An elegant sufficiency: At the Pier

For reasons too lengthy to go into here, Edward's muse has always been Minerva. So, it was apt that today, on his 23rd birthday, we should find ourselves spending an hour at the Pier in Hull and the Minerva. The weather was amazing - bitterly cold but clear and sunny.

The kind of day we always think of as a "New Zealand Day", in fact.

The long slope in the photograph is the old "horse wash" where working horses would be taken at the end of the day, for a bit of a splash.

This is the pier from which the ferries used to depart for "New Holland", that mysterious place on the other side of the River Humber, where the yellow bellies live. Not many people from Hull used to take the adventurous journey, so it was quite an occasion when I took the 32 small girls in my class at Tranby Croft on one of the last crossings.

Of course, there's now the Humber Bridge, just visible upstream in this picture.

Part of the old wooden pier still stands however and there's still an ice cream parlour - albeit a new one - and the ticket office is converted into flats.

And there are fish underfoot. Love them!

On the other side, downstream of the River Hull on Sammy's Point is The Deep, quite remarkable architecture and still attracting the crowds, which is a huge relief to the city. Further on, the ferries which depart for Zeebrugge and Rotterdam are berthed in the Humber now they are too large to go through the lock gates into King George Dock as they used to do.

Tied to the fence are some sad reminders of the close seafaring connections here, for this is about the closest place to those cold, muddy waters.

This amazing sculpture "Voyage" and a sister sculpture in Vik, Iceland, symbolise the bonds between the two countries and those who have lost their lives in the North Atlantic.