Hotel Oscar 99

Humberside police's helicopter costs £1.5 million a year to run, or fly if you will. It carries extremely sensitive cameras and other devices for tracking the bad guys and "protecting the community". Some criticise it as an expensive toy saying that officers on the ground are more effective. Be that as it may, I find it odd that the taxpayer pays for a police helicopter yet air ambulance helicopters have to be funded by charitable donations, that, I feel, shows a distinct warped sense of priorities.

And, of course, this machine has its very own website here. Hotel Oscar 99 is the radio call sign of the helicopter.

Broken

Came across this pile of broken sledges on Beverley Westwood. They were clearly not up to the job of sliding down this slippery slope. They've waited all Winter for a bit of snow and then this happens, sad really.

The eye of the beholder

The park pond was frozen over which was only to be expected. All the birds thought I had bread to give them, unfortunately I had none but there were others with whole loaves to dispense. If you zoom in on the eye of this goose you might just make out an image of me taking a picture. 

Gloomy outlook

On my way back from a walk in the snow a bank of fog rolled in and sent temperatures on a downward spiral. It was a bit grey and gloomy but not quite as bad as this photo seems.

Punctual

It's February and according to the textbooks Hazel catkins appear right now. This little tree near to my house has obviously been reading the book because it was covered in these pale yellow catkins. These are the male flowers, the female flowers are small red tufts; pollination is by wind.

Icicle

The way the TV news has been going on you would think it had never snowed before, ever. Well really; two inches of the white stuff and they're in some kind of national panic. I didn't have to go far to take this picture; this odd icicle was hanging outside my kitchen window (must remember to fix those gutters sometime).

Red, White and Blue

What can I say about this block of flats? It's on Barnsley Street in east Hull, it's bigger than anything else around here. Despite appearances it's not built with Lego blocks ...that's about it really.