No April showers have come our way

WELCOME, wild North-easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne’er a verse to thee.

Charles Kingsley

Somehow Spring has sprung without me really noticing it. Though it looks nice and sunny the picture cannot begin to describe the slightly nithering north-easter that is flowing across the land giving the feeling of walking through a tub of ice-cream. And it's been a really dry April so the droghte of Marche has not been sooted as they used to say.

"After you, Claude – no, After you Cecil"

I'm not sure that whoever designed the bus station, or Interchange as purists would have it, wasn't on some sort of sadism trip or just plain incompetent or maybe both. The place consists of a long line of bays, over 30 I think, from which depart buses laden with passengers and into which buses similarly arrive. Simple you might have thought except when the arriving buses meet the departing buses at the same time or even better when a load of buses all depart at the same time. There then takes place an elaborate slow motion dance of the omnibuses with the lower number bays giving way to the higher ones. It's just the sort of barmy, ill thought out cheap-o design we've come to expect around here. It matches the similarly badly designed passenger waiting side of the shop which I moaned about before here. Still it does give time to take a few photos while we wait our opportunity to go home at long last.

The great omnibus Excuse Me

Weekend reflections are here.

See how great a flame aspires ...

...Kindled by a spark of grace!

I could not say that I was entirely surprised to learn yesterday morning that the George Lamb Memorial Chapel on Lambert Street had been destroyed by fire. As I mentioned in my post three years ago it had been in a fairly derelict state for years and last used for God bothering 21 years ago. Other long empty buildings have been subject to similar blazes in the recent past. 

I'd heard rumours the Council were going to buy it under the compulsory purchase system but I don't know if anything came of that. Anyhow that's all a bit moot at the moment. The innards are completely gone and engineers are testing the structural viability of the shell. Let's hope the facade is sound enough to be saved at least though it does look a bit iffy to be honest. There is, of course, plenty of scuttlebutt about how convenient this destruction might be for any potential developer, I couldn't possibly comment.

Soon the democrats will be democking

May 7 is the big day for the quinquennial exercise in so-called democratic accountability. But at least in this country you don't have to vote and it's really tempting not to bother since there isn't going to be a 'None of the above' option on the ballot paper. 

The Grasshopper Store

Although there quite a few Polish and Eastern European stores dotted around the outskirts of town especially on Beverley Road and Newland Avenue there are very few in the town centre itself. This one named Pasikonik or Grasshopper is on Carr Lane. It's a welcome addition to Hull's shops and provides an alternative to the uniform fare offered by the the chain stores Sainsbury's, Tesco and so on. I hope we see more like this. If only so I can get my Polskie piwa when in town!

"Buses are running well late"

Carr Lane

I was in town this afternoon on a spot of business and ran into a classic Hull gridlock with buses backed up on Carr Lane, Ferensway full in both directions and Anlaby Road looking like a no-go area as well. Marvellous! And not helped by the road works I mentioned  a week ago. The title is what I overheard a bus company man saying to a frustrated passenger. My bus home took 15 minutes to do 300 yards just leaving the station, even I can walk faster than that with my gammy leg and all.

Ferensway

Junction Carr Lane, Ferensway and Anlaby Road

Maintenance

Prayer might be a strong wall and fortress of the church but it does no harm to get in the masons every now and then to check over the stonework and make sure the church is still a goodly Christian weapon. Here's Cottingham's parish church, St Mary's, getting some serious maintenance a few weeks back, after seven hundred years or so perhaps this is not so surprising.