BrownhillsBob

#365daysofbiking Fragility

January 29th – The tribulations of the previous day were over with, and had gone well. I was still tired though, as I’d been nil-by-mouth for 24 hours and recovery was harder than I remembered it. After tea I braved a small spin around the canal and Clayhanger Common.

I wasn’t really up to it if I’m honest. But it was good to be out.

It seemed a good opportunity to continue the long exposure theme – the chance to stand and get my energy back was real, and waiting for the camera gave me an excuse I suppose.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will feel more like it.

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#365daysofbiking Feeling exposed

January 29th – Up on the old Cement Works Bridge, time to have a think and play with long exposure photography. With the lightening morning sky the results were remarkable.

I love how the trees seem out of focus as their extremities moved with the wind.

It was going to be a tough day. But at least I’d captured something interesting to kick it all off.

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#365daysofbiking Early one morning

January 29th – I had a short window in the morning before I took the next batch of medication when I could get out – so in the early gloom, I left for a circuit around my beloved Brownhills.

I’m not used to Engine Lane and the cycleway to the old Cement Works Bridge in the early morning. Foxes and other furry residents of the common were busy, and I disturbed their activities. Birds were awakening, and the darkened woods were full of life. I could hear horses in the paddocks snort in the dark and deer grumbling as they tend to.

Normally rides at this time of day are strictly fast commutes to work.I don’t normally stop to look at what’s around me at this time of day.

It was actually an unexpected joy to be out. I must do this again.

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#365daysofbiking Life by water

January 28th – By the time I got to Whitehorse Road/Wharf Lane, things felt a bit better. My trepidation was still there, but night was coming in now and the light was altogether better, friendlier and more comforting. And the wind seemed to be subsiding.

There’s a current Canal and River trust campaign about life being better close to water. They’re not wrong, actually.

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#365daysofbiking The twilight hour

January 28th – I was due to have a medical procedure next day.I’d left work early so I could make a start and prepare – I had medicine to take soon which meant I wouldn’t be able to stray far from home for long for a while, so a quick loop up the canal to Newtown and back.

At Ogley Junction, the scenery was stark and bleak as night descended.

I like this spot normally. Admittedly, far nicer on a sunny, warm day, but tonight it left me feeling empty and tired.

Perhaps it was the anxiousness for the following day kicking in – I couldn’t really tell.

The twilight hour can be such an unreliable friend.

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#365daysofbiking I can see clearly now

January 27th – I returned that evening in half-light and as I got to Brownhills, I couldn’t resist a shot of the canal at Silver Street from a bit of a different angle.

Night had fallen but it was the most clear, dry glistening evening I’d seen for a while. Not a trace of anything in the air. It was glass hard clear, and beautiful with it.

An area that’s nice enough by day becomes golden and almost mysterious by night.

The lights on the boat looked really welcoming, too…

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#365daysofbiking Purple wonder

January 27th – After the darkness of the weekend, a bright, sunny and chilly morning.

I stopped on the industrial estate near work to answer my phone on the way in, and looking down as I chatted, I noticed these tiny, tiny purse flowers in the bed at my feet.

They are truly gorgeous and a lovely colour.

I have no idea what they are, but they’re lovely. Can anyone help, please?

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#365daysofbiking An awkward subject

January 26th – Like the village itself, Walsall Wood Church of St John is a quiet, understated gem. Originally a tiny church, extended massively by the Victorians, then again pretty brutally by the diocese of Lichfield in the 1980s, its personality has maintained surprisingly well.

It’s a lovely subject at night, has a great clock and presents a great aspect to the road. But for a couple of things.

The bloody streetlight just out of shot on the right, and the pedestrian crossing light in the foreground.

Any decent angle on the building includes one, the other or both, destroying the shot. It’s one of those frustrations that just make the character of a place.

But that’s Walsall Wood for you. Never less than quirky.

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#365daysofbiking Wood and heart

January 26th – And there it were – gone. With neither a thank you nor a goodnight, the mist upped and left, and Sunday was damp, wet but mercifully clear with an appreciable wind.

The air was clearer. I could breath again without feeling that grip on my chest from traffic fumes.

I came back from helping a pal in the early evening, and stopped for the cashpoint in the High Street. It was quiet. The takeaways were doing trade, the pubs seemed alive, but traffic was light and this still identifiable ex-mining village straddling the Walsall to Lichfield Road slumbered peacefully.

I like Walsall Wood. I always have. It’s not prepossessing, exotic or flash. But it has soul and warmth and always looks welcoming at night.

It’ll always have a bit of my heart.

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#365daysofbiking Living in another world

January 25th – Of course, I came back through Chasewater for a reason. I wanted to get Chasewater and the area surrounding in mist, when I actually had time to experiment.

As it happened the experiments pretty much all failed, but some notable successes – mainly by accident – were evident. The glass-hard Nine-Foot pool; Chasewater pier looking like something from a film set. The curing wall of LED streetlights over the distant sweep of the deserted M6 Toll. The eerie otherworldliness of the Black Path with its sodium and skeletal trees.

It did indeed seem like another world, but in that one my photographic talents sadly remained as erratic and hit and miss as in this one.

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