Rain - Sepia Saturday

It's hard to work up enthusiasm for rain in the middle of a heat wave as this week's rainy prompt requires.

 A dip in a swimming pool would be much more enjoyable.

Hartlepool Bathing Pool

The open-air swimming pool was opened in 1923. It was badly damaged during the great storm of January 1953, and was never fully repaired. The surviving remains of the pool itself are mostly obscured by seaweed, and all of the shoreward structures have long gone.

'Bathing Pool' area - 1953

A local beauty spot where children were often taken to paddle was Aysgarth Falls in Wensleydale but not on a day when the river was in flood.

Aysgarth Falls

Aysgarth Falls are a triple flight of waterfalls, surrounded by forest and farmland, carved out by the River Ure over an almost a one-mile stretch on its descent to mid-Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales of England, near the village of Aysgarth.

In Cornwall the River Fowey can flood quite spectacularly as it did in 2008

Somehow I don't think that there would have been many boat trips round the estuary that day. You would also have been struggling to go for a pint at the King of Prussia.

Fowey Parking - 2008.

It may have been OK for The Beatles to sing.

But for me it's Adele who has the right idea.

Meanwhile while you check out other rainy themes at Sepia-Saturday-185. I have to get ready to take my wife out for a birthday meal.

Grown - Thematic Photography

When we moved in to our current home in the early 1990s we inherited a shrub that needed some TLC. Despite our best endeavours there came a time when we decided to call it a day and dug it up.

We must have had fit of remorse because we eventually transferred it to a tub that just happened to be spare. It looked a bit forlorn with just a short trunk and two green shoots; but it survived and after a couple of years it had grown into this.

Rhododendron - one flower (2008)

The next year in a larger plot the flower had grown quite impressively.

Impressive flower (and a second on its way)

When it grew too big for its boots/pot it was time for it to go back into the garden. By 2012 the whole shrub was a thing to be admired.

Rhododendron behind the foxgloves and lupins - 2012

Now there is a second shrub in a large pot next to it which has had one red flower this year. I wonder just how long we will have to wait for them to be as grown up as these.

Rhododendron - Fowey Hall Hotel, Cornwall

Perhaps they think that those Cornish shrubs have an unfair advantage with the weather better there than in the North East of England - not that there is much difference during the current heat wave.

All of them will have to shoot up a bit to catch up with the self-setting sunflower - not fully grown.

Eight feet tall & growing bigger all the time.

To see what else has grown cross over to Carmi's thematic-photographic-251.

Sea Creatures - Sunday Stamps

I had to search quite hard to find some sea creatures to show for this week's theme, but was surprised by what I found.

Canada - Bowhead Whale

The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is a baleen whale of the right whale family. It is an endangered species which can grow to 20m in length; the thick bodied species can weight 75 tonnes. It is also know as the Greenland right whale or Arctic whale. It also appears on a stamp from the Faröe  Islands.

Norway - Blekksprut

The Blekksprut (Sepiola atlantica) is a species of bobtail squid found in the North East Atlantic Ocean from Iceland, the Faröes  and western Norway to the Moroccan coast.

Greece - Dolphin Mosaic - 1970

This stamp is from the Greek Mosaics issue and shows a Dolphin Mosaic from Delos island, 110 BC. Now how do I find out who the rider is?

For more sea creatures take a ride across to Viridian's Sunday-stamps-128.

A Plague of Plaques - Sepia Saturday

My local town of  Yarm has a plethora of plaques, just right for the challenge Marilyn has set us for this week with this plaque of Pasteur treating a boy with a rabies.vaccine.

You may have seen a number of the photos in the post but not all at once.

Taking a tour of the town along West Street, travelling north, the first blue plaque you see is one on a building wall.

Blue Plaque - Hauxwell's

A modern photo but as you can surmise the building is much older, even though now it has been turned into flats.

Hauxwell's - in the morning sun.

Further down the street you come to an older site.

Hope House - 14th Century

And the house itself dwarfed by the arches.

Hope House - with viaduct above.

Across on the opposite is the church yard with this plaque on the wall.

Thomas Conyers Free Grammar School

When we moved to Yarm in the 1970s my elder son was to attend Yarm Grammar School in another part of the town which had replaced the one demolished. By the time my younger son reached the age to attend. The PC brigade had had the Yarm Grammar closed and replaced by a comprehensive school - named Conyers. Later Yarm Independent School took over the Old Grammar School and built new premises in the grounds of a former engineering firm's headquarters, which further back had once been a friarage. My daughter became one of the first six girls to attend Yarm School in the Sixth Form.

I've mentioned the viaduct already and you will have noticed it in both the Hauxwell and Hope House shots. The viaduct has a plaque of its own.

Leeds & Northern Railway Company's Viaduct

I won't ask you to count the bricks; it's easier to count the arches

Yarm Viaduct

At the left of the picture you can also see a bridge crossing the River Tees - it has a plaque of its own.

Yarm Bridge Plaque

And the bridge brickwork itself - 

Yarm Bridge (west side)

I could go on but it's time for a drink and where better to stop than at the: 

George & Dragon

It has some plaques, of course.

Stockton & Darlington Railway and Coaching House Plaques.

Unfortunately you cannot catch a train or a coach to take you to other venues on Sepia-Saturday-184.

Kirklevington Scarecrows - Competition Winner.

Sorry for the delay in posting this - my broadband connection has been down since Wednesday morning.

The winner of the Kirkfest Competition is   (was),,,,

I wonder how many of you picked this one - I didn't.

In Rough Shape - Thematic Photography

In 1957 I went on a geology field trip from the University of St Andrews. The destination was the Isle of Raasay just across the water from Skye. Someone had a camera and this was one of the shots taken.

Rough rock structure demonstrating the angle of dip.

But it was only today that I realised there was a photo of a castle in rough shape.

Castle Brochel ruins

This fifteenth century castle was occupied until the 1670s when the then Laird of Raasay died.

Here's how the castle looked in 2009,.in colour and from a different angle.

Castle Brochel

We never had such glorious weather in 1957. Perhaps that's why I'm more impressed by the castle's rough shape in black and white.

For more rough shapes cross over to Thematic-photographic-250.

Congratulations and thanks to Carmi for his 250th prompt.

Photo attribution:

• Castle Brochel - 2009, by Euan Nelson; Geograph project collection - CC BY-SA 2.0

Kirklevington Scarecrows - Last set

This group of photos is the last I have to show; the winner is in this or the previous three posts. I wonder whether you will have picked the same one as the judges.

Dressed for whatever weather comes along.

I'm sure many of you will remember this TV show - again from some years ago.

The Invisible Man

In the final shot, Bob the Builder seems to have let his ladder slip.

Hanging On.

Don't forget to choose the one you like best and check back on Wednesday to see the winner.