A piddling little stream

If you like mud then Hull could be just the place for you. When the tide is out there's acres of  thick oozing alluvium silting up the old harbour. I believe there are plans to clear out the gloop and improve the flow but then there's always plans for something or other in this place. It's at these times like this that you can see just what a small insignificant little stream the river Hull really is. 

 

Swanky

I mentioned last year plans to build a new hotel on the site of a former dance hall/disco/nightclub/knocking shop on Ferensway. Well it's up and growing. This picture was taken at the end of March but it's going up so fast that it's probably open and taking its first visitors by now ... I'm told it will look like this when it really is finished. The local paper calls it "swanky"; I think that's sounds pretty close to what I would call it.

OK, Let's Play

Here's the newly paved over junction of Jameson Street and King Edward Street taken a few weeks ago when the the orange lurgy was still hanging about. I believe this dull, windswept stretch of reclaimed land goes by the equally dull, tediously sycophantic and boring old name of King Edward Square. Now really was there no body else they could honour? Somebody who actually did something more useful than screwing several dozen mistresses and siring a bunch of inbred twerps. Even Wilberforce Square would have been better, though not much. Anyhow as is the way of things in this place no empty space can be left unfilled and so the local rag has a tale of daffodils, fluttering and dancing in the breeze no doubt, filling this godforsaken wasteland with springtime icky yellowyness only (now you knew there had be an 'only' coming along)  these are made of Lego. Fake flowers ffs! But then that's culture for you, all phoney baloney from the get-go. And no I won't be taking pictures, not now ... not ever.

Orange, White and Green

The willow trees on Paragon Street are getting new surrounding walls and some fresh soil by the look of things. I hope the new walls are as comfortable to sit on as the old ones.

Trees at night

The new trees and seats on Jameson Street have ground level lighting so you don't bump into them in the dark... did you know that some trees at night let themselves droop by up to four inches? And furthermore there are people being paid a good salary to find out more about this valuable titbit of information.

The ever fascinating and never drooping Weekend in Black and White is here.

Building Tomorrow's Bridlington

You might think that having suffered two years of orange barriers in Hull you would be safe to take a day out and not come across any of these damn things. But no, it seems Bridlington is being regenerated as well which seems to mean knocking down a street of Victorian houses and digging up Bridge Street above. Maybe they'll get some culture too, we've got lots to spare.

A Seaside Terrace

Hard now to imagine the thousands who came to Bridlington for their annual holiday but the evidence of their visitations lies in these typical seaside lodging houses and hotels. This one has six storeys and all were no doubt priced accordingly. I'll take a wild guess that it was built in 1878. In those days holidays were unpaid and in the north of England whole towns would take a week off at one time, the Wakes Week,  and all would descend by train on the seaside; there was nowhere else to go. Nowadays everyone goes off on their own little adventure to the Med or Bali or California or where ever a plane can fetch up and these old places have become rented apartments not necessarily to the highest calibre of clientèle. Some seaside towns, not Bridlington especially,  have attracted the unemployed, and possibly unemployable, the homeless, folks with mental health problems, former prisoners and so on. I say 'attracted' some might say these people have been deliberately dumped on these places, cheap and out of the way. Naturally this is  bringing attendant social, drug and criminal problems. So though the sky is still blue and sea and the sand are just the same we've come a long way from the days of the bucket and spade holiday makers with their kiss-me-quick hats and sticks of rock.