Golf, anyone?

Picture by Margot K Juby

Back in the 1920s or so before all these here houses were built all this land was a golf course, run by Hull Corporation I believe though I wouldn't put my life savings on that being the case. The clubhouse was where the now closed Lloyds bank is on the corner of Cottingham Road and Hall Road. Anyhow all that's long gone and the only trace or reminder is this little road which goes by the name of Golf Links Road.

The Cottingham Cock

It was Cottingham Day not last Sunday but the one before and I've only just seen the few photos I took on the day, this being the most interesting of a dull batch. Cottingham Day used to be held on Saturdays but it got too popular (it was hellish!) so those who run it moved it to the Sunday to keep it reasonably crowded ... This fine upstanding specimen has put me in mind of a very earthy song by the late Jake Thackray I'll see if I can find it ...

The Beauty of Snuff Mill Lane

Picture by Margot K Juby

Hogweed is such a crude name for this little gem of an umbellifer. An alternative of cow parsnip is not really a whole lot better. How about Heracleum sphondylium (Heraclean vertebrate??? Linnaeus has a lot to answer for) does that sound grander? Or (new to me) Eltroot? As it's seemingly de rigueur these days to bring in the Bard at any opportunity I'll just ask what's in a name? ... and move on, quickly.

Snuff Mill Lane whence came this beauty is doing that thing it does in June when it rains lots and is warmish (OK cool ~14C) and muggy. Hay fever sufferers should probably avoid this place for a while. You'll have to imagine, if you can, the sound that accompanies you in this place with dozens of singing birds all competing for my one good ear... It can only be a matter of time before someone comes and strims the whole lot down in the name of tidiness... 

And it pays to keep your wits about you as you never know what you might come across down this lane.

The weekend in Black and White will be blooming here, hopefully.

Gimme Shelter ...

"Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm ..." warbled the ageing Nobel laureate from Minnesota so many, many years ago. Well imagination is a wondrous thing and will be well exercised by our brand new long awaited replacement bus shelter. Those who design these things no doubt never stand waiting for the bus that never comes and give no thought to the very idea that the wind might blow and the cold rain fall from a different direction to the one they decide. Still this marks progress, all we need now is a little sign saying "Bus Stop" and perhaps, if we may be so bold, a timetable for decorative purposes only you understand ...but as someone else warned some time back "You should not ask for so much" ...

A very parochial tale

Picture by Margot K Juby

Towards the end of October last year somebody, OK it was a man, decided that it would be a good idea to drive his car at a fair old speed into our bus stop and demolish the bus shelter in the process (as you can see below). The story in the local rag was that the driver had been drinking (gosh, I am shocked, shocked...!) and the police had arrested said driver as they put it: "on suspicion of drink driving". There's a pub just 400 yards down the road ... do I need to paint you a picture?

Anyhow that was back in October and still we have no bus shelter nor even a pole saying this is an actual bus stop. The orange barriers have been lying on their side all the while, sometimes being moved by youths who lack anything better to do. Bus drivers are no longer seeing this as a stop and sometimes run past as we, with our shopping bags full, shout at them to stop ... it was getting to be beyond what they politely call a joke... 

So about three weeks ago and somewhat unhappy with this situation I wrote to the County Council who are responsible for roads in these parts asking what was going on ... "Oh we'll send someone round to have a look" came the speedy reply and that was it, no more did I hear. That is until the other day when, still fed up with the state of play, I contacted the Council via Twitter ... "Oh it's nothing to with us, mate, it's a Parish Council matter" came the stern reply. ( I got no answer when I asked why they could not have told me this three weeks ago).

The Parish Council clerk was quite apologetic when I asked about this. "We're a small organisation with no reserves, so we have to wait for the insurers to pay up" was the sad story and it seems that the Parish now has the money, has ordered a brand new shelter (from a company called Shelutions, I kid you not. ) which should be with us in a few weeks (I'm not holding my breath) and all should be well. And as a ps "Did I know the precept for the Parish Council was one of the lowest in England?" (No, I did not, but I was delighted to hear this)

I never found what happened to our (alleged) drunk driver ... I just hope he's waiting for a bus that never comes ... in the rain.

Green and Blue

I've mentioned before that Cottingham has a fair few splendid trees so I thought I'd post some again because they are still splendid and other things goings-on in the world are somewhat less interesting. This grand old specimen you've seen before but that was in its winter attire; it's a near neighbour of that red beech I posted the other day.

