Silly Cow

On Princes Avenue

Probably best to say as little as possible about this ...

Unfortunate

For twenty years or so (1840-1860) Hull had a zoo and in that zoo for a few weeks in 1860 there was a White Nile hippopotamus by the name of Bucheet, the first hippo in England outside of London. Now Bucheet means 'fortunate' in Arabic but I reckon this poor chap's life was far from that, being captured as a calf, transported in poor conditions half way round the world, exhibited in zoos in England before being shipped off to America and ending his days in Canada as a circus show piece, "G. C. Quick's Colossal Hippopotamus."! Even after death he was stuffed and exhibited. What we have here at the end of Albany Street is a marble statue of poor old Bucheet. It's part of a small zoological trail in the neighbourhood, there are bears at the other end of the street.

If hippos are your thing then Virtual Hippo World might be of interest to you.

A Taste of Full Flava

Out for a walk on Saturday when the sound of amplified voices drifted out of Pearson Park; it was the the Full Flava Festival transforming the small park into an arena of music and dancing and general good fun. The volume near the stage was such as to set your mesentery vibrating but if you didn't stand too close it was tolerable and there were plenty of other attractions as well.

Queenie was sure to do a mean hip-hop when no-one was looking.

Sunny Reflections

Quite what anyone working behind this office window thought of me as I lined up this shot I can only imagine. Maybe they get quite a few eejits attracted by the grand reflections and I'm just latest in a long line ... ideally this picture needs to be taken by a pencil slim person and not one with an ever thickening girth but what can you do?

Weekend Reflections are at the end of this link, here.

Take a pew

While in Holy Trinity the other day I took the opportunity to photograph some of the carved pew ends for which the place is well known. These may look medieval but were actually carved in the 1840's during restoration work on the church. They are the work of George Henry Peck a man, seemingly, of many talents, painter, carver, art dealer, art entrepreneur and musician who is possibly better known (if at all) in Australia than in Hull.

Thou shalt have a fishy on a little dishy ...

You turn your back for a moment and strange things pop up all over the place. I'd not been in town for a couple of weeks (yes it's possible to live without the delights of Hull) so it was a bit of surprise to find kitted fishes adorning the buildings and what can only be called woollen condoms for the Maritime Museum's guns. The reason for all this madness: 'Follow the Herring' celebrating the old east coast herring fishing industry. A major feature is the knitting of a 'coat for a boat' which you can see below, as I say they get up to all sorts when you're not looking ...

14th century font full of fish

Coat for a boat

Loudest Just Before The Dawn

For reasons that need not detain us I was up and about at that time when the sun is thinking about poking its head above the horizon for yet another day. At this time all the birds of the land decide to see who can make the most noise, this is called by naturalists the dawn chorus though I suspect insomniacs have other less favourable names for it. If you've a mind to listen I recorded a few minutes of the local avian choir in full voice at 3.45am. This is just my neighbourhood imagine this spread across the whole country indeed continents ...(There were a couple of cars going by, you get them all over the country as well)

Secured

Always a good idea to lock up your bike and in this case your helmet as well. It is a tad disconcerting, however, to see a grand looking lock lying on the floor with no bicycle attached! This reminds me of a story my father told of his buying a really expensive lock and chain for his bike only to find the thieves took the lock and left his bike ....

All this and so much more ...

Here listed are some of the delights of St Stephens, "Hull's most stylish shopping destination". Here you can fill up on all sorts of franchised fodder before taking in a movie or maybe working off your calories in the gym. Oh and there shops as well selling, you know, stuff.

The wheels on the bus go round and round ...

I wouldn't want you to think I was one of those souls who take pictures of buses for pleasure, no sir, I took these for historical record only. Actually I was bored waiting for someone and well, you know, the devil, idle hands etc etc. So, the buses in Hull are for most part red and cream or blue and white, very occasionally  black and that's just about all I can say about buses, they're not really my thing, honest.

Lurkin' Toad

If you're taking a short cut through the cemetery and get that feeling of something not quite right it might just be that giant toad that you glimpsed out of the corner of your eye ...

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Perfect timing

Followers of this blog with exceptional memories may recall a post involving the Bradford and Bingley building which, in 2012, had been empty since the crash of our esteemed banking sector way back in whenever. Well the building is still empty but some enterprising folks have pasted art works in the windows. So I took a position across the street to get my photo when this young man walked past just as, well, as you see...

Newland Homes

Way, way back in 1821 there was founded the Port of Hull Society for the Religious Instruction of Seamen originally to administer to the spiritual needs of sailors and their families but later also their welfare and educational wants and, more especially, the needs of  sailors' orphans. As demand grew a village of twelve 'cottage homes' (each named after one of the rich sponsors who had clearly not read Matthew 6:3!) was built in and around 1897 on  Cottingham Road and housed at one time 360 children. It had its own school and sanatorium. As the years rolled by with welcome changes in child care fewer and fewer children were being placed in  these homes and they were sold off in 2004 leaving only the school still running. There is an excellent history of all this here.

The homes were originally built with yellow bricks which over the years thanks to coal fires and so on  have become mucky, for want of a better word. When new buildings were erected nearby, they too had to be of yellow brick and they don't half stand out.

On the level

A restaurant on Newland Avenue was undergoing a makeover last week.  Formerly known as Piola, a busy Italian restaurant, it seems it is be called Level a name which gives nothing away.

Linnet and Lark

"Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters."

The Linnet and Lark on Princes Avenue was once a second hand car dealers and from appearances hasn't changed much, out with the rusting cut-and-shuts and in with fizzy beer pumps add a bit of what is called entertainment  from 'up and coming  local talent' (this goes by the soubriquet of 'The Sesh'; session being too difficult a word to remember) and leave the rest to your imagination. Oh I forgot to mention the large TV showing football matches, which apparently attracts the sort of crowd you might expect it to attract.

The church lurking in the background dates from the time (1897ish) when there were no pubs at all on Princes Avenue, yes I know that is difficult to believe when it seems every building on the street is now in the refreshment trade. It was built as a Pentecostal church but now belongs to the Elim Pentecostals, the difference is no doubt as great as that between selling cars or beer ...

Thwart, Tabernacle, Taffrail

I may have mentioned once or twice that there's a new swing bridge in town on Scale Lane Statithe. Well to go with this Scale Lane itself has been given a makeover with seating and plants and these little inserts in the pavement highlighting parts of sailing ships.

So as you walk down this short stretch you go up the rigging of some tall ship, well anyway that's the idea, but I guess most people won't even know these things are there and will just walk over them. I did think the one below sounded painful until I looked up what it was.

 

Get stuck in!

At the end of a busy day the working man deserves nothing less than a hearty meal and an ice cold pint of the amber nectar. He might also like a little privacy and not have some prying person point a camera at him from a passing bus but, hey, you can't have everything.

The months just fly by these days and here's another one starting up which can only mean one thing: theme day at City Daily Photo where for want of anything better 'zest' was plucked out of the dictionary and flung down as a challenge. See who has been bold (or stupid) enough to take it up here.

Dogs (Fouling of L ....

Marina notice

It's a pity dogs can't read, I'm sure they'd be mightily amused by these warnings.

The weekend in black and white is here.

At the centre of things

Opposite the Deep

Weekend Reflections are here.

Stoneferry Blues

I posted about this bridge before (here) with an image that positively glowed with almost bucolic splendour. But this is a major river crossing with thousands of vehicles passing through this bottleneck each day so you know it's not really all sunshine and roses. In fact it's a little piece of hell if you happen to be on foot; noisy, polluted and impossible to cross over should you wish get to the other side of the road.