The Primary School

This is just the local primary school down the road designed by someone who thought (rightly) that a box topped by a pyramid makes for a nice shape. However, nice buildings do not a successful school make and this place is currently under special measures for "failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education". "Must try harder" I suppose is the note on this school's report card.

Watch Where You're Going

What all this then? HGVs going down Kingtree Avenue? Weren't they looking? And were there so many the council had to put up a sign? If drivers of heavy goods vehicles are really so thick and unobservant as to follow a stupid sat nav down a narrow residential street in Cottingham what chance is there that they will even notice this sign? That's enough from me, you have reached your destination.

Surplus to Requirements

The natives are getting restless in deepest, darkest Cottingham. The local council, not Hull, for once, but the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, hereinafter known as ERYC, has decided that the Civic Hall in Cottingham is "surplus to requirements" and want to sell it off to whoever. That phrase 'surplus to requirements' clearly came from a soulless, heartless accountant and not something with a brain between its ears. Needless to say this has not gone down well with all the hundreds of people who use it for exercise groups, plays, community activities of all descriptions; real people to whom it is essential.  So plans are afoot to take over the place locally with a trust to manage the running of the place. Hopefully ERYC will see sense  and stop acting like ideological ass holes and remember there are elections coming up sooner or later when perhaps they'll find that they, too,  have become surplus to requirements.

The Erstwhile Bank

In what estate agents might call a prime location on the junction of Hallgate and King Street here is the building formerly known as HSBC. If this does not become a trendy wine bar and/or  restaurant in the next few months I'll be very surprised. It seems the big boys are closing branches up and down the country. HSBC are closing two branches in town including the Whitefriargate one. While Cottingham still has three other banks that folks can use some villages and even small towns have no banks at all which I imagine is a right pain if you're a pensioner with limited mobility and no understanding the web or if you're trying to run a shop and run out of change. 

Cottingham lights up again

Thanks to the efforts of volunteers and sponsorship from local shops Cottingham puts on a decent display of seasonal lights considering it's only a village (albeit the biggest in England). It almost rivals Blackpool ... almost.

No Trains Again

We always go for a short walk down Snuff Mill Lane towards sunset on Christmas Day  just to play on the rails and take silly pictures like this. Here's some we did earlier.

That Fryday Feeling

It's Happy Laughing Friday, as my old dad used to say, the start of the weekend. There's some kind of festival thing going on in town so I might pop out and see what's what tomorrow if it doesn't rain ...

Without Compromise

 

I'm not so sure I entirely fancy the idea of a retirement without compromise ...

This is what is being built with the big crane I showed the other day.

Cottingham Day again and again

As ever on Cott Day there's the usual device for hanging children, with a nearby climbing frame so they can fall to their early demise with attendant queues of parents eager to dispose of unwanted offspring.

 

There's the vintage cars lining Hallgate

and people taking pictures of vintage cars on Hallgate.

There's the display of birds of prey who really should be in shade but are left to pant in clear distress in the warm sunshine while crowds ogle them and have their pictures taken holding them.

There's wannabe singers, of course, where would we be without them?

And people taking pictures of wannabe singers ...

There's the large stage with a pretty awful singer who...

...is ignored by a less than appreciative audience;

And there's always a display of vintage motorbikes but by this time they'd had enough and were off home. Just like me. See you next year, same time, same place, same whatever...

Meanwhile ...

... the world keeps on twirling, the birds are still singing and the roses still blooming.

Today is the annual Cottingham Day to which I shall no doubt go if I can dodge the heavy showers with the hint of thunder. This is, of course, high Summer in this green and pleasant land and we expect no better.

The Truth is out there

They are building something on Newgate Street in Cottingham (a residential care home I'm told but I don't really care). Naturally they need a crane, a really big crane. 

As it's a tall thing it has a red light on top to warn passing aircraft I suppose. After a while this is spotted by someone (who may or may not have under the influence of the demon drink) in Hull a mile or so away and reported in the paper as a UFO... but, but, but he sputters it's not just one light there's another in the east, yup, that'll be the cranes at the University . It's sobering to think that the fate of nations is in the hands of people who cannot tell a crane from a flying saucer.

A strange day

I took this on my way to vote in the referendum (voted 'Leave' since you ask because, as is well known, I'm a delusional, knuckle-dragging, xenophobic, racist, piece of shit; yes, the eloquent insults of the losing 'Remainers' still flow ...). Appears even the weeds have UKIP's colours ... It's not every day you have a vote to leave the EU and the PM resigns with a self-inflicted shotgun wound to his foot ... interesting times.