Sweet Williams

Picture by Margot K Juby

Round the corner from the Duke of Cumberland sits this quietly unassuming public house named officially as the  King William the Fourth; a mouthful for anyone so known universally as the King Billy. Now I've only just found that the William referred to here was the fourth, no-body remembers Billy IV. Everyone knows Will I (the Conqueror or Billy the Bastard, 1066 and all that, a good thing), Willy II (aka Rufus, died (murdered?) while hunting in the New Forest) and then our Glorious King William the Third ( the King Billy; the great deliverer, who gave us our freedom, religion and laws) but William the Fourth who he, when all the dust is settled? As Margot succinctly put it  "He's the Gordon Brown of Kings"; poor sod, forgotten by all save the sots of Cottingham. 

... and the fading flowers are, of course, Sweet Williams, not, as some north of the imaginary border, call them Stinking Billies (ragwort actually) and besides the Stinking Billy in that case was William, Duke of Cumberland (Butcher Cumberland to some who knew him well enough to suffer) and, as I say, he lives round the corner.

William is such a sweet name, dontcha think?

The Duke of Cumberland

Margot was saying, just the other day, that the sign on the Duke of Cumberland in Cottingham was looking a bit faded and unreadable. Well that is no longer the case with this fine sign letting the world know what's what. A few other things like a new doorway and a fresh coat of paint, have seen the old place transformed after a brief closure. The place is due to re-open today with new management, (actually old management returning) so good luck to them.

The Tradesman's Entrance

This post is just an excuse to show again a favourite tree in Cottingham. (It's been seven or more years so you won't remember.) It sits at the junction of Snuff Mill Lane and Newgate Street in the grounds of what is now a care home but originally must have belonged to someone with higher than average income shall we say. It's splendid all year round but in spring the red leaves are just superb.

You are HSBC.

Ironically this corporate BS from HSBC (stuffed with idiotic clichés from the dark days of the City of Culture) is no more than seventy yards from the branch it closed down just a couple of years ago; and it is  not even in Hull ... and it's oh so tasteful; diving off the Humber Bridge has become a way out of Hull for a few desperate folks lately.

Similar diversions from the criminal nature of HSBC are being pasted all over the country with equally emetic, gobshite being proclaimed. They are said to be too big to fail and might be too big to jail but do we really have to put up with this patronising garbage? Can we not have a little truth? Maybe something like ...

More than just the local bank ... you are the rancid stench something far, far bigger. You are the go-to guys for the drug cartels, terrorists, murderers and embezzlers. You're not an island, you conspire globally in Ponzis, rigging markets, tax evasion, fraud, foreign exchange manipulation ...you "violated every goddamn law in the book". You are HSBC.

(The "violated every goddamn law ..." quote is from Jack Blum, attorney and former Senate investigator.)

Democracy in action

Voting yesterday for two local county councillors and two parish councillors. We get to do this every three or four years I'm not sure which. It really makes very little difference which monkey sits on the Council; I think the old Athenian sortition or selection by lot would do as well but in these enlightened times we must have universal suffrage so voting it is ... The result? Well, for the very few that care, the Tories won  (they always do) but Labour were wiped out completely for the first time ever (serves them right). 

In three weeks time we go at it again, this time for the European Parliament. You'll recall the result of the referendum on this tedious EU issue so the prospect voting for something the majority do not want to even be in has brought out the "Brexit Party" once again to "put the fear of God" into the mired political status quo. (I shall vote for them, there is no logical reason not to). Let the good times roll ... sorry, I meant to say let the people decide ...

Honesty

Lunaria annua

Being the sort of gardener that likes to let things sort themselves out, (no point in fooling with Nature because, as someone once said, Nature cannot be fooled) I find a lot of these nice purple flowers cropping up in all sorts of places at this time of year. The well tempered cultivator might well call them weeds but I call them welcome additions to my small patch of land. You might not recognise the flowers but I'm pretty sure you'll have seen the transparent seed heads in floral displays. There's also a white variety and even a pinkish one but today, being the first of the month, is all about purple.

Honesty is the English name for this plant but other cultures have a more mercenary name, money plant, silver dollars, Judas coins and (my  favourite) La monnaie du pape being just a few choice alternatives. Botanists call it Lunaria annua despite it being a biennial ... whatever its name if you just leave it alone it'll settle in nicely, my kind of plant.

And honesty being best policy means that I must own that Margot Juby took these pictures.

Gilles de Rais was Innocent, OK!

