Time seems to have gotten away from me today and I don’t have time to write much. Still, the fires of the blog need to be fed and the fuel today will be these two photographs of canal narrowboats. A lot of the narrowboats at Victoria Quays seem to be permananent fixtures that I’ve never seen move – basically floating homes – and I’m sure that I’ve photographed many of them on more than one occasion.
These two shots came out quite nicely though, I think.
Sandwiched between the River Don and Blonk Street is the I Quarter (formerly Hancock & Lant) Tower. I’m not sure where the I Quarter name comes from – maybe the developers? – but Hancock and Lant was a furniture store established in the 1930s that used to have its showroom in the same location. They moved address at some point to, I believe, Queen’s Road, but I’m not sure if they are still trading.
The access to the store was via a very narrow road that ran between the building and the river, with a small area where, if you were lucky, you could find a parking space. I say road, but that doesn’t really illustrate just how narrow it was for vehicles, and there was always the fear of getting trapped down there as there was no way that anything other than a bicycle would have been able to squeeze past any othe vehicle. Today’s photographs show this location, although it is no longer accessible from this end by motor vehicles due to the concrete support columns of the I Quarter building.
I guess that, if you’re afraid of arachnids, the Spider Bridge might not sound all that appealing. There are a couple of huge spiders there too, lurking in the shadows above the walkway (out of shot), but they’re made of metal and don’t actually move about all that much (unless they sense fear!!!). There are probably hundreds of other, normal spiders on the structure too, as there are on pretty much any structure, but they won’t harm anyone and will probably remain completely unnoticed unless you go loooking for them.
The Spider Bridge forms a part of the Five Weirs Walk in Sheffield, carrying the footpath along a suspended section – which looks like it’s hung by thick strands of web – under the arches of a disused railway viaduct with the dark waters of the River Don flowing beneath. When there has been heavy rainfall, and the river is in spate, I expect that walking this bridge might be quite an exciting experience!
Papa’s has been featured on the blog before, back in 2019. It’s one of those subjects that presents itself as a great photo opportunity, with lots of detail and interest, set against the backdrop of the beach and sea beyond. I had fish and chips the day I visited when making the previous post. I had fish and chips again on this occasion, but it was much colder this time around so instead of eating them on the pier, I walked back to my car parked a short distance away on the promenade and ate them while I sat and looked out at the incoming tide.
There is something comforting about eating in the car like this. It reminds me of when, as a child, we would sometimes drive to a place named Sandilands not far from Mablethorpe in my grandparent’s car. My grandma would always stay in the car, but grandad would come down on the beach with us (us being some variant of my sister, my cousins, and myself) where we would collect the big white pebbles that were scattered around, and which my grandad placed on the ground around the base of their caravan as decoration. When it got cold, we would go back to the car and eat snacks and watch as the sea came in.
Olympus OM-2N, Zuiko Auto-S 0mm f/1.8 & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 12mins @ 20°. / Olympus XA3 and Kodak Colorplus (expired 2012 and shot at 100asa)
Along the promenade at Cleethorpes I passed these two rubbish “bins”. One, south of the pier, jauntily named “Hammy the Haddock” (although Hammy sounds more like a pig’s name). The other, to the north of the pier didn’t have a name that I noticed, but as it’s a repressentation of our planet, I assume it’s called “Earth”.
It’s possible that there may be more of these designs further down the promenade to the south, but I didn’t walk much beyond Hammy on this visit. They are nicely designed pieces of functional street furniture and I can easily imaging children (and even adults) being excited to put their rubbish into either one rather than dropping it on the ground.
It’s contents might not be as edible as Pizza Hut’s… But who knows? Has anywone done a comparison. I mean, wooden frames and cloth seats might not sound as good as a hawaian or a meat-feast, but perhaps it’s a yet-to-be-discovered delicacy?
Enough of this nonsense!
It’s quite a simple picture, just a shed stood in the sunshine, it’s deckchair innards waiting patiently for the warmer weather and the visitors it will bring. I like it’s simplicity though, just an angular block of white painted planks with the winter sunshine adding some nice contrast. Of the three photos I loaded to Flickr today, this one got the least likes so far, but it’s the one I like best. There’s no accounting for my taste I guess…
The big wheel that stands on Cleethorpes beach has features in a number of photos on the blog recently, often in the distance. Today there a couple of closer shots.
The obvious thing to note about the structure is that the seats have been removed while the ride is closed over the winter months. Without these though it presents a cleaner profile against the blank backdrop of the blue sky day.
Cleethorpes has a fairly long, straight run of beach with the pier stood maybe about halfway along its length. The pier, and the big wheel and helter-skelter that stand not too far away are prominent landmarks wherever you stand on the shore.
Being situated at the end of the Humber estuary, the beach at Cleethorpes is aluvial in texture, the sand being a dark muddy brown as it’s probably made up in a significant part by deposits from the estuary. The upper parts of the beach are sandy in a more traditional way and I wonder if this sand has not been artificially placed there for tourists. On the day I visited there was an excavator spreading sand around the upper part of the beach down past the pier. I have a photograph of that too, so I might post it on here at some point.
Today’s photo shows another angle of St. Peter’s church at Elmton. This was the view that I spotted as first approaching the village by road, but there was nowhere at this spot where I could park (the roads being quite narrow with no verge that I could pull onto), so I continued into the village and parked my car on the road beside the church. After making a few photos around the church itself I decided to walk back to the vantage point I’d seen earlier. I could have followed the road which, in this picture, passes the wall just in front of the church, heads to the left of the scene, and then takes a 90-degree turn back towards a place close to this spot. But there was a shortcut…
Looking at my maps app on my phone, it was apparent that there was a public footpath through this field which cut the corner. Sure enough, I spotted an old wooden footpath signpost and a stile built into the wall beside the field. Climbing the stile I set off across the field. It quickly became apparent that the grass was longer than I expected and also that very few people must use the path as there was no real evidence of it’s existence, not even in the form of some slightly flattened grass. Nontheless I perservered and made my way down the slope to where my map showed the path exiting the field. As I progressed, the grass in the field began to be joined by clumps of large hardy weeds that I had to skirt and also, worse, nettles! Given I was wearing a pair of cargo shorts, thoughts of stung legs came to the fore of my mind, and I had to take even more care over where I walked.
Eventually I reached the spot where I made this photo, and I ducked into the grass to allow it to provide more prominent foreground interest. It turned out to be the final frame on the roll, so I continued down to the corner of the field and the exit. Unfortunately the exit was conspicuous by it’s almost complete absence, with all that I could see was a rusty kissing gate almose buried in tall weeds and more nettles and then continuous growth for about the next ten feet or so. I could have walked back the way I came, which would have been a sensible option, but the thought of forcing my way through the high grass didn’t appeal, so I decided to chance the overgrown exit instead. It probably took me as long to do this as walking back throuh the field would have done.
I had to procede with great caution, carefully placing my feet as to squash the nettles away from my legs with each step. By some miracle I wasn’t stung a single time, although the final four or five feet involved me making a daring leap across a clump of nettles right where the verge dropped down onto the road. No doubt this would have looked highly amusing to anyone passing by, but thankfully no-one was around.
In the end I had to walk back via the road anyway, so maybe it would have been simpler had I used that route for both legs of the jaunt. But then what would I have written about today? Plus the picture was worthwhile, I think.
These stinging nettles And not a dock-leaf in sight A peril for legs
Steel City Snapper photography 