Friday 7 April 2017

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.


Thursday 6 April 2017

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.


Wednesday 5 April 2017

It's like déjà vu, all over again


In those optimistic years of 2007/08 a Ferris wheel stood large and proud on Bridlington's north shore fun fair. It styled itself as the Bridlington Eye after the much (~3x) bigger London Eye. Well we all know what happened in 2008 but that had little to do with the demise of the Brid Eye that was due to poor weather and lack of visitors. So down it came but not before someone stole the engine or so I'm told. All that is so much history because now the same people are putting up yet another Ferris wheel slightly larger than the first and it's hoped to be running by Easter. Unlike the first one this one will have open gondolas so I expect they are really, really hoping for warm weather; those North Sea breezes can be very unforgiving even in Summer.
Anyhow as the Bridlington Eye v1.0 was up and down and gone before I started this blog I never posted about it. So here's an ancient pic taken in 2007 when I was still a young man with no grey hairs and had money in the bank ...



Tuesday 4 April 2017

Big Blue Octopus


We set off to Bridlington under cold grey skies with showers of rain but arrived to clear blue skies and sunshine and quite warm really for April. I was looking around for something new to show and this kind of grabbed my attention. The legs wave about in a manner that would be menacing if it wasn't twenty foot off the ground.  It's part of pirate themed amusement arcade; well they call it amusement.

Monday 3 April 2017

Culture Vulture


OK it's just a pigeon and you've got to use your imagination but that shouldn't be too difficult if you can cope with Hull: City of Culture.

Saturday 1 April 2017

C'est un cygne


Pour faire la paix avec nos amis européens, la ville de la culture a décidé de ne parler que le français. Je sais que c'est très étrange mais, malheureusement, c'est officiel. On pense qu'il aidera le Brexit ...

Alors, le thème du 1er avril est «humide». Allez voir ce que d'autres poissons ont fait de cela ...


Salut! À demain mis amigos ...oops!