So not last Sunday but the one before that Ed (with the cap) and Dmitry visited to take even more footage of Margot for a short documentary. They chose to use the paddocks off Snuff Mill Lane which on a Sunday afternoon is dog walkers' rush hour. Film making may sound interesting but unless you're stuck behind the camera or making the decisions it's a just big drag so I walked off and left them to it. Which is a shame because on their way back they encountered some native youffs who entertained by "mooning" them so I'm told.

The reason for this tomfoolery is that Margot has written a book, The Martyrdom of Gilles de Rais, about how he was not the devil worshipping, child abusing, mass murderer of French history but rather a bit of a saintly patsy set up and used by the power players in 15th century Brittany. By going over the trial records in detail and asking simple questions (How can Gilles be in two places at once? and how did no-one notice a pile of bones/rotting cadavers lying around in a busy castle?) it is a brilliant and at many times humorous demolition job, nay polemic, on the long accepted 'historical' narrative, concocted mainly by a lazy French cleric and others who really ought to have known better, that bears scant or no relation to the records or indeed common sense ... I may be a bit biased but never forget: ... Gilles de Rais was Innocent, Ok!

And neither was he the inspiration for Bluebeard of folk and fairy tales as so many think. 

You can find out more about (and maybe buy) this book here. 

A touch of camera envy ...

They're smiling 'cos they're going home in one piece ...

Warped

If anyone bangs on about intelligent design being the way of the world just ask how the apex of the alleged Deity's plans, the most intelligent species on the planet can be brought low by something 80-120 nanometers in size. And what part that horrid little virion plays in any vast eternal plan? But that's enough theodicy for now. So in case you haven't guessed I've had and still have to some extent a version of influenza: could be the deadly Australian or the ever-so-polite Japanese or the entente filled French well whatever it was it was an absolute bugger. The past week has been one long semi-concious blur spent under a duvet surviving on soup, tea and easy-peel satsumas oh and regular doses of Paracetamol. Grrrrrr.

Today's picture is a reflection I caught at Cottingham station. If, like me, you see a sort of face in this image it's not a sign of warped mentality but of a "well wired brain" according to the Daily Mail. Pareidolia is, it appears, a good thing though I fail to see its place in intelligent design. If you don't see a face, of course, it means you have an even better wired brain, however if you regularly read and take the Daily Mail seriously I can't comment on your wiring ...

Anyhow back to the duvet and a cup of life saving tea ...

The Weekend Reflections are here.

The buck stops here

Came across this fine roebuck on Snuff Mill Lane the other day.  It being the rutting time of year I suspect he was looking for female company but I didn't see any around. Something I didn't know was that roe deer became extinct in England in the 18^th century  and those we have now are the result of reintroduction from Scotland. There's lots of them about now thankfully and if this guy gets lucky there'll be even more.

Big Boy

We have a pair of crows nesting nearby and every year at this time of the year they go just a little crazy. Nothing and I do mean nothing is allowed to fly anywhere near their nest. Chief object of their passion is a herring gull that has given up the nautical life for one of municipal scrounging. His poor life is hell just at the moment; no rest even if he's a couple of hundred yards from the nest and I wouldn't fancy being pecked by that beak. It'll all be calm again once the fledglings appear in a few weeks

Woodbine Cottages

This little terrace of houses is on Endyke Lane in Cottingham. Endyke Lane (with a y) is not to be confused with Endike Lane (with an i) in Hull though the latter is an extension of the former. Looking at old maps it seems that the old name was Endike Lane and the Cottingham end only became Endyke after Hull built the North Hull Estate in the late 1920's. I wonder if this was not some desire on Cottingham's part to distinguish itself from the council house plebs down the road. So now you know the y of it...

I Want To Ride My Bicycle

They've got all the Lycra gear, helmets, obligatory sunglasses... and I'm guessing those bikes don't come cheap, so serious biking then ... well maybe not so serious.

Blue Train

I just had a moment's notice to capture this locomotion. As I'm just old fashioned and a lazy bird I won't tell which way it's going.

Ne'er cast a clout till May be out

No, not a political slogan, but advice on what to wear in England in spring time which can be notoriously fickle temperature wise. You may know May blossom  as hawthorn, maythorn, quickthorn, whitethorn or (my favourite if Wikipedia can be believed) motherdie but the name matters little when it's covering the whole countryside with luscious white blossom. The scent of this bush is particularly pungent and, some say, redolent of corpses which may be why it is considered bad luck to bring the blossom into your house. It looks much better outside any way.

Margot took the top shot. She prefers it in colour but it's not her blog.

The weekend in black and white is here.