Big Blue Octopus

We set off to Bridlington under cold grey skies with showers of rain but arrived to clear blue skies and sunshine and quite warm really for April. I was looking around for something new to show and this kind of grabbed my attention. The legs wave about in a manner that would be menacing if it wasn't twenty foot off the ground.  It's part of pirate themed amusement arcade; well they call it amusement.

Eyes like saucers

I could do with a little tinder-box and few wishes being fulfilled at the moment but I don't suppose one is coming my way any time soon.

This hound was in a shop window in Bridlington oh so many months ago and has hopefully found a forever home by now. I believe his eyes light up and maybe he performs other tricks who knows? He looks harmless though.

Sailing By

This odd little installation in Bridlington features a transparency of an oil painting, the Great Gale of 1871 by local artist J T Allerston. If you are not from these parts you may not recognise the names surrounding and underneath the picture. These are the shipping forecast areas and to anyone who has listened to BBC Radio 4 as it closes down for the night they will be only too familiar. The forecast was (probably still is, I haven't listened for a while) usually preceded by a piece of light music entitled 'Sailing By'. That tune and the almost poetic recitation of the forecast following was enough to send most people off to sleep; a kind of national lullaby. Some, however, found the shipping forecast altogether more invigorating ... 

Two men in a boat

Here the little coble Harlequin is putting out into relatively calm North Sea to check lobster or crab pots or maybe just for a trip round the bay. If you click on this picture and peer a bit at the horizon you can just about make out some wind generators, these are part of what is going to be the world's largest offshore wind farm. This will keep the lights on in a million homes just so long as the wind blows.

The theme for City Daily Photo this month is the 'beauty of simplicity'.

Ice Cream Time?

As the remnants of Storm Katie wander off into the North Sea taking with them the gales, horizontal rain and hail that make a traditional Easter Bank Holiday such a fun day out it's surely time to enjoy a double whippy ice cream. No? Well, perhaps a hot cup of tea with a little something added to thaw out your bones would be more appropriate.

The perennial gull problem

Or rather the perennial stupid human being problem.... There are several signs by the harbour claiming that gulls are aggressive and so should, on no account, be fed. What a calumny! Gulls are no more aggressive than any other bird. You build a town on their territory, eat your meals outside and wave food about in front of their beaks, quite naturally they think you're an idiot and swoop down to take a free meal. That's hardly aggression that's just taking advantage of human numptiness. And so every Summer there's outrage at seagulls taking ice-cream out of a tourist's hands or whatever and just as surely some opportunist politician will pipe up about culling these magnificent, intelligent beasts. (The answer to all our wildlife 'problems' it seems is to slaughter the animals. Our badgers are to be culled because our farmers cannot be bothered to immunise their stock against TB or practice good husbandry. There's no scientific evidence to blame badgers but they're going to be killed anyway, that's the weight of the farming lobby on this vile government. But that's another story) The whingeing ninnies, who go to the seaside maybe once or twice a year, won't be happy till every last gull is safely in a bin bag, the coast silent and dead, and they can stuff their stupid faces in peace.

The owner of this car, parked by the harbour, will have a hefty cleaning bill but that's not my problem. Should have known better!

Utter claptrap!

Weekend reflections are here.

The Gansey Girl

On the north pier sits this recently installed (October last year) statue, the Gansey Girl, depicting a young woman knitting a traditional jumper or gansey for her fisherman sweetheart. It's part of the maritime trail which is apparently ten years old; how time flies. The sculptor was Steve Carvill.

I have since found out that the little fishes on the base carry the names of fishing families from Bridlington and nearby. If I'd known I'd have taken a close up but if you zoom in on this picture you might just be able to make out some names.

The weekend in black and white is here.

A footnote in history

Somewhere in Bridlington

By the harbour side on a bollard, one of dozens of such bollards, hides this little plaque to a fairly big event in the English civil war between king and parliament. Queen Henrietta Maria liked to be addressed as Her She-Majesty Generalissima, and why not, you'd need a fancy title being married to an idiot and long-time loser like Charles Stuart. The guns and ammo, however, did no good, as we all know, her husband's side lost. I don't know whether whoever put this up didn't want any one to see it or whatever but if Margot hadn't pointed it out I would certainly never have seen it. I had to kneel down to read it.  I nominate this for the "possibly the most inconspicuous plaque in the world" award.

Don't you know there's a war on ...

And so to Bridlington, and what is all this then? The High Street was chosen to be the location for filming a rehash of Dad's Army, a late 60'-early 70's BBC sitcom about the Home Guard in WW2 (sounds dire but was actually very good, and still is, a bit of classic). The filming was in 2014 but the film itself has only just been released (some say it should be recaptured and never see the light of day). A review in the Times called the venture "cultural necrophilia", the Guardian said (more or less) it wasn't as bad as it could have been while others politely called it a "bad idea". As the original show is repeated constantly on TV I really can't understand why a second rate repro would get off the ground. Anyhow shops on the High Street are brazenly cashing in while they can with windows taped up against air raids, vintage posters and a general attempt to recreate 1940's Walmington on Sea; and who can blame them?

The Black Lion pub was renamed the Royal Oak in the film and no-body seems to have taken down the sign.

