November 10th – A long day, but passing Jockey Meadows in the morning showed me how lovely even the edgelands of the area can be; wedged in between Walsall Wood and Shelfield, the site of scientific special interest that is the Meadows can be scrubby and untidy, and not quite one thing nor the other, but today it was gorgeous in the colours of autumn, with leaves falling gently in Green Lane and long winter shadows.
Just what you need to set you up for a day at work…
November 9th – Whilst at the war memorial, I spotted a bit of an anachronism outside the Post Office in Darlaston – this really reminded me of the heady days of the early internet revolution.
This red K6 phonebox has a banner sticker at the top pointing out you could once email and text from the phone there. I believe that was a late 90s/early 2000s thing and required a special phone to be installed in the phone booth with a qwerty keyboard – but I could be wrong.
However it worked, I doubt theres a use for such things today with the rise of the smartphone – and I don’t know about you, but the very sight of someone using a phonebox these days looks a bit… shifty.
How fast times have changed from ‘Press button A’!
November 9th – In my opinion few war memorials, if any, can match that in Darlaston for sheer beauty and reverence. I’ve never seen such a loving, respectful and intimate civic sculpture and garden as this.
It needs the paths resurfacing, but it’s a peaceful spot that’s well tended and tidy, even in the midst of the autumn leaf deluge, and will see on Sunday people come from far and wide to remember the fallen and pay their respects.
I love the poppy bench and the garden for the blind with the braille and active plant labels.
We shall remember them.
November 8th – And further on, at the top end of Victoria Park, the trees look absolutely beautify now they’re shedding their leaves. Riding up around the park, it was good to see the guys from the council tidying and sprucing up the war memorial for Remembrance Sunday.
The day in prospect was making me heavy-hearted but with such a lovely start, it couldn’t be a bad day on the whole.
November 8th – In and out of work early as I had a medical thing to get sorted, but needed to sign some paperwork. In total contrast to the day before, it was sunny, and with the sun on the back, a pleasing hint of a summer now passed.
Station Street in Darlaston is always interesting when the sun shines on it: usually in shadow from the tall, ageing factories, it really does demonstrate the sunny side of the street.
I was in the shade today, but it would be brighter, later.
November 7th – Long, long before the wonderful John Cooper Clarke was a sort of cult national treasure doing voice overs for oven chip adverts, he observed the everyday diesel spill on wet tarmac and made it chilling.
‘Revenge is not enough
There’s a dead canary on a swivel seat
There’s a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code’
I find easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy, beastly Beasley Street still chilling and an absolute classic, and after hearing it 30 odd years ago, I never looked at the urban terrace street in the same way again – including oil slicks flowing down the Darlaston Road and catching the light.
John Cooper Clark is one of the best performance poets Britain has ever had.
November 7th – The fierceness of the mature Black Country lady is legendary. If you value your kneecaps, don’t trespass…
November 7th – I made a terrible decision to nip out mid morning on an call to the Solicitor. While I was there, the rain started, and returning to Darlaston in very heavy rain, I slipped onto the canal for respite from the traffic.
I sheltered under a bridge for a while, listening to the music of the rain on water, before realising the futility of it, cried Geronimo! And dashed for work, scattering the otherwise contented geese in my wake.
‘Did the big girls push you in the cut again, Bob?’ was the piss-taking call that greeted me on my return, drenched…
November 6th – The shrooms are multiplying!
A few weeks ago I spotted a single toadstool, chainsaw-carved from a log near the old Charles Richard Imperial works in Darlaston Green, where that interesting ex-military truck is always parked. There is a trestle there, and logs, so it seems the trucker is cutting winter fuel there (although there’s no sawdust, oddly).
I presume the artist is carving the toadstools at the same time – and they are beautifully executed. Now multiplying, I wonder if there will be a clump form?
November 6th – One of those cursed days when you don’t forget the camera, but you forget to put the card in, so it’s useless. Having to make do with the phone, I nipped into Walsall lunchtime from work in Darlaston, and on my way back, caught this remarkable shaft of sunlight on the canal near Bridgman Street.
It was a misty, soft sunlight day – presumably the remains of the firework-frenzy fug – and maybe that was what created it, but it was beautiful.
Just a shame I didn’t have a better camera to catch it with.
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