Wake me when it's all over.

When you were young did your mother ever tell you not pick at scabs? That itchy scraped knee with its red crusty wounds just ached to be scratched and picked at only to bleed and start all over again. Well for forty six years the Conservative Party has been picking at its European scab till the damn thing became ulcerous with more than a hint of gangrene. Today the pustulating boil will be lanced and much good it will do anyone. The level of 'debate' has sunk to hitherto unplumbed depths. It's all lies, hyperbole, unbelievable scaremongering and idiotic name calling from both sides (of the Conservative Party!). As for Labour ... well it's a good job no-one is listening to Labour any more; best not to intrude on private grief.

Frankly if we were asking to join the European Union today I very much doubt they'd want us.

The result is tomorrow and I confidently predict half the country is not going to be happy. 

For myself I think I'll take heed of this sign ...

Anania hortulata

Identifying butterflies in the UK is a bit of a doddle as there's only fifty or so of them; moths however are a pain with over 2,500 to choose from. So this little darling, photographed while we waited for the bus into town the other day, is,  I think after half an hour of google faffing,  apparently a small magpie moth, Anania hortulata. A mothy website describes it as "One of the most distinctive and easily recognised British species of micro-moth". Well hmmph.

Un-English Light

Having spent an hour in Cottingham church the other day I have a bagful of photos so I may as well use one or two for the City Daily Photo theme of 'shadow and highlight'. The stained glass in this church is mostly from a Belgian artist J B Capronnier a fact which someone, Nikolaus Pevsner no less, complained about saying he felt like he was in a French church and "It is all totally un-English; and how much truer to the medium English glass is!"  Mr Pevsner's claim to Englishness was somewhat strained being the a son of a Russian-Jew brought up in Leipzig but we'll let it pass, we're all communautaire these days, well at least until the end of the month. 

The church is kept almost completely unlit, so there's plenty of shadow and a good chance of tripping over a pew until your eyes adjust.

Photo by Margot K Juby

Meet the Burtons

Richard Burton

Due to events that need not concern you I was forced yesterday afternoon to stay in Cottingham for three hours. Now Cottingham has a few attractions but not, even on a good day, three hours worth. And yesterday it was cold and raining heavily, yes I know it's May. So seeking shelter from the elements I ended up in St Mary's church, camera in hand and acres of time to fill. The place was, as usual empty with only the vicar's CCTV cameras keeping me company. Anyway enough of my troubles ..

Tucked away by the entrance are three large (ridiculously large) memorials to various Burtons the people who owned most of Cottignham in the 18th century and indeed lots of east Yorkshire as well. The most notable, if you are into military-history things that is, is the one above to Richard Burton a commander of the British army in North America. He was lieutenant governor of Quebec and then governor of Three Rivers Province back in 1760s or thereabouts. Below are two more memorials to William and Robert Burton who as far as I can tell did little other than have great wealth and do whatever it is wealthy people do. I did not notice any memorial to Napier Christie Burton who seemed to manage to live beyond even the Burton family's means and ended up selling the holdings in Cottingham, even at one stage going to debtors prison. Somehow I couldn't find anything to him, strange that...

Robert Burton

William Burton

Hooray, hooray, It's the first of May ...

Cats rely a lot on smelling things out, so I'm told. You've met Bruiser before, here he's pretending to be the great hunter stalking his prey, but it's just another bowl of his favourite slightly rank roast chicken.

City Daily Photo theme for the first of May is 'smell'. Go point your nostrils at what others have done here.

#Shakespeare400

In England, on this St George's Day, down the leafy lanes of Cottingham it  is heartening to find the Bard's innovative use of language is still finding a voice among the oppressed youth. Innit Blud! (as they often say in these parts)

A little bit foggy

Our new super-dooper street lights were struggling to make any impression on the wonderful thick fog that rolled in the other night. I like a nice fog even though we no longer get those glorious mournful foghorns sounding out from the river and making for that complete film noir sensation.

Non-fluttering Non-dancing

It's that time of year when I usually post some harbinger of Spring, snowdrops or pussy willow or whatever. This year it's the little daffodils that the Council or somebody has planted under local street signs. As we've not really had any Winter to speak of (again) maybe the coming month will bring us something colder. As the old saying goes "February builds bridges, and March breaks them".