Got a ticket to my destination

At stations there are signs that politely inform the intending passenger that it is illegal to board a train without a ticket if you get on at a station with a ticket office that is manned, or words to that effect. Which seems fair enough to me. So form an orderly queue at this rather splendid Victorian booking office which was clearly designed to cope with far more passengers than ever use this line. You might have to wait as the ticket seller is probably having a coffee in the buffet across the way ...

I've waited in far worse places than Bridlington station for my train to arrive though, as I've mentioned before, the hanging bikes are a bit of an oddity.

Being by the seaside brings with it a yearly influx of young gulls learning the delicate art of walking on a sloping glass roof.

A couple of cobles

Cobles were the clinker built shallow draught workhorses of the North-east coast's fishing industry. The larger one to the rear is the Three Brothers, the last coble to be built in Bridlington (1912) which used to lie slowly rotting in the harbour (see below) until recent restoration and rebuilding means that it is fit for purpose once again. In front of that in the red, white and blue is the much newer Whitby built Gratitude. Both these boats are the pride of the Bridlington Sailing Coble Preservation Society and if you want to know more I'd recommend going to their site.

Prior to restoration the Three Brothers was painted white and never seemed to move from this spot. This photo taken in April 2010.

Tour de wherever

Seems that sometime earlier this year (April or May, does it matter?) there was a cycle race held in these parts. Maybe it was a follow up to last year's Tour de France fandango. Well, whatever,  it totally passed by me without leaving a trace, somehow the sight of a group of sweaty lycra-clad steroid enhanced bicycle riders rushing past in the blink of an eye lacks a certain degree of appeal or anything really. But à chacun son goût, as they often say in these parts, and others (more discerning, I've no doubt) were inspired to mark this event. Bicycles were painted yellow and blue and hung in various places. Quite where the inspiration for this odd behaviour came from I know not but I suspect a certain Gallic influence. 

Above is Lairgate, Beverley and below Bridlington Station. 

The Store

This imaginatively named emporium and former church is on the Promenade, Bridlington.

Somehow the week seems to have escaped me and it's the weekend again which means there'll be monochrome magic over at the Weekend in Black & White.

Leisurely Development

You turn your back for a year or so and lo, a brand new £20-odd million  leisure complex appears from out of the rubble of the old one. They seem to have opted for the grand piano style of sea front building which is not totally displeasing. It opens next year but if you can't wait here's a little animation of how things are expected to be. 

Anchorman

Meanwhile, back in Bridlington, a new sculpture depicting a ruddy-faced chap in period costume carrying a grapnel anchor has appeared atop the Bridlington Harbour Commissioners' offices. Reading about the plans for this I find it was intended to be situated in gardens across the road; a quote from a local councillor in 2013  "I think tourists will see it and probably stand next to it for a photograph", he goes on, "People will delight in having their picture taken and if they spread the word when they go home perhaps it will encourage people to come here." Hmmm, well such were the plans; now it's just stuck out of reach on a plain old brick hut serving little or no purpose. 

The culprit, sorry, sculptor of this is one Ronald Falck.

Down to the sea

Steps to Bridlington North Bay

The weekend in black and white is here.

Sunshine and Sea

Well not much sunshine to be honest as the wind that has been blowing in all the way from Russia for the last week brings with it cloud and spits and spots of rain from off the warmish North Sea (everything is relative!). Here's Bridlington south beach this afternoon, Brid hasn't changed much in the year since we last visited except for a new development which I'll post on another day.

158860

Just the other day I was on my way to Cottingham along Snuff Mill Lane when the Hull train sped past, knowing the trains around here there had to be one coming the other way so I waited and duly took the above picture. I guess the driver was a bit surprised to see anyone taking his photo at this point but better that than yet another suicide on the tracks. Yes unfortunately the crossing here has seen two deaths in recent years, the Samaritans even put up a notice which was, of course, stolen. Anyhow best not dwell on that. Being the conscientious type I googled the number of the train and found that there is a whole page, nay two, devoted to photos of this particular train, here. Ha! I thought who would want to take pics of the same train like that, train spotters .... that was until later in the evening going through some old pics I found this taken in 2010 at Bridlington station. I'll fetch my anorak ....

Umbúðamiðlun

Umbúðamiðlun translates as packing media which makes a kind of sense. Here the Icelanders and Norwegians seems to have the fish crate market stitched up between them on Bridlington's fish quay.

Gabrantuicorum sinus portuosus

"After riding about twenty-two miles thro' a flat grazing country, reached Burlington-Quay, a small town close to the sea. There is a design of building a pier, for the protection of shipping; at present there is only a large wooden quay, which projects into the water, from which the place takes its name. From hence is a fine view of the white cliffs of Flamborough-Head, which extends far to the East, and forms one side of the Gabrantuicorum sinus portuosus of Ptolemy, a name derived from the British Gysr, on account of the number of goats found there, according to the conjecture of Cambden."
Thomas Pennant A Tour in Scotland 1769

Burlington-Quay we now know as Bridlington and all those other antique names such as Bretlington and Britlington cute though they may be are now passé. Ptolemy called this place portuosus meaning there were many harbours but over the years the North Sea has eaten away the coast giving a large bay with miles and miles of sandy beaches. The white cliffs of Flamborough are still there though I think the goats are long gone.