Cardoon Time

Out and about on Newland Avenue this afternoon and came across this splendid beast growing in a raised bed. It's a cardoon or globe artichoke and most definitely not your standard Council plant. I'm told they are edible or rather the inner bits of the stalk can be stewed up and consumed au gratin should you choose. Anyhow bees love them.

Margot took this picture

A Painted Lady

I've been reading stories in the press of this year being a good year for Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui); how it's a once-in-a-decade event where zillions of these butterflies arrive on these shores from Africa for their summer vacation. Normally I ignore this kind of stuff but I have to admit there are a fair few around in the garden but then there often are at this time of year along with the large and small whites, the peacocks, the holly blues and the common blues, the territorial almost aggressive speckled wood, orange tips, gatekeepers, brimstones and,  new to me this year, a meadow brown .. I think that's all oh and hundreds of moths but then I don't do moths ....  So here's  a Painted Lady from the other day on the Butterfly Bush.

Golf, anyone?

Picture by Margot K Juby

Back in the 1920s or so before all these here houses were built all this land was a golf course, run by Hull Corporation I believe though I wouldn't put my life savings on that being the case. The clubhouse was where the now closed Lloyds bank is on the corner of Cottingham Road and Hall Road. Anyhow all that's long gone and the only trace or reminder is this little road which goes by the name of Golf Links Road.

A Bit Black over Bill's Mum's

After a few hot days last week (no records broken, barely reached 30C but still not nice for the likes of me) we had a perfect little area of low pressure sneak in from the south west, so nicely circular a met office bloke was in raptures. Anyhow it did what cyclonic stuff does: sunshine and rain, sometimes downpours and the occasional bit of thunder and lightning to spice things up. In other words a typical British summer all told ... it is, as someone once described it, three fine days and a thunderstorm.

Apart from being the rather silly Yorkshire Day the first day of August is  the theme day for City Daily Photo and continuing their trawl through colours they have hit upon black which, as any fule kno, is no colour at all.

An old stick-in-the-mud

I posted quite recently about the removal of this old trawler, the Arctic Corsair, from this site to a place upstream. I told a sorry tale of delays and inactivity. Well a new firm date has been announced for the departure, Sunday August 4. This picture was taken three weeks ago and I can see (even if you can't)  that some of the silty gunge has been shifted from the rear end (or stern for those like to go messing about on the river). I'm told this vessel has no engines so two tugs will pull it away and off to Alexandra Dock while the old dry docks where it is to be put on display are cleared and renovated for the return. As it has been sitting in the mud here for twenty years or so it is to be hoped all goes well. It will leave a bit of gap that the river will no doubt fill with glorious mud.

The weekend in black and white is here.

The turtle does not cook the snake

Well here we are in Hull and that's the river Hull and that old barge has a hull ... so the title obviously had to have hull in it somewhere ... so I'll let you make up your own. Mine is inspired by  completing 21 days of a Duolingo Italian course ...it's full of useful phrases like  la marmaletta non ha un gusto dolce  and "the dog eats an ant" or  "il cuoco cucina un serpente"!. It is all very repetitive and has addled the brain somewhat and that combined with some warm weather ... lo squalo legge i giornali ... Ciao! a domani!

Some like it hot

I've said before how much hot weather and me are not good buddies. So when the forecast for this week came along with promises (or threats) of a heatwave (with record breaking temperatures possible) moving up from what's left of the smoky cinders of continental Europe I was not best pleased. Let's just say that if I were a steak I'd prefer to be rare and bloody rather than dried out and well cooked. And folk who prattle through the nice cool times about how cold it is and how they put on the central heating when the mercury dips slightly below 21C ... now they moan about how it's hot and they can't sleep at night because the mercury stays at 21C ... Still there's no accounting for folk and the warm stuff is an excuse, if one were ever needed, to have lots of ice cream though not this ersatz American muck obviously ... 

Margot took this picture.