Small Tortoiseshell

There's been hardly any of these beauties around where I live this year; this picture was taken a couple of years ago. The small tortoiseshell is one of the commonest butterflies in the UK so I expect they'll be back in numbers sometime. 

Stop stój стой .....

Traffic comes to a halt when this burly bobby  raises his hand. No emergency just a small and colourful procession of immigrant societies down Newland Avenue, Hull earlier this year. The area around here is much favoured by immigrants and foreign students. You're just as likely to hear Polish, Chinese or some other language as native Hull version of English. 

The building above used to be a primary school, it had children from so many different countries it was known affectionately as the League of Nations. 

All Dried Out

Above the lake in the Dene, Cottingham taken in April this year; below the same site taken last week. Has it really been that dry this Summer? I hope it fills up again over the next few months. 

Window frame

Flags of the marina reflect in this restaurant window. 

One Hull

Pictured earlier this year, the yacht One Hull is quite a controversial item in these parts. NHS Hull the primary health care trust for the area "invested" £400,000 in a yacht in the belief this purchase would improve standards of public health in the area, which included the constituency of the then Health Secretary, Alan Johnson.
The plan involved other local wastes of public money such as One Hull and Cat Zero taking young wastrels who would otherwise have spent their time enjoying themselves doing whatever young thugs do and, instead of incarcerating them for a long time, putting them on this boat for so many weeks to "mobilise"  and "help them to maximise their potential". Clearly  it's a prize cruise for deliquency; decent law abiding young people need not apply. Quite how it improves public health escapes me.
All this was before the recent election and subsequent "deficit reduction measures". Personally I think its one of the craziest of a long series of crazy ideas for dealing with unacceptable behaviour in young people. The Chancellor's shiny new axe could usefully chop this scheme down to size.

Who put the monkey in the monkey puzzle tree?

 

 This is a fine young specimen of  Araucaria araucana on Westwood Road, Beverley, I hope the people who live in this house realise that it will grow to 40m/130ft and live for 1000 years. To quote Wikipedia: "The origin of the popular English name Monkey-puzzle derives from its early cultivation in Britain in about 1850, when the species was still very rare in gardens and not widely known. The proud owner of a young specimen at Pencarrow garden near Bodmin in Cornwall was showing it to a group of friends, and one made the remark "It would puzzle a monkey to climb that"; as the species had no existing popular name, first 'monkey-puzzler', then 'monkey-puzzle' stuck."

I think I prefer the French  "désespoir des singes" or "monkeys' despair".

It's said by some that the devil sits in this tree (clearly he's not a monkey) and so you have to be quiet when passing these trees lest you attract the old Nick's attention and he gives you bad luck. You have been warned.

East

Above, the flood protection barrier which I've pictured before and the view stretching along the north bank of the Humber  towards the village of Paull. Below, the varied roof tops, old and new, of the old town; the horizon has the cranes of the King George Dock and the cooling towers of the Saltend chemical works.