Rising in the East

These impressive towers, just a shade under 300 feet (I'm of an age that doesn't do metric), are the first outward sign that production has really gotten off the ground at the new Siemens wind power plant in east Hull. The blades that go with these babies are nearly 250 feet long. When it comes to wind power it seems size matters. These are destined to sit in the North Sea and power our homes and industry at least while the wind blows. I suppose we'll get used to seeing these things over the coming years but they were quite a surprise when first seen the other day.

Orange men

Queen Victoria Square was veritable hive of activity as the finishing touches are applied to the multi-million pound make over. We are absolutely assured that it will all be completed this month all that is except the new water features which won't be activated until Winter is over. I toyed with using this for the 'transitions' theme yesterday but I realised that actually nothing much has changed just the size of the brick paving. 

 

The barriers of course remain and if anything the maze has become even more complicated to pass through. In this picture you can see some of the old paving bricks that somehow have survived. They weren't pretty. Below the new paving which is more varied but hardly eye-catching and certainly not worth the months of disruption and loss of trade and business.

The end of November

It's not often people stop and gawp at the sky but yesterday's flaming sunset was quite a spectacle and had folks looking up in amazement. I stood by the river and watched the old Sol Invictus disappear behind Lincolnshire's pylons and, of course, I pointed my camera at it just like you're not supposed to (eyesight is overrated).

Today's first of the month theme for City Daily Photo is "Transitions".

Sunset silhouette and shadows

Not much to say about these; they are what they are. Margot wants the world to know she took the top picture.

What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?

Here's a familiar sight on a Friday evening on Beverley Road, traffic tailing back to the town centre and not moving much faster than a horse and cart did two centuries ago. But this is bliss compared to the predicted Carmageddon to come on Monday and Tuesday when a section of Ferensway is to be completely closed to allow the completion of some road improvement. A three mile diversion (!) has been put in place involving crossing the river twice. Now even at the best of times those river crossings are bottlenecks and with all the extra traffic it's going to be so much fun. The official advice is to take a bus instead of your car but being stuck on a bus in giant gridlock wont improve things much. My advice: stay in bed.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Roundabouts but no swings

Quite the most pointless roundabout in town. Behind are the battery farms off Osborne Street where people are raised to become awesome citizens and quite a few of them are.

O tidings of comfort and joy!

For the past fortnight or so a few dozen homeless folks have been camping around the fountain in Queen's Gardens. It was a protest at what was perceived to be the uncaring attitude of the Council towards rough sleepers; they wanted to be put in houses or flats rather than put in hostels. I don't know the rights and wrongs of this issue and I'm coming here with less than half a story as by the time I got round to going to town the camp had been evicted leaving only this colourful tent which was pulled down just after I took this on Thursday. The next day the Council planted four big Xmas trees on the site, well we can't have the poor and  homeless ruining the season of good will to all men now, can we?