Skip this if you like

I bet you didn't know that there are people out in the 'real' world who keep an eye on the number of skips being used. To put a skip out on the public highway you must have a skip licence from the council and councils having nothing better to do keep tallies on this. Just as there are weathermen who make forecasts based on seaweed and pine cones so there are economists who use skips as bell-weathers for the state of the construction industry. More skips means more little building projects on the go. And the latest figures I've seen show that skip use is increasing all over the country; happy days are here again. Truly this is a one nation skip-led recovery in which we will all, no doubt, end up in the skip together.

Need a helping hand

Tucked away in a corner of garden of the transport museum this ancient looking statue gives no indication as to its origins nor its subject matter. We have a lady minus a hand holding on to a shield and wearing a Greek-style helmet.
Well it was difficult to find anything out about this but after asking Hull Museums (thanks to assistant curator Tom Goulder) I get the picture that this is thought to be a statue of Minerva (or possibly Britannia) from the Royal Institute which stood on Albion Street. It was part of a group of three statues. So how did it (and the other two that I have yet to find) end up in these gardens? Well German bombing in 1943 destroyed the Royal Institute and damaged the statues that much is known. The same explosion destroyed records so the story of the statues becomes a bit hazy. At least it was until, by persistence, I came across this link which is quite clear that, yes, this is Minerva and came from the Royal Institute. The poster of that page also states the statue is by W.D. Keyworth, junior and dates from 1883. So mystery solved then ...
Returning to our statue and if it is Minerva then she would have had a spear in her missing hand and would have looked a lot like this.

Old dog, newish tricks

Ah we all shall be saved from wet feet and damp houses as the announcement is made for a £45 million plan to improve the river Hull's flood defenses. But do note the plan has been agreed; not the £45 million! If I prattle on about flooding a lot then well it's the thing that hangs over this area like some wet sword of old what's his name. Most of the Hull valley and certainly all of the city of Hull itself is below sea-level at high tide. Anyhow one of the proposals is to use the tidal barrier more often as a sluice gate to stop the Humber going upstream during heavy rain as opposed to its current use only during very high tides on the Humber. Seems they've already tried it out and it works surprisingly well. So if they get the go ahead and that means amending legislation then the old girl will be in action maybe two or three more times every year. If that doesn't work then proper sluice gates at a cost of £16 million could be built. And if all that looks like a lot of money then think on that it's estimated a good flood of the Hull river basin could do £3.4 billion damage and make my feet wet.

The Moggie and the Maggies ...

... or the cat on a cool slate roof.

We were down the Land of Green Ginger the other day when the normal town hubbub was overwhelmed by a loud repetitive cackling from on high. Turns out a cat had entered the roof top domain of two magpies who were, to say the least, displeased by this development. The cat, as cats do, simply ignored all the fuss and went about its business. That's it really; hardly worth craning your neck to see what was going on.

I think Margot K Juby took this one

Going to seed

Taken by Margot K Juby

The weekend in black and white is here.

Blue barge

This old barge or lighter with the odd name of Poem 25 is a fixture in the old harbour of the river. I've shown it before here but that was before colour was invented.

Weekend Reflections are here

Blade runner

Apologies if this is not the finest quality shot but this cargo ship was nearly two miles away across the old Humber. The odd looking items are wind turbine blades heading to some assembly plant upstream. These may not match the world's longest blades (75m!) but they're still a fair size. News came only last week of yet another big deal for the wind powered industry with Dong from Denmark (I kid you not) signing to build an offshore turbine complex near Grimsby on the south bank, so we should expect to see more cargoes like this.