June 20th – It was terribly wet on my way to work this morning, and on the way back I was too knocked to go to the best spot, but lupins, for a reader who’s unwell.
I know you love them, but don’t get them where you are.
Get well soon old chap. I’ll find you some better ones in the week, promise.
June 20th – One for the occasional series on the silliness of advertising billboards.
I find myself paying more attention to roadside ads when cycling, as they take me longer to pass than if driving and some, after a few weeks, really begin to irritate. This one is a particularly fine example of the Photoshop failure art form – this example is on the Walsall Road in Darlaston.
This is an advert for the BMW Mini Cooper. Nothing wrong with that (unless you can remember how much character the original had…) but this ad exists in several forms for different length billboards. Notice the bike in the background? In all but it’s longest format, the lamppost is slightly behind the car, and you can only see the rear of the bike, a steel 1980s racing bike.
In common with most 80s bikes, it has a self-added prop stand, mounted off the rear wheel nut, and an aluminium circular spoke guard between the gears and wheel on the back axle.
Quite what’s passing through the wheel at ground level I have no idea.
Now look at the front wheel. It has the ghost of the propstand mount, rotated around 105 degrees. The aluminium spoke guard is on the front too. The end of the front fork is straight, with no dropout.
The forks and position of the wheel suggest the top tube (between handlebar quill and saddle) is unfeasibly huge.
The front of the bike is not real. It’s been created in photoshop, by someone unfamiliar with bikes, purely to fill space when the ad was stretched.
What a load of old tut. This has been rubbing me up the wrong way for a week now.
June 19th – I swung past the island on the Warrenhouse at 221 Hay, where the Lichfield Road meets Barracks Lane. I was heading to Stonall, but the display of flowers on the verge caught my eye.
I’m not sure who plants the verge here, whether it’s the garden centre or vets – both nearby – but it’s always beautiful, no matter what time of year you look.
At the moment, poppies are the order of the day. Huge poppies, of several different colours. But other flowers are in the mix too, and it’s just a wonderful, chaotic riot of colour.
I’m sure many drivers pass this by unnoticed; I commend you not to. It’s a fantastic thing, so why not take a look next time you’re in the area?
June 19th – I note that the long expected narrowboat rebuilt for Millfield School in Brownhills – the Tucana – has finally arrived at Millfield school, looking rather splendid.
The mooring jetty has been here and largely unused for a few years, and rumours of the boat have ebbed and flowed, but it’s finally here and presumably now, schoolchildren will be using it, which will be great – after all, canals, canal freight and boats are a large part of local history.
I note the boat is now part of a partnership involving Shire Oak School too – I love the logos.
It’s a lovely thing indeed, but I do wonder at the cost…
June 18th – After such a wet and miserable week it was lovely to have some sunshine and a relatively warm afternoon. Whilst the damp has been very good for the foliage and crops, it’s not been nourishing my humour at all, in fact, it’s been a very difficult period in which to stay positive.
Today’s ride, however, dispelled my gloom. Sights like this beautiful hay meadow in the Blackbrook Valley at Hints were enchanting, and the sun on my face was lifting.
You can be disillusioned with a British summer, and would be fully justified in being down – but there’s always something to remind you of why it’s such a beautiful season. The rarity value sometimes just serves to make the experience even more precious.
June 18th – I passed through Hints late afternoon and stopped off at the church, as I always do. I was sad to note the churchyard looking so scruffy – it never used to be so overgrown, but the fact that it is is probably much better of the wildlife.
Talking of which, for as long as I’ve been coming here – 35 years or more – the south gable of the church has been hime to honeybees in summer, and this year is no different. The creatures swoop and buzz amongst the gravestones, and make an appreciable sound that fills the air.
I love to see them and the constancy of their annual return is a joy to the heart.
June 17th – The skies were still grim when I reached Shire Oak, although the sun was trying it’s best.
I hope this is the start of some more settled weather.
The rain does seem to have made the trees and fields very lush though. Beautiful.
June 17th – I came through Chesterfield near Stonnall in the afternoon and the skies were very threatening, yet failed to deliver their apparently evil intent.
Equally menacing was the murder of crows, calling and chattering from the overhead lines. It was very Hitchcock.
I hurried home before the storm arrived… be it inclement weather or angry corvids.
June 16th – By the old mill on the canal in Pleck, there’s a narrowboat undergoing renovation. I noticed today that you could clearly see the anodes, the silver ingots of (usually magnesium or zinc) fixed to the hull, under what would be the waterline.
The idea is pure science: the ingots form an electrical pairing with the hull and metalwork of the boat, and as a consequence, are depleted in preference to it – thus preventing corrosion on the boat itself.
The ingots are called ‘sacrificial anodes’ and are common on boats, pipework and other water-exposed metal items: galvanising is a good example of this science in action. Different metals are used in different environments.
You can read more here.
Real science – it works, folks…
June 16th – Thanks to whoever tipped me off (I think it might have been Dave Fellows), but my complaint about the lack of handrails on the steps down from the canal to (the still closed) Bentley Mill Way on the Darlaston/Pleck border were, it seems, premature.
This week, a new rail has been installed – and jolly nice it looks too.
Have to say though, the steps – implicitly on a cycleway – are still awful to negotiate with a bike, but at least we have something to grab now.
It’s a shame the shallower, easier to negotiate access the other side has been removed…
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