York – From Pyrenees to Pennines

Spring in Glorious Technicolor – or Muted Monochrome

Even though over the last few days the weather has reverted to winter chill with a vengeance, I think it’s definitely the week that Spring has Sprung. The daffodils have suddenly burst forth into golden glory. The grass is lusher. Dandelion and daisies crowd the verges. Spring announces itself in an explosion of colour, in contast to the muted browns and greys of winter with its dull skies and overabundance of mud.

So is there even any point in ‘doing’ spring in monochrome? I thought I’d find out, and chose four images where it’s not just spring flowers telling the story, because they’re complementing the buildings they grow near.

Perhaps these aren’t part of the story, because snowdrops show their faces from early January. But they’re white, so may not suffer so much in monochrome.

Primulas on a traffic island near York Minster.

Tulips overlooking Knaresborough Viaduct.

Part of my own difficulty is that I don’t enjoy tinkering with photos. What comes out of the camera either works, or it doesn’t, and then I’ll junk it. At most I’ll level the picture up, maybe lightly crop it, even – slightly – fiddle with brightness. So my translations into monochrome are crude at best. If I want monochrome – and I’m increasingly choosing it over colour – I’ll shoot in black and white. And perhaps follow up with a further version in colour. I admire those photographers who use editing tools with discretion, so what we see is the original shot – just enhanced in subtle ways. I’m less keen on dramatic editing. But in a diary that is already over-full, I guess I don’t feel like giving this particular skill the time it needs to learn to do it well.

I’ll finish with Fountains Abbey as it is now, its grounds carpeted in daffodils. Black and white as my featured photo, and – my much preferred version here – in the above-mentioned Glorious Technicolor.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness

Towering Above Us

This week, Leanne’s Monochrome Madness has no theme. She has chosen to showcase lighthouses. We’re rather thin on lighthouses round here, so I won’t join her. Instead, I’ll show just a few towers I’ve seen this year.

My first tower of the year was a human one, seen in York.

Then we went to Spain to meet our new granddaughter. And do a spot of discovering too.

And later, I went back to Spain again, to lend a hand as my daughter’s maternity leave ran out. I still had moments of sightseeing.

And most recently, it was off to Holgate Mill, a fully functioning windmill slap in the middle of a housing estate in York. I must introduce it properly soon.

My featured photo is of Christ Church Hartlepool, now an Arts Centre. I was going to add in an AI generated photo too. Just for fun. But they were no fun, so I abandoned the idea.

The oddest street name in England?

Surely it must be this one in York.

Here’s the story. Back in 1505, it was known as Whitnourwhatnourgate. It’s also been called Whitney Whatneygate.

What does it mean? Well, take your pick. In Middle English, it might have meant Nothing at All, or Neither One Thing Nor the Other. Or maybe What a Street!

In the 17th and 18th centuries, this street, the shortest in York, was also sometimes known as Salvey Rents or Salvegate.

That’s quite enough oddness for one day, so the featured image is of York Minster in spring time.

For Becky’s Square Odds. …

… and the Which Way photo challenge

Our well-travelled tourists … and guests

We do like to be beside the seaside..... at Whitby. — We do like to be beside the seaside….. at Whitby.

According to my daughter and son-in-law, there’s an old Chinese proverb that says that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.

According to our friend Kalba, it’s Benjamin Franklin who coined exactly the same phrase.

Either way, received wisdom is that nobody can put up with house guests for more than a very few days without losing their patience, their good humour, and the friendship.

Our Ariegeois friends have just proved all that wrong. They stayed ten days, and it was wonderful. Though pretty exhausting, it was nothing but pleasure to spend an extended period with friends whom we value, but see far too little, and a fantastic chance to showcase Yorkshire – or a tiny portion of it anyway.

In my last post, I did a whistle-stop tour of our first few days together. Here’s how the rest of the holiday went….

Knaresborough, with its wonderful 19th century railway viaduct spanning the River Nidd…

An obligatory coffee-stop at Betty’s, Yorkshire’s most famous tea room…..

Christine and a plate of Bett's scones. — Christine and a plate of Betty’s scones.

A meander round the Valley Gardens in Harrogate…..

A trip to the fantastic geological outcrops of Brimham Rocks…

A day when our friends more than paid for their board by taking charge and getting our wood delivery for the winter shifted and sorted……

Max making a fine job of stacking the wood.

An evening with Ripon’s Wakeman, who since AD 886, has ‘set the watch’ to guard the citizens, sounding his horn at 9.00 p.m. every evening – every single day, whatever the weather, whatever the circumstances…..

A trip to York…..

The Shambles, once the street where all the butchers were, now a tourist Mecca. Wikimedia Commons.

A day in Whitby, fishing port, tourist destination, jet-mining town, and home of Dracula’s author, Bram Stoker…… Oh, and we ate fish and chips. Of course.

The harbour at Whitby. — The harbour at Whitby……

..... and a line of cormorants. — ….. and a line of cormorants.

And that’s only the headlines.