Colour Codes

OK I admit it's not the most exciting picture ever taken, nor yet the best composed but there's a reason for that I'll come to in a minute. What you're seeing here is a series of LED flags and like those maritime flags they're supposed to some special meaning, in this case it's a relationship with local groups or places. The sign below gives some sort of an explanation and also the reason why I couldn't take a better picture. The lights are controlled by the wind and within a minute of taking the picture they all went out. 

Hmmm. Anyhow there's a webpage with more about this (including a short video) written by the very man who thought it all up here.

A Coast To Boast About

Bridlington's South Beach is one of its main tourist attractions and keeping it clean is a big headache. Seems when there's been heavy rain the bathing water and the beach get contaminated from the nearby Gypsey Race and no-body likes bathing in dirty water. Mind you I can't recall seeing that many people bathing in the bracing North Sea anyway. So the local water company are installing a new storm drain and pumping station on the South Beach. A kilometer long pipe (floated over from Norway!) is being installed. Currently the whole place looks a mess but there's a big poster showing what it will be like when finished. We'll hardly know it's there and that'll be £40 million well spent. There's a webpage as you'd expect and it's here.

This gives some idea of the scale of the project.

What it should look like when finished in Spring 2014.

Four Legs Good ...

An extremely gloomy day with that rarest of things a warm stiff Easterly breeze blowing and Bridlington was fairly empty (and mostly shut) at this end-of-season time. If we'd gone the day before it was, we were told, "wonderful with bright blue skies"and "just like Summer". Hmmm. Anyhow in the harbour and quite out of proportion to its surroundings this hulk was quietly tethered up. It's a dredger of sorts, a much bigger version of the one I posted here. Looks like some serious digging going to to be done.

Meanwhile out in the bay another four legged beast was lurking but more of that in the next post.

Hull Fair

So, at long last, we reach Hull Fair which in one form or another has been going on for 720 or so years and is the largest travelling fair in Europe. Apart from this year bringing with it typical Hull Fair weather, cold, wet and windy the fair seemed to my delicate ears to be the loudest ever with every ride turning up the volume to 11. Here's a selection taken at dusk, the fair goes on till late at night but as I think I've mentioned before I'm not allowed out after dark ....

So that's Hull Fair over for another year.

Welcoming signs

Before we get to the Fair we must pass the KC Stadium. Up close the stadium is an ugly brute reminiscent of an overgrown steel can without any of the charm. Hull council splashed out £44 million for this monster in West Park nearly eleven years ago when times were much, much easier than now and the Council was flush with cash from the sale of the local telephone company. The stadium is home to two teams, the Premier League Hull City and the rugby league Hull Football Club, but as neither spherical nor elliptical balls interest me that much I've never been inside and besides they won't let me take my camera in ....(I've just checked and the cheapest tickets for an adult to watch a soccer match is £22. The last match I went to, admittedly going on for 35 years ago, cost less than £3 and I got to see Liverpool beat, I believe, Manchester City 5-0. Kenny Dalgleish scored a hat trick. I think that's enough footy for now.)

 

There's a website for the truly besotted, it's here.

Going to the Fair

So this is Hull Fair week, as I may have mentioned, and for a change I went via a new (to me) route across the rail tracks and scrub land that lies behind the KC football stadium. When the stadium was built this path was also put in to take visiting supporters directly from the rail/bus station to the ground and isolate them as much as possible from the city, much in the manner that Hull treated European emigrants passing through the city in the 19th century, that is as if they carry some contagious disease. It's a frankly stupid policy of shuttling thousands of visitors to the city in and out as quickly as possible when with a bit of guile they could be persuaded to bide a while in the town and perhaps spend a bit of money, but clearly Hull doesn't need their money. 

Anyhow once you're over this bridge the Fair hoves into view along with some spectacular giant Hogweeds, some six or seven foot tall and really rather splendid among the scrubby unkempt landscape. Quite what visitors to Hull make of this I don't know but I rather like it. Then there's one more little bridge to cross and you reach the KC stadium itself, the Fair is just on the other side of this.

Whirlybird

When you're walking along the street probably the last thing you expect to see is a helicopter taking off a few dozen yards away. I was on my way to Hull Fair (about which more later) when the police chopper arose from a patch of grass close by Hull Royal Infirmary. What it was doing there I know not but I took a few piccies for the record.