A few trees and things

Here's a sample of some of  Cottingham's many splendid large old trees. These are all on or around Newgate Street/ Priory Road. I'd like to say they are well looked after and protected but I've noticed a few recently in a nearby street being removed to make space for a car to be parked or some such reason. 

Wicstun Express

Newland Avenue, Hull

Here's the bus from York stopping on Newland Avenue, but what all this Wicstun Express malarkey? Well Wicstun is the old name for Market Weighton, a small town somewhere between here and York. Oh verb sap 'Weighton' is pronounced something like 'wheaton' ...
The bus takes two hours to cover the 47 or so miles from York which hardly strikes me as galloping but then it does take the scenic route and stops along the way. As a marketing ploy they've adopted some stylized Viking complete with obligatory horned helmet. I'm not sure a Viking gives the impression of speed, they've more a reputation (thoroughly undeserved of course) for pillaging and general naughtiness. Vikings, of course, wouldn't have been seen dead in a poncey horned helmet and as roads were usually nonexistent or impassable they would have gone by boat up and down the Humber and been in York in a couple of hours with a full flood tide and no stopping at Wicstun or anywhere else for that matter. 

Who ate all the pies?

A new shop has opened just down the road, a pie shop. It's the latest in a spreading chain of pie shops; OK it's only the fourth but soon there'll be nothing but pie shops across the land and then we'll all be happy except for Simple Simon ...

Reflecting on the Anser

There are those who think that Grey Lag Geese get their name from their habit of being the last to migrate in Winter, in other words they lag behind. This makes no sense to this poor fool as other European languages simply call this bird 'grey goose' (Grauwe Gans, Graugans, Grågås, Oie Cendrée and so on). So a little bit of detective work pulled out another derivation that says that 'lag' is an ancient word for goose, a 13^th century text refers to 'redlag' which is supposed to translate as 'reed goose', and the lag part reflecting in some way the noise made by these birds. Scientists with no sense of romance simply call them Anser anser or goosey goose if you like. 

Weekend Reflections are here.

Pochard Confusion

Common Pochard ♂

I know you will have been worrying about this all day long and so, by way of clarification, Pochards in this country come in two varieties, common and red crested. In France however pochards are not ducks at all which reminds me à propos de rien that in the Lake District there's a pub called the Drunken Duck. I think that's enough ducks for one day.

Red Crested Pochard ♂ & ♀

Mute Swan

Here's a few swan photos for no reason, who needs a reason?

Higgledy-piggledy

Humber Street

What adjective would you use to describe a collection of derelict old warehouses that no-one has any real use for? If 'higgledy-piggledy' springs to mind and you follow that with 'charm' and then you're well on your way to the grand folly of 'regeneration'. These buildings have been left unloved and unoccupied for ages; by rights they should have been demolished and replaced years ago. But now, as there's a fashion to use the area for 'arts' and other small ventures, it would be unwelcome to say the least to have them falling down on passers-by. Somehow the Council, which never fails to inform us that it's strapped for cash, found over £3 million to throw at the problem which was entirely of its own making. It is the nature of money pits to devour cash and so an extra million or so has been conjured up ... higgledy-piggledy charm, it seems, is expensive.

It being the start of a new month the theme for City Daily Photo is "If you had to leave forever the city from which you usually post, what would you miss most?". I have given the matter some thought and what follows is an exhaustive list ...