When is a weed not a weed?

Sowthistle , Filey roadside

I've missed the Lily of the Valley season completely . I did plant some on my allotment last year in a damp and partly shaded place , but its not established yet  or seen fit to have just one flower. I'm surprised by this as plants will flower if in distress for lack of water just because they need to produce seed to maintain the species. We in the land that time forgot OKA Filey had no rain during much of March and all of April until its showers started on 30th April .

We are not allowed to use hosepipes on our plots  but may fill all our receptacles, baths and posh containers looking like the  water towers of flat Holderness. 

I digress here for the sake of my family. 

Family anecdote

We Bruces grew up in the east Riding of Yorkshire and would often have an afternoon drive out to Hornsea  our nearest small resort. From the age of 3 , in 1950, I remember the drive well, first in Grandpa Bruces 1930 Alvis , and then  the 1960s  in our family Ford Prefect. I can't remembered what the reward actually was, might have been a penny or might have been a piece of mint rock from the sweet tin , but our father would always call out

'First one to see the Water Tower gets a .............'

Then would come the explanation of why the countryside here needed a water tower, and how they worked. Great Grandpa Bruce had been the Chief Waterworks engineer for Kingston upon Hull so perhaps that story was played out as well . Sister Christine and I worked out why the whole family except our Grandfather emigrated to to the USA in the 1890s as the Stoneferry Waterworks were decommissioned and he would have lost his house and much of his job .

So you see I love nothing more than working out how to irrigate my plot , and cover my baths to satisfy SBC who own the land.

I'm really grateful for the  running water even though I'm as far as possible from the taps and my hosepipes are fixed to the fence of my neighbour  to lead to my plot . The Allotments in the Fulham Palace road don't even have running water. Filling my baths takes an hour as I have 3 and 2 water barrels. I prefer rain in my water butts however as its pure and better for my wildlife ponds (4 washing up bowls sunk into ground).This year I've managed to get tadpoles from 2 friends to mix the gene-pool so to speak . I'm trying to get as many frogs as possible as slug control . The nasty huge continental slugs are beginning to invade Filey . I have to resort to massacre at present .

I'm waiting now for the appearance  of my favourite wild plants ;

•  Poor Mans Weather glass (Scarlet Pimpernel)
•  Quaking grass
• Mullein 
• Chickweed (for Petes budgies)
• Hop Trefoil 

and for my worst weeds

• Horsetail
• Bindweed 
• Couch Grass
• and was going to say Sow Thistle , but read to end of post 

The person on the allotment next to me is pleased with her Peppers, sown in February . She has really looked after them , pinched out the tops and potted them on . I watered for her yesterday in her absence and wondered how I was going to tell her that she was growing Common Orache , though may be eaten like spinach, is in my mind a weed.

I did my Dissertation on WEEDS in 1967. 

I was amused to hear that a friend in Sussex had been during this lockdown  watching a beautiful plant , now in full flower growing in her garden . So she googled it and found it was my enemy Sow Thistle.

What then is a weed, it is a plant growing where you don't want it , simple as that .

ENJOY!

Stoneferry to Wilmington downstream

Stoneferry Bridge ,Kingston upon Hull

Wainwright  does not have the monopoly  on walks . I expect that more people have done the River Hull walks over the centuries, even though judging by the rat run from Stoneferry to Wilmington in 2019 most are travelling in fast car . 

I travelled downstream on Monday along the banks of the  River Hull as close as I was able , without being accused of spying, industrial espionage  or looking for  a  wild swim  mudbath. Actually I  never saw any one else on foot apart from a thinly clad Hoodie and a woman with a pushchair . Its not really good for walking , as when  crossing the road to look for places to take a photo, or look at the river , one dices with death. Only at Wilmington, the end of today's river route does one get a Crossing Place with a press the button and wait for the green man.  It really is the industrial heart land of Wincolmlee.  At the end of the walk, catching a look at the fantastic new plant that is Energy Works  crossing Cleveland Street was no joke.
  I am so out of the urban loop. I was even fascinated by the cohort of youths , hiding up a cul de sac , with  new motor bikes and no helmets taking  turns at  shared wheelies out into  the busy road , and trying out their revving .

