I have just found out that a less common collective noun for – er – colonies of gulls is ‘squabble’. That works very well, but not here. These herring gulls are, with one exception in the header photo, solitary singletons avoiding the seaside in favour of Urban Life.
Monday Portrait
Here we are in the hidden corners of Scarborough: where fishermen keep their kit and a hopeful seagull hopes a bit of fish has been left behind. Where flats in multi-occupation have young tenants with bikes rather than cars. And where a neglected chapel is too far gone to allow anyone to get past its gates.
Multi-Occupation Crescent.
A chapel with no congregation, no visitors, unloved and falling to pieces.
And that’s Scarborough for now. We enjoyed our time there. We’ll be back.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.
Gulls at the seaside famously stop at nothing to seize the fish and chips – or any other handy food – from innocent holiday-makers. This youngster’s still learning.
For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
Scarborough is a town that is either on the way up, or on its way down, according to who you talk to. It has some glorious housing stock, built in the town’s heyday as a prosperous and must-visit resort in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of it is still glorious, and windows sparkle. Some is run down and in bad shape, and windows are grubby and laced with spiders’ webs – often on the same street.
All smart and tickety-boo at one end … less so further down the street.
Shopping streets can be quirkily full of independent traders (taxidermist, anyone?)…
or be slightly down-at-heel examples of chain stores seen anywhere. Or even cheerful sea-front stores. And as one image below shows, quirkily independent doesn’t always make it.
It boasts the nationally renowned Stephen Joseph Theatre. It even has a university, even if that local seat of learning is actually an outpost of Coventry University, 260 km, or three and a quarter hours away. Transport links aren’t great, and all this is difficult for job seekers, who point out that the sea automatically limits the number of opportunities available. ‘Half our catchment area is fish.‘
Many of those fish end up in one of the many fish and chip restaurants in town. Here’s the view from Catch 55 (recommended). Though one customer didn’t seem to relish the scene as much we did…
I’ll close with a snapshot I rather like. It includes some of the more desirable housing, some of the more desirable parkland, an even, if you look hard enough, the sea. It absolutely qualifies for Monday Window, because these views were taken glancing through the window of a parked car.
For Ludwig’s Monday Window, hosted this week by PR.
Spotted in Scarborough last Thursday. No, I don’t know what it is either.
For Debbie’s One Word Sunday: Geometry
We’ve just enjoyed a couple of days in Scarborough, once Yorkshire’s premier seaside resort, with thousands flocking here once the railway came to town in 1845. More of all that another day. But for today, let’s just enjoy sea and sand – in black and white, just because … and in nearly black and white, because that’s what the camera saw early on Thursday morning. Here we are, walking along the several beaches that Scarborough enjoys. And ending with a gull, because herring gulls, usually intent on stealing your fish and chips, are constant companions here.
But the sea … and the gulls, are always there.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.
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