Lines that never cross

The track to Hull at Snuff Mill Lane

There's nothing quite like the old conundrum of parallel lines never meeting or only meeting at infinity for getting the mathematicians gassing on and on about Euclid's 5th postulate, spherical geometry or hyperbolic geometry or whatever they feel like calling it. Me, I just take comfort in these lines staying 4 foot eight inches apart all the way to Hull station. After that they can do  whatever they like.


The weekend in black and white is here.

Another piece of pie?

Trinity House Lane, Hull

Did I mention pie shops were taking over the world? I think I did.

Purplish haze

Jameson Street, Hull

The weatherpeople say we've just had the sunniest Winter on record, well every sunny day has it end and this one went out in a blaze of glory, though not everybody seemed to appreciate it.

I've just noticed the Council have for some reason installed little pink illuminated spikes on the street lights. Money to burn so it seems.

Monday meanderings

Clough Road, Hull

An idea being put out by a group calling itself Generation Rent suggests that Parliament be brought to Hull and that the Houses of Parliament be converted into affordable accommodation. No seriously, I checked the date and it's still March not April 1st. Well I suppose it's a thought and I'm sure the 650 or so MPs and 800+ Lords (a legislative body surpassed in size only by China's National People's Congress) with attendant lackeys and lickspittles would easily fit into and be made welcome by this City of Culture. And the sight of Brenda in full regalia in her state coach traipsing down Clough Road with a cavalry guard to open Parliament would be bound to draw the crowds. It's reckoned 5000 jobs would be created in Hull (no mention of how many lost in London but why wake up the dreamer?) and save £120 million over a five year parliament (or smell the coffee!). So yeah, bring it on ....

Signs of ageing

 

Lichenometry, a way of telling the age of exposed rocks by studying the size of lichens, is, I'm told, particularly useful on specimens under 500 years old. However I think I can accurately date this stone to sometime in or about March 1859 this being the date inscribed on the grave of one John Oxtoby late of Hull Bank¹ who, we are informed, departed this life aged 55 on the 21^st of that month.

The new month's theme for City Daily Photo is ageing or aging depending which part of the world you come from. You can see how well others have aged or agd here.

¹ Hull Bank I have found was a " a hamlet in the township and parish of Cottingham; the seat of Benjamin Blades Haworth, Esq. (which explains the Haworth Arms right on the corner of this estate) 3 miles from Hull". Hull Bank was mentioned in the Domesday Book and was part of the Manor of Cottingham, roughly bounded by Clough Road, Beverley Road, the River Hull and Dunswell. The area became part of Hull with the boundary extension of 1882.

Barmy Drain

When applying for planning permission to build anything new  nowadays you have to supply a flood risk assessment, a surveyor, at no small cost, looks at the plot and decides how likely it is to flood and what if anything should be taken into account when drawing up plans. Good job then that such niceties did not prevail in the middle ages else nothing would be standing in these parts. The whole Hull river valley until the middle ages used to be one big marshy malarial infested lake stretching up as far as Driffield with occasional interventions from the Humber to add to the gaiety of nations. But bit by bit and without any help from the Environment Agency river banks were raised and drains put in. The late 18^th and early 19^th century saw really large investment in drying out the land and bringing it into cultivation. And so here's the Barmston (Barmy) Drain as seen from Clough Road doing what it has been doing since the passage of the Beverley and Barmston Drainage Act of 1798 taking the wet stuff from East Yorkshire's marshy carrs and putting it into the river Hull in a neat controllable fashion. Despite the rubbish piling up on the banks these drains provide a rich habitat for wildlife though it has to be said I only saw two wrens and a depressed looking duck while I was here.

I've posted about this waterway before here.
If you are into the history of drainage (and be honest who isn't?) here's an old pamphlet about draining the Hull Valley.
The weekend in black and white lurks here.
And weekend reflections are hiding here.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog

As I shall not pass this way again here is the view going home.