Author: BrownhillsBob

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

February 4th – The restoration of Ogley Junction footbridge continues apace, and now encased in a plastic tent, a noses through the screen shows the rails have been shot basted of old paint and a coat of primer has been dusted over.

The stripping has revealed the old, construction-time repair to the north side in all it’s glory with handmade nuts and washers, and this seems like a thorough job.

The bridge isn’t passable with a bike, but is on foot if you’re prepared to hop on the work pontoon. It’s a bit bouncy, and you need to watch for ropes and trip hazards, but it is possible to cross if you’re bold.

I was hoping they’d sort out a diversion, but it doesn’t seem that they have. Mind, the rate they’re cracking on, it won’t be long until they work is complete.

February 3rd – I headed back up the canal, but unusually, got off at Clayhanger Bridge and headed back up through the village because the towpath was so slippery and unridable – note here, It is almost one continuous puddle.

From the bridge looking towards Walsall Wood, I could hear the violent thrash of water cascading down the canal overflow behind me. The lower meadow on Clayhanger Common will flood soon, I think, and the Tame will be running high too. 

I’ve chronicled some bad weather on this journal over the seven years it’s been running – we’ve had some bad winters and bad summers. But I’ve never known a January this cold and wet.

There had better be a decent spring coming…

February 3rd – A day without rain would be nice. So nice.

It rained all day, and I barely left the house; I had technical difficulties with some work equipment that kept me busy on a fool’s errand most of the afternoon, before it turned out the problem was not mine at all.

I got nothing done. I felt low and troubled and realised that although physically better, I’m still recovering and have the post-illness blues. I’m sure you know how it goes – you still have some climbing to do and the daily grind hasn’t stopped for you to hop back on and catch up.

I had to nip up Walsall Wood in the early evening on an errand. I got wet, it was cold and I felt every pedal stroke.

I know everything will improve, and I’ll slip back into the daily rhythm soon. But right now I feel spare and down.

February 2nd – It had been a busy day where I’d headed everywhere at top speed (well, as top as I get at the moment, which is still less than my normal average) and it was fairly late when I came home, then headed to Stonnall on an errand.

The weather was cold again, the woman on the train had been right. The moon was hidden behind cloud and is was quite dark for this point in the moon’s cycle. Coming back up Main Street in Stonnall, I couldn’t resist a quite shot of the old swan, but it didn’t turn out how I hoped, the shot of the Shire Oak and junction, currently operating on temporary traffic lights came out much better.

I’m loving this Canon camera – I really am – but I must make time to read the manual. Something I don’t yet understand is making taking night shots a bit of a lottery…

February 1st – On my way back, the weather was more patchy, but changing trains at Aston midday, I thought of the great genius that was Nuala Hussey’s Stranded in Stechford (she lived for a while near the station) and of the incongruity of the Britannia Hotel, still with the great lady resplendent, enthroned on the roof, but no longer atop a hotel with dreams of majesty but a backstreet cafe.

Aston has changed since I was a teenager, exploring this place and the love I found near here. We drank in pubs long closed, and laughed and dreamed and made friends and argued and loved. We still do most of those things, of course, but Aston, like many places of my youth, is lost to me now. All of the faces I knew here except one have gone as I grow old, either lost, separated or drifted apart, but whenever I stand on these platforms, high above the sprawling morass below, I remember those days and it makes me sad.

Although I’m sad for the people I no longer see, I’m most sad for lost sense of belonging, and for my youth. But all through my life I’ve passed through places like this, made them mine for a while, then life took me to other places, with different horizons, and life moved on.

Aston is just a wind-blown, suburban and somewhat desolate railway station; two platforms and a junction. But there are ghosts here. And they haunt me so.

I felt old. But like my ghost, my spirit remains. 

The train came, I hauled my bike onto it and I sat down.

‘Are you OK?’ asked a lady in the opposite seat.

Caught unaware, I wiped my eyes. ‘Just the wind I think’ I said, ineffectually.

‘It’s getting colder’ she replied. And offered me a tissue.

February 1st – I’d say February already? But it doesn’t seem like that. It’s been a hard, difficult, intemperate month I’m glad to see the back of it. But it is a shock we’re already a twelfth through 2018. But then, the first months of the year always go like that; a twelfth, a sixth, a quarter, a third. Such is the elegance of modulo 12.

Passing through Tyseley in the morning, with a surprisingly warm sun on my back, it was almost spring, with Easter primroses in the planters and a lovely feel to the city air.

Sadly, my joy is a little premature, but good while it lasts…

January 31st – Oh my days, or nights rather. We never get a normal moon anymore. All we get are ‘super moons’, or for some reason our already lovely satellite is pronounced unique by the media at any given time around on it’s 28 day appearance cycle. 

I have to admit, this time it was impressive; a blue moon true enough – it’s second fullness in the month, but it was large and bright and shone out in the sky of an urban Walsall, guiding me as I cycled home. 

It was beautiful, but then, it always has been. It is special every time, because it’s distant and mystical and humans went there once. And sometimes, on cold nights in late January, the thought that if humans can go all that way and return is very reassuring. If we can do that amazing feat, perhaps we can do anything, and life is not so bad after all.

I was not the only soul the moon was clearly guiding on; as I crossed the Black Cock bridge in Walsall Wood, I startled a small, brisk, nervous cat who was clearly up to important cat things, and had no wish to share them with a human on a strange mechanical contraption.

January 31st – One of the sure signs of a change in season from winter to spring is the appearance of various types of catkins, which are most commonly seen at this time of year on hazel trees, or in the case of these long ones, alder.

Alder is curious in that the buds you can see are also flows, the large blooms are male, and those female.

The word catkin is likely to have come from the Dutch Kateken, meaning kitten – due to the resemblance to kitten’s tails.

Catkins emerge this time of year as they’re wind pollinating, and emergence after coming into leaf would hamper pollination.

January 30th – It’s on the way back up. As my lungs clear, my on-bike performance is improving; my average speed over the same commute journey has gained 1.7mph in a week.

It’s still not up to it’s usual 13-14mph, but I’m getting there.

I’m also really liking the Velo utility for the Garmin Edge 1030 on IQ – it gives some great speed tools in one nicely laid out large data field.