BrownhillsBob

#365daysofbiking The stars in autumn

October 24th – I recently tried CLayhanger Bridge photos with the latest iPhone, to see what one of my favourite low-light subjects was like using that method: I found it impressive, but harsh.

I later realised I’d not really had much of a go with my current camera, a Canon G5X Mark II.

Since I was returning after dark, I thought I’d give it a go, extra lighting courtesy of the bