BrownhillsBob

#365daysofbiking Prolific:

October 10th – The fungus is really coming forth now, but it’s interesting to note that while some species are booming, others I’m used to seem scarce this year.

I’ve not seen many glistening ink caps, puffballs, or fly agaric – certainly not in their usual number. I’ve yet to see my favourite Japanese parasols. this is curious, or it might just be me jumping the gun.

Whilst in Telford today I noticed that there are loads of is paxillus involutus, the brown roll-rim, and these tiny, delicate caps I don’t recognise but may be ink caps of some kind. But none of the regulars.

I wonder if this is connected with the hot, dry summer?

#365daysofbiking Some velvet morning:

October 10th – Seasons and situations have a habit of redeeming themselves. This chilly, but sunlit and misty dawn in Mill Green, on the the way to the station, I fell in love with autumn all over again.

Ever year I’m furious with it for stealing my summer, then it goes and does something beautiful to win me over.

I’m so glad I was around to see this.

#365daysofbiking Station to station:

October 9th – I’m curious about long term plans for Telford Station. At the moment, it’s a bit player in the huge new linkway bridge project, but for an interchange serving such a large area it’s a fairly poor facility: Just two platforms, a booking office with short opening hours and a couple of waiting rooms.

There are just two trains an hour in each direction, 15 and 45 minutes apart which is a bugger if you miss the one and have a 45 minute wait.

The peak time trains are fiendishly busy and Telford doesn’t get a fair crack of the whip here at all.

This was destined to change with the introduction of the new timetable in Autumn with a ramping up to three services and hour with an extra, welcome, stopper: However with the Chase Line electrification not completed, the rolling stock is not yet available and the change has been postponed until 2019.

For such a large, economically powerful town Telford’s railway provision is pretty poor.

#365daysofbiking I dream in colour:

October 9th – In Telford for the morning, I had business up on Stafford Park and the hedgerows and trees along the cycleway were absolutely gorgeous.

The blue sky merged with the reds, golds, yellows and the still green and made a beautiful multicolour palette as I cycled past on a lovely warm, sunny autumn morning,

Autumn’s pretty fine once you stop struggling and accept it.

365daysofbiking Ladies, please:

October 8th – This is a post that will hopefully confine us to a mild winter.

After suffering a spill in November last year on ice while riding summer tyres, I’m taking no chances this year and have the ice studs on now as we’ve already had a couple of heavy frosts, and I’m, getting too old for the falling off lark.

My rubber of choice for the cold months is Schwalbe Active Winter 30mm which has a good tread and several hundred tungsten carbide studs that bite into black ice and keep me upright.

They are a little noisy, and although not slow, not the nippiest tyres in the world.

Now I’ve fitted them, expect it to be warm throughout the winter…

365daysofbiking I am traffic:

October 8th – A snatched photo on the way home in the dark. This is a normal commute at the normal kind of time and I’ll have to get used to this now. Rushall Square is always kind of beautiful at night. Even when traffic free, it appears busy with traffic signals, street and shop light mingling.

These commutes are the hardest of all, the first in unusual darkness. But their urban beauty is hard to ignore.

Ah well, down the hatch…

365daysofbiking Ladies, please:

October 7th – I was also hacked off I was without a functioning camera when I witnessed this – something I’ve never seen before. Female deer, arguing.

At Chasewater, my light scared a group of red deer off the dam path down on to the dam itself. They were all females of varying ages, and there was some jockeying for position as they hurried away.

In these three photos you can see the two deer of the left square off, one refuse to defer to the other, then they both buck and kick each other.

It was over in an instant, but the sound of their feet clattering against each other is something I’ll not forget.

Neither is the spectacle of two female red deer, bickering.

365daysofbiking Noble jacket:

October 7th – I set out on a pleasant but cold afternoon full of optimism. I was off to Cannock Chase to find deer, fungi some fine downhills and some autumn colour.

Fate had other ideas.

The first problem was I’d left home with a flat battery in my camera, so all these are phone photos, and without exception, I think they’d have been better pictures if taken with my camera. But I would tend to think that, I suppose.

Two mechanical failures and I was sunk. A makeshift repair on a shredded tyre wasn’t dependable, so a quick visit to Castle Ring was to be my lot.

I found good toadstools on the sandy embankment by the canal between Wharf Lane and Newtown bridges, which was nice, and the golden hour at Castle Ring was beautiful. Sad to note though now the once stunning view is again obscured by the tall trees down the hill – you can barely see the power station at Rugeley at all now.

A great sunset as I passed back through Chasewater just rubbed salt in my flat battery wound.

Some days are just not well starred. This was one of them, sadly.

365daysofbiking Ever falls the twilight:

October 6th – I returned to Brownhills in the overcast weather hinterland between night and what passed for day. It was damned grey and inside, I felt that way too. The onset of winter has me by the neck this year and I’m alternately OK with it and then quite down. I somehow feel I let summer slip away – I didn’t, I rode lots and saw lots and it just ended early, but I feel bereft.

From the Silver Street pedestrian bridge, I surveyed one of my classic winter views: Autumn is settling well here now, and the new houses with the nice line along the canal made an interesting match to the colour of the trees before them. There is life here now, lights in the new dwellings, and no longer does it feel desolate to stand here and be confronted with the place I love.

This town is changing, like the season; slowly, imperceptibly if you’re not attuned to it, and I think for the better. Finally, the ghosts of the civic failure here are being exorcised, and there is evidence of a little hope, a little life, a little warmth.

Unlike the season, Brownhills is opening up. Perhaps this grey twilight is better than I thought.

365daysofbiking Decent, enough:

October 6th – From the wailing and gnashing of the NIMBYs of Aldridge, anyone would think that the block of apartments planned for the long derelict land right at the bottom of High Street on the Elms Island would be some monstrous, hideous carbuncle that didn’t fit with it’s surroundings at all.

Studying it closely while in the village of 26,000 on Saturday afternoon, I actually decided I quite liked it. I’m not fond of the flat roof, which is a cop out in design terms, but the rest of it is an interesting blend of textures and colours, and is actually quite bland, really. It’s not too big, it certainly doesn’t block light to the hHigh Street as some alleged and it seems a good match for the rather stark pub nearby.

I’m sure the elderly folk it’s built for will enjoy living close to the amenities of the ‘village’ centre, too, and it will help keep the local retailers busy.

It seems a decent thing to me.