I find that not only shocking, but also worrying because I am about to borrow his suggestion and develop it into a theme. I think I am OK doing that, but I would like to know for certain. Is it literary theft if I use his idea (do I have to attribute)? And how badly of is it thought?

That leads me on to a very similar theme that I did mention not so many posts ago about wanting to use real places in Dorset, but being concerned about using real place names, so I thought about using Thomas Hardy’s “universe“ the place names he constructed for example Casterbridge being Dorchester.

I know of a place on Facebook where I can pose the question. I’ll let you know how it goes, but not tonight. Tired now.

1223 – UFO’S

Obviously, this is not unidentified, but it is a flying object and that will do for the time being.

One of my all time favourite films is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When we experience First Contact, this is the way I hope it will be. Now, the danger here is that i am about to be labelled as a nut job, which would be unfortunate because i don’t think i am. I am planning a science/fantasy fiction, i am not proposing evidence, although it may look like that. That’s not to say though, that’s how I’d like it.

Earth mysteries are fascinating and that is what I am laying the ground for. Now, it may never get written, but who’s to say?

I picked up likes from two people last night. They both liked No. 1222, thank you to them. I’ve followed both of them because when i looked at their sites, they both had some lovely pictures;

https://leafandtwig.org

https://leannecole.com.au

I hope they don’t mind my linking here.

Characters, I need characters, and i am not at all good at them, well to be honest, I’ve never really tried. I should, shouldn’t I?

1222 Dorset v. Hampshire

Arundel Castle from the train. Arundel isn’t in either Hampshire or Dorset, so why have I posted it? Well, it was the first photo from the selection that appealed to me, and I don’t think I’ve used it before.

I have to be honest with you, I pretty much can barely wait to get to Dorset. Mainly of course, proximity to my side of the family, but also because of the county itself. The comparison with Dorset is in terms of ancient sites, by which I mean neolithic, not medieval.

As far as I can determine, if there were to be a comparison, it appears that Hampshire seems to have just a few ancient sites, whereas Dorset has hundreds of them. I have a personalised map, it shows a small part of Dorset, the gird squares on my map represent a mile, so one square equals one square mile. There are very few squares on my version of the map which don’t have a tumuli

Now this is important to the the book idea I wrote about last night. Why is that? you might ask, well I will tell you, with that number of ancient features you can put a ruler on the map and draw a line that will cross at least three features, meeting for my needs, if not strictly in accordance with any definition at least approximately that of a Ley Line. I’m going to need Ley Lines, lots of them, in my book.

Are you becoming more intrigued? I hope so, the only problem is you have to wait until I get there!

1221 – Ideas for things

I get an idea for something, go at it and then realise that it is all too complex and so it slowly fades away, but never completely. Some things get incorporated into my “interest list”, which means that I am likely to return to it, say a couple of times a year. For a few weeks then, that thing becomes a focus and I find it difficult to concentrate on anything else.

Now I’m sure if writing a book is in that category because it is pretty much always there either at the forefront or remaining in the background, never really completely going away. The question though, is always what am I going to write about? Non-fiction? I thought that would be easier than fiction. Well, not really, because obviously, you have to know your topic. Whilst I might know a bit about something, that by no means makes me an expert, so if I am going to write about something it has to be that which makes me really interested.

The question is, have I found it? I keep a handwritten journal mainly because I enjoy a bit of handwriting, even though my handwriting is not at all good. Anyhow, I started writing down an idea that I had for a book, and actually, this one is growing a few legs.

It combines areas of interest and will require a lot of research, but it all maps into plans that I have for our future in Dorset.

I really want to tell you about it, but I can’t here. Somebody might take the idea and do a better job of it. Also, is it really a good idea. The only thing I will tell you is that it is a work of fiction.

1220 – Out for a walk

We decided to go for a walk along the waterfront at Stokes Bay. Ever since the COVID lockdowns, I have carried very little cash. That can be a bit of a nightmare when it comes to paying for car parking. The council have tried several things and luckily just about every car park in and around the town have a number of options for paying; cash, of course, by using contactless – I’ve found that this has worked quite well, but then a change was made to use a phone app. I think people found this somewhat concerting. I’m not sure why, perhaps it was a concern about signal strength, but I’ve never found a problem pretty much anywhere in the town.

Car parking sorted via the app, Elayne and I set off. Elayne’s exercise regime requires a thirty minute walk, a slow and steady pace saw us reach Pebbles cafe at the turnaround point, reaching the car just as the thirty minute timer sounded.

I left Elayne with the heating on, she was fine and I went off for another quick twenty minute stroll, just to get a few more steps in.

One of the things I always look out for is what ships we can see out in the Solent. There were several moving around and one in particular caught my attention as it followed the channel and came closer to the mainland, I did wonder if it was one of the bunkering ships judging from its deck infrastructure, and indeed it turned out to be the Whitchampion. It’s been a while since I last saw her, so that was very nice.

By the time we left the car park to drive home for a nice cup of tea, we had just four minutes left on the parking app, so we definitely got our money’s worth.

1216 – Rain

I would have gone for a walk this morning, but was raining so I didn’t bother.

I had a couple of things I needed to do in town at lunchtime, and my plan had been to take an extended lunch break, and walk into town. But it was raining, so that didn’t happen, but I still had to go so the car got a run out.

The picture is of the flowerbeds at the Falklands Gardens taken yesterday morning’s walk. The plan is, if it. Isn’t raining in the morning, to,have another attempt at getting out.

1215 – A walk into Town

I went for a quick morning walk down to the waterfront. I wanted to see what was happening with the roadworks at Crossways. From the picture you can see that things are progressing. There’s a sign that was put up around June time, which said the roadworks would take 50 weeks. I haven’t really worked it out, but I think they are halfway through the work. I don’t think the work in north cross road has more than a few weeks before it’s finished.

There’s still a lot of work to do in South Cross Street. They have started, but it has quite a way to go. I shall continue to take the occasional notice of it. I carried on walking to do the waterfront.

There is a lot of work being done in the old taxi rank and dropoff area. They no longer exist. I think they are going to build space for two or three buses to pull nose in. I think a taxi rank is in place, but it’s in a less convenient place. Obviously, the bus station, which is a bit run down will continue in use until the new halt is operational.

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