Plug in, turn on and leave alone ...

... blank ecstasy unbounded by the mortal physics.

                                                                                                         Sean O'Brien
Or maybe just someone waiting for the bus.

Refreshes the parks that other beers cannot reach

Pearson Park is the unlikely recipient of a large dollop of money (is £3.8 million a large dollop or a goodly sum? what is the convention on money matters?) to restore, repair and otherwise faff with those bits that remain of the original Victorian gift to the town from property speculator and gun runner Zacc Pearson. The works includes taking away the gates and making them as good as new though why that should mean that entrance is closed for approximatly (sic) six weeks is beyond me. (And why good money should be spent on gates that are never, but never, closed is also beyond me, but it's not my money so I don't care.) There's rumours of a new bandstand for the drunks and takers of spice to stay dry on rainy days so they will be happy. The conservatory will be replaced  and there's to be a wee bridge across the lake just like there was when Prince Albert had his memorial made. For a few thousand more they could have had a crossing sweeper named Jo ... but tough decisions have to made.

The park has a bit of a reputation  for being a place  where people of a certain disposition indulge their pleasures (both carnal and narcotic). But after all this turning back of the clock by the friends of Pearson Park they will no doubt be so in awe that they will move on elsewhere and not spoil it for respectable people (same goes for the rats that abound there in).

The Hollyhocks Hang Harmlessly

Some nice people have not only planted cardoons in Newland Avenue but supplemented the fine small trees with hollyhocks some of which have gone a bit mad in the recent heat growing to ten foot or more.

Big Phil Woz 'Ere

Grove Street

I suspect there aren't many streets which can boast it has a quote from a Philip Larkin poem just daubed as graffiti on a wall at the end of a ten foot, but this is the city of culture and we would expect nothing less. However the other offerings with  the usual clichéd priapic sketch (no doubt compensating for the "artists" own inadequacies), a fading silver sprayed FUCK (likewise) and a direction to consume the rich confirm that old saying: omnia mutantur, nhil interit.

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.