Ocean Seeker

Maybe it's just me but watching ships carry out intricate manoeuvres in a fast flowing current attempting to get into a narrow dock gate there always the vague wish, no that's too strong a word, idea maybe, lurking at the back of your mind they might, I don't know, overshoot or run into the bank or some such. There's probably a word for it: schadenfreude infantilis or some such.  Thankfully it never happens, at least not while I'm standing there taking pictures. This survey ship made its stately way up stream then halted and performed a very smooth almost balletic right-angled turn to enter Albert Dock. No bumps, no scrapes, no fun at all.

The Weekend in Black and White continues here.

Apparition

This ghost of Xmas just passed was taken by Margot at a bus stop on Newland Avenue.

Weekend Reflections might be here if it's still going.

Bee and Burdock

Asked by City Daily Photo to post my favourite photo from the year just ended I pondered for a while but in the end  it had to be this close up of a tree bumble bee enjoying the nectar of a burdock flower. These bees were first spotted in the UK as recently as 2001 but are now quite common, they've even nested under my kitchen roof and, of course, they are most welcome. Read more about Bombus hypnorum here.

You can see other favourites of the past year here.

Let's have a butchers ...

Here is Princes Avenue's sole remaining butcher's shop, T L Norman. Now it's been called T L Norman for longer than I've lived in Hull but Mr Norman retired a while ago and it's now run by some body else. Looking for something to say about this I found that there used to be six butchers on the avenue, I can only remember two others. They are now either a café or a bar along with just about every other shop that used to trade in this street.

This miserable year appears to have run out of days ... more of the same tomorrow then! Oh and remember; “Better the butcher than the meat.”. 

Two statues

Continuing in the vein of stuff that somehow didn't get posted earlier here are two statues from Beverley Minster. On the left King Æthelstan who, I am informed, came along to Beverley Minster to see the tomb of Saint John of Beverley (shown on the right as a bishop) before going off to kill a few hundred Scots and Danes, which was the style at the time. Both statues are made of lead and painted to match the stone interior, they date from the 18th century. Beverley Minster owes a lot to these two, King Æth. for his "pious munificence" and St J. for his bones which brought in the tourists, erm sorry, pilgrims.

Here's one I did earlier

Somehow this one didn't get posted in August when I took it. It's underneath Chanterlands Avenue rail bridge. It was at about this time (and those of you with a weak stomach may wish to leave now) that the local rag ran a story of "inch long maggots" falling from this bridge onto the heads of unsuspecting pedestrians. It seems the rail company (or the Council, it was never clear who) had put up netting to keep pigeons from nesting but which instead trapped said birds (I saw at least two there may have been more) and led to a prolonged death by starvation and with the warm weather an inevitable host of maggots which left the rotting corpse when ready to pupate, falling like some biblical plague on the sinners below. The Council was informed and the Council sent an officer round to inspect and to write a report and then the Council undertook to study the report carefully and the Council said it would take swift and appropriate action should it be deemed necessary ...

Some scrapings from the bottom of the barrel

I've not been out and about much lately what with colds, seasonal social interference aka Xmas, looking after a large black dog and so on. So I've been sifting through pictures taken earlier this year and came across this bunch all from Humber Dock Street or nearby and all pretty similar so I thought I'd bunch them all up in one big post. The first two are the Minerva which I have shown in daylight here and here.

Below is the award-winning restaurant 1884 which I posted just before it opened here.

Thieving Harry's I posted recently here.