Say it with flowers

Florists across the country have been trying to cash in on Mothering Sunday (or Mother's Day as we call it here to confuse our American friends, I doubt if many know why it is even a thing on the calendar but I digress) possibly their last opportunity to make a bit of money for some time (except maybe for funerals though even they will no doubt be banned if the ordure really hits the fan). These polyanthus primula "Silver Lace" were at the Plant Pot on Greenwood Avenue. 

The advice from our increasingly floundering Premier is not to visit mama today, indeed aged maters and paters should both be locked up tight and not allowed out (smothering Sunday, perhaps?) ... since I've been a poor orphan these many years it's not really an issue.

Yellow

The Great Ouse looking south towards the magnificent sugar beet factory paper mill.

There's a pink one ...

                      ...and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one

Coltman Street's Victorian villas have had a new coat of paint and were looking a bit special and not at all ticky-tacky though they do have a touch of sameness about them.
Note to avoid parking on a double-yellow line (an offence punishable by excommunication and forfeiture of  all lands and titles) it is considered perfectly OK to park your white van on the pavement.

Makin' Pumpkins

I'm new to pumpkins, a bit of a pumpkin virgin, as it were  ... it was Margot's idea to grow some this year, it'll be a fun, she said, a bit of a laugh ... anyway through the cold of May nothing grew then in June a few leaves then turn July and  whoosh they filled the little plastic green house ... then tendrils? nobody told me about tendrils, nor the hairy almost spiky stems. Then the flower buds which were numerous but just sat there until yesterday when they turned a weird yellow then this morning I go down to find these ridiculous beauties ... but I read these are male flowers and these big bad boys need a female flower in order that things can progress, the technical term is 'fruit set' although you may call it something else ...  I'm told that the female flowers will definitely be along later but they only open early morning and close in the afternoon (bit like some shops I know) ... and hand pollination may be needed if the insects can't manage an early morning rendezvous ... and there, as it were, will go my pumpkin virginity.

Costa del Brid

You can achieve wonders by upping the saturation and artfully cropping out unwanted chip shop chimneys to give an almost Mediterranean look to a Bridlington snicket. 

There's going to be an election in June which apart from boring folk to death will return the present lot to government, destroy what's left of the Labour Party (not much), annoy the Scots and the Irish (no bad thing in itself) and solve no problem whatsoever. But then that's politics for you.

A host of godawful Lego bricks

I know, I know I promised never, ever to photograph them but there was no way I could stop Margot clicking away at these truly awful plastic daffs littering the street. And though Wordsworth saw ten thousand at a glance there are, thankfully, just a few hundred of these vile horrors clumped like dried green and yellow snot outside the closed down BHS store appealing to little brats to play chasing games around them. Just dreadful!

Black and White and Colour

So that's the end of Winter as the meteorologists would have us believe and what a warm wimpy Winter that was. Anyhow on this Saint David's day the good folk at City Daily Photo want as their theme black and white in colour so here's what's best described as the backside of a lecture theatre with a nice daffodil yellow sign to show it's not monochrome after all.

Clear Guidelines

Those thoughtful people who gave us the generous expansive footpath that I posted the other day just can't seem to control their urge to keep us yellow stick figures within our limits. These, though rather cute and silly, are not the daftest markings I've spotted in this town; that honour goes to this piece of barminess.

A red dot in a sea of blue

Ah the pleasures and agonies of rearranging the electoral boundaries! This week has seen proposals to cut fifty seats from the House of Commons, that's MPs voting for fifty redundancies ... well I'll wait while you get over your sniggering fit. 

As far as I'm concerned if it goes ahead Cottingham and a few other outlying villages move from the safe, nay possibly the safest, Tory seat in the country to a proposed marginal seat of West Hull and Haltemprice (where or what is a Haltemprice? I've no idea!) West Hull at present is a totally safe Labour fiefdom (you see the method behind this, create a marginal, lose a safe Labour seat but keep the remains of a safe Tory seat, most excellent!). It also means that Hull may become a smaller red dot in a sea of blue which may be no bad thing. There are the delicious howlings of the self-serving gerrymandered and hopefully soon to be out-of-a-job politicos. I'm not that bothered really they can try living on the pittance of unemployment benefit they voted for, except they'll all have cushy little consultancy positions waiting for them. Does my contempt for politics and all politicians look big in this? 

A small concern is it could be the first move to take over the outlying villages and plonk them in with Hull City Council (just for neatness dontcha know) something that 96% voted against only two years ago.

A strange day

I took this on my way to vote in the referendum (voted 'Leave' since you ask because, as is well known, I'm a delusional, knuckle-dragging, xenophobic, racist, piece of shit; yes, the eloquent insults of the losing 'Remainers' still flow ...). Appears even the weeds have UKIP's colours ... It's not every day you have a vote to leave the EU and the PM resigns with a self-inflicted shotgun wound to his foot ... interesting times.

Security

Creyke Beck, Cottingham

Stick up a fence, slap on a yellow sign and hey presto the world's a safer place ...

Tour de wherever

Seems that sometime earlier this year (April or May, does it matter?) there was a cycle race held in these parts. Maybe it was a follow up to last year's Tour de France fandango. Well, whatever,  it totally passed by me without leaving a trace, somehow the sight of a group of sweaty lycra-clad steroid enhanced bicycle riders rushing past in the blink of an eye lacks a certain degree of appeal or anything really. But à chacun son goût, as they often say in these parts, and others (more discerning, I've no doubt) were inspired to mark this event. Bicycles were painted yellow and blue and hung in various places. Quite where the inspiration for this odd behaviour came from I know not but I suspect a certain Gallic influence. 

Above is Lairgate, Beverley and below Bridlington Station. 

Yellow spoilsports

In these days of safety and dullness it's hard to remember the days just a dozen or so years ago before spoilers were placed on all the fun bits of town like this little slope from the end of Victoria Avenue down to Chanterlands Avenue. So you might cycle or skateboard too fast down there and end up in the road and be run over, meh! Hardly ever happened and you wouldn't do it twice would you?.