Author: BrownhillsBob

I told the truth - but told it bent. Wandering around bemused and ranty since 2007.

April 18th – Last week I found the lovely pieris flowers I didn’t recognise in Wednesbury, even though as readers Susan Marie Ward, Linda Mason and others pointed out, I’d posted them here before.

The reason I hadn’t recognised them was because I’m used to seeing them with the beautiful bright red foliage they normally develop in early spring, but this year seems very late, and last week there was no hint of it.

Well, now it’s arrived and the result is truly stunning. Pieris – sometimes called fetterbush, rather delightfully – is grown a lot in gardens and in beds on industrial estates and parks.

Little things like this make spring such a wonderful time, I’m so glad it’s finally here.

April 17th – Every day, new flowers and leaves. This is fantastic, and just what I’ve been waiting for. All I need now is the sun to do it’s thing…

Spotted in a roadside verge near Lower Stonnall on Gravelly Lane – one of my all time favourite spring flowers – muscari or grape hyacinth. A garden favourite, I’m not sure if they’re native here or a garden escapee. But they are so very gorgeous, tiny blue arrangements of even tinier obovoid flowers.

Welcome back.

April 17th – The Telford footbridge construction project continues, and there’s a really interesting stage started now; partially build sections of the bridge have been delivered as steelwork skeletons, namely a couple of lattice piers and the over railway deck section. What’s interesting is that they have been fixed temporarily on spare ground, and other parts are being welded and added. The assembled sections will be completed on the ground, and then lifted into place.

I’ve never seen this done before and passing through on a grey, drizzly afternoon it was certainly interesting to watch the engineers at work while I waited for the train.

This is certainly going to confuse people trying to work out the final layout…

April 15th I cut over Clayhanger Common to the takeaway, and noted that the waters here had almost totally receded now. The lower meadow here is designed to flood, defending the village, and works well. The problem is the path has sunk over the years and is now submerged in times of the meadow doing it’s job.

Thing is now, you’d not really know what had happened. 

This really is a curious, well engineered landscape.

April 15th – After a great day of sunshine on Saturday, Sunday was not so great – it was grey, overcast and periodically rainy, but it still felt warm. I’d had some noisiness and drivetrain grind on the ride the day before, so I decided to busy myself investigating it. I was glad I did.

I found issues with chain, sprockets and chainset, the former two of which were very close to catastrophic failure. It’s not often you’re glad to find a serious mechanical issue, but better here in the workshop with all the spares I need than the middle of nowhere. 

I slipped out on a test ride at dusk, with the skies clearing. I didn’t see a soul, but the canal looked very moody and dramatic.

Never mind, weather’s warming up this week…

April 14th – Just in the nick of time the weather improved. It was a bright, warm sunny and dry day, of the type we’re usually having a fair bit at this time of year, but have remained curiously elusive in the never ending winter of the last couple of months.

I rode out to Chasewater, then up onto the Chase itself at Hednesord; then along Marquis Drive and over to Rifle Range Corner. A total blast down Abrahams Valley, followed by a journey over Stepping Stones to Milford for ice cream.

I returned via Shugborough, then the canal to Rugeley and home over Longdon and Chorley.

The weather was lovely with bright sun, blue skies and a lovely golden hour. The Chase was gorgeous, Shugborough seems to be getting better under the stewardship of the National Trust now, and the canal was a peaceful restorative as ever.

Most long, offload rides wear you out, but today was the reverse. With every pedal stroke I felt my charge and life returning. I was being replenished by the sun and awakening spring.

Just in the nick of time…

April 14th – Spring came today properly, and brought with her warm sun and the general population out enjoying itself in what seems like the first temperate weather since last year…

Interested to note as I rode out through Chasewater on a bike ride to Cannock Chase and Shugborough that the canal feeder valve from the full reservoir is now open quite some way, and there’s a strong flow of water into the canal.

Either the Canal and River Trust have sorted out their argument with Staffordshire County Council, or the latter have decided unilaterally to reduce the water level in the reservoir themselves.

I noticed that at the time of observation, the main lake was still overtopping the weir at the Nine-Foot so the valves can only have been very recently opened.

Always an interesting, relaxing thing to watch.

April 13th – I rode to work in steady rain heavy hearted. It’s not often I say this but the morning had no redeeming features I could find; it was wet, cold and very, very unlike spring. 2013 was a pretty bad spring, starting very late with heavy snows in the dying days of March like this one. But at least the sun came out and things dramatically improved. 2018 has tested even my usually stoical resolve, I must say.

Rolling through Kings Hill on an errand mid morning, everything was headache-grey – the roads, the buildings, the sky.

It’s rare I feel so bleak about the weather.