Summertime blues

Took Margot out for a check-up at a clinic out in the western wilds of Anlaby. I wasn't allowed in, something to do with them being afraid of the bogeyman, Charon or Karen or was it caronavirus? Anyway I ended up on the naughty step outside. Which might not have been so bad had it not been tipping it down and a temperature of slightly sub 13C, nearer 11C but we won't quibble. Summer's gone and all the flowers dying sprang to mind as bits of me slowly turned blue. This was the view from the bike shelter. The pimple in the far distance is the Humber bridge, the mucky brown stuff in the middle ground is somebody's ruined harvest. I've checked and it's definitely warming up now it's, let me see, oooh 14C! Balmy.

Raindrops on roses

The weekend in black and white is here.

A Darkness at Noon

A storm in February used to pass by unnoticed, it was the kind of thing you expect, happened every year, through out autumn and winter we'd have storm after storm. A few dustbins would get blown over, maybe a tree or two, a power outage ( to use the American term) was not unknown. But it was winter, you expected it and got on with stuff. Nowadays everything has to have some malign anthropogenic cause and we'd better beat ourselves with birches until we come to our senses and/or die and leave the planet to all those cuddly animals and nice trees and flowers and grasses ... The chiliastic numpties gather in their covens and murmur misanthropic millennial doom and say we must expect these "extreme weather events" even more frequently now that there's so many people on the earth all making nasty carbon dioxide. They are, as I've said before, quite mad and completely wrong: we have fewer storms these days ... but mere facts never faze a craze.

Also crazy is giving these passing Atlantic depressions names: today's puny effort has the name Ciara which means "dark haired"; apt given that it was getting quite pitchy at just gone noon when I took my photo coming back from Tesco.

My bin blew over (almost!) , we must expect more events like this ... We shall rebuild! I don't know if the trauma will ever  leave me.

Feather-footed through the plashy fen ...

This guy came prepared for the Snuff Mill Lane seasonal puddles. He had a dog, some sort of Spaniel as I recall, a happy, mucky old thing that somehow ran round the edge without so much as getting its paws damp ... his human had a less than dainty approach.

Since September rain fall in these parts has been abundant topping up what an old TV weather presenter once called "the angst filled aquifers" ... and we've still got "February Fill the Dyke" to come.

February fill the dyke, 
Be it black or be it white; 
But if it be white, 
It's the better to like.

"Looks like an accident in the cutlery drawer"

Over last weekend and to the annoyance of many gridlocked motorists Castle Street was blocked off and the new footbridge (which we last saw parked up in preparation in a car park a few weeks ago) was shuffled into position in a faultless manner and much quicker than expected. The road was reopened fifteen hours earlier than forecast to much rejoicing. The bridge is only the small matter of thirty odd years late (who's counting?) ... and it won't be fit for pedestrians until spring.

The title was Margot's comment upon first seeing this. "Like the dish ran away with the spoon?" said I. Still you don't have to look at it when you're on it.

The weekend in Black and White is here.

"Some feel the rain. Others just get wet"

and some have enough sense to get out of the rain ...

Margot wishes it to be known that she took the top picture. There now you know.

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.

A break in the clouds

For what seems like ages but in fact is only a few days we have been at the receiving end of rain front after rain front. Endless cloud and loads of rain. Still it has been really mild almost muggy. Last evening there was a break in the clouds, the sun poked through and lit up this cloud. More rain forecast for as long as they can see ahead. Now where did I put that gopher wood?

The rain it raineth everyday ...

...Upon the just and unjust fella,

But more upon the just because

The unjust hath the just's umbrella.

Today's theme for the monthly City Daily Photo grouping is 'Umbrellas'. To see what others have made of this theme from gamps to parasols to wherever their imagination has wandered click here.

OK I admit I don't have a picture of any umbrellas whatsoever. Even this picture was taken by Margot Juby.

Downpour

Waiting for the bus at Cottingham Green a few days ago it grew dark and began to spit on with rain which gradually got heavier and heavier till, well we've all been there; down it all came seemingly in one big dollop. Still I was under some cover and stayed dry and the bus was due in three minutes. Time for some photos.

Shelter

The end of the first week of June brings a predictable change in the weather. The so-called "return of the Westerlies" or "June monsoon" has arrived with heavy downpours over most of western Europe. These collared doves seemed content to sit it out and wait for sunnier times.