I had always wanted to have a good nosy around Stoneferry Bridge and see if theres anything left of the house where my 19th Century Family lived until they emigrated to New York in the 1890s. The house was razed to the ground in 1944 by German bombing. every time we drove over the bridge in the 50s the remaining stones would be pointed out to us, but now I cant even remember which side of the Bridge they were, except they were on the West side of the river, and must have been near the Waterworks where my GG worked being the Chief Waterworks  Engineer . As the Waterworks stopped pumping water in 1891, and the site wound down completely by 1901, I now see why my GG needed a new job .

The Stoneferry House

The bridge seen today is the new bridge, built in the late 80s. I came back home to Hull to visit the family home in Sutton and found that my remembered bridge had gone . 

I was enthralled  to see the film about the day all the bridges over  the river were lifted, on 22nd  September 2017. I watched it in  Beverley Library , Beloved was waiting , not very patiently  . 

I have now walked over 10 of the 13 bridges(not Scott Street, obviously). Next walk I will do the remaining ones, and am hoping that I get some company for this one, Stoneferry to Kingswood.

The walk downstream  from Stoneferry confirmed all that I had expected and more. 

• The Bankside gallery additions were great  and I love that they are works in progress. One has to keep crossing the road to get the scale of the graf.  It is so unlike being in the Millbank Tate where a picture of Gordale Scar , taking the whole of a  gallery wall may be viewed sitting down from 20 metres away on a comfy stool . This gallery  is  raw , and not comfortable , not quiet ever, as traffic speeds  past . It took me 5 mins to get across the road here at 11am long after Hull  rush hour.***
• The mud of the river was as fascinating always, gloopy and thick and brown , colouring the water a silty mid #hex873600 . Any child, or adult like me ,
  
  would relish safely paddling in its deep promise of squelch and danger .They have glass bottomed boats in Bermuda, I would pay to go on a zip wire across the Hull in secure waders dangling just above the river. The river is tidal to at least Beverley. What a contrast from the clear water of Barmston drain which begins near the Scott Street Bridge. Friend tells me that American servicemen used the drain for swimming in the war, and staging was built to make it easier at the drain sides. I know that at Hempholme and Wansford the Hull is clear as a bell, where the tides no longer reach. My father used to fish there for grayling and trout  in the 60s. 
  
• I loved the heaps of detritus all along my walk, piles of iron work ,ready for a skip and lucre,  soil, mountains of brick dust and concrete and my favourite of all this collection of wood, looking as if it had been specially curated for an exhibition. Is it driftwood lifted from the river, or parts of trees long since felled? I loved it 
• The scenic views were just as picturesque as any of Ben Lomond from Luss IMO.

  

  looking upstream from Exhaust Centre 

  

  British Extracting Co silo from Wilmington Cycle track 

  
  
• One learns plenty about the not so changing face of industry. Here amongst old signs reminding me of the advert on yellow lorries SAM ALLON DEMOLITION , fresh in my mind again from the 50s and 60s are many firms whose business is in Demolition, and Recycling as it has always been,HERE  Hidden behind high fences and ordered in neat rows seen at best on Google Earth are the 21st century sorters and scavengers , money in muck ,and brass from nowt firms who labour relentlessly to clear and tidy with truck load after truckload, though at present many don't have to move an inch from the banks of the Hull . The amazing looking new facility ENERGY WORKS looks up and running , but it isn't . It is going to take lorry loads of Hull Rubbish destined for landfill , & turn it in to ELECTRICITY . Here's HOPING !
  

• My 1961 book is a gem  .Published to highlight and attract more industry and development to Kingston upon Hull it does nothing but show me that we are still producing many of the same products . The Fishing Industry might well have gone , but Hull is still making PAINT, PLANT and PRODUCTS FROM OIL MILLING , and it can be seen along the banks of the river to this day.
• 
  

Was the paint made here?

***I have yet to do my post about my walk with my grandchildren  just look at the art . This will follow. Today's walk finished with lunch at the Wilmington Cafe after walking the old cycle track across Wilmington Bridge. I caught the 10 bus opp Energy Works back to town

the great Wilmington Cafe