Le vélo jaune

Bonjour from sunny Hull. The Tour de France, which finished recently in Paris, this year for some reason or other had its Grand Départ in Yorkshire. Cue lots of Yorkshire tourism advertising, lots of God's own county claptrap and so on and so forth. There can be few things more boring than a professional Yorkshire person gassing on about Yorkshire. Anyhoo this cycling shop not wanting to be left at the back of the peleton and not having any maillots jaunes simply sprayed up an old bike yellow. It does, however, have a red spotted shirt of the 'king of the mountains' which is kind of ironic given that Hull is flatter than a flat thing that's been flattened.

A little bit of rain

Well the weatherfolk had been saying it was coming for nearly a week and sure enough old hurricane Bertha's soggy remains passed over this morning and early afternoon. Pretty impressive rain it was too, at times so hard you could barely see across the street, with thunder and a bit of lightning thrown in to add to the fun. But it's all over now ...

Spoke too soon it's started again ...

What's left of the weekend in black and white is here.

World Cat Day

Yesterday was apparently World Cat Day so here's Bruiser the local tom and connoisseur of roast chicken's gristly bits. Go ahead make his day ...

Both pictures by Margot K Juby his factotum.

Hook a duck

To entertain the young ones (or possibly their parents) during the long vacation a funfair of sorts has sprung up outside St Stephens. Judging by the lack of customers it seems they all have better things to do.

Verse tiles

Oh dear, I feel should apologise for inflicting such doggerel on you ... these tiles on a wall on Torrington Street are thankfully fading with time.

More local wildlife

With zebras and elephants yesterday and hippos today this place is turning in a virtual Serengeti ... I stumbled across this monster while on safari down Clough Road. It's meant to sell a well known brand of mattresses, believe it or not. Think hippo, think bed ... nah.

Zebra

What can I say about this unique shop? Why is it called Zebra? Why does it have an elephant with a hat in the window ...  Why not?  Don't ask me, ask Ann, the owner who has been running this business for years now, only be prepared for a long chat. It's the sort of place where conversation seems to take precedence over selling stuff.  Zebra is on Newland Avenue and sells a vast array of arty crafty ethnic occult goods, cards, jewellery, goth stuff, hippy stuff, mermaids, you get the idea ... Well worth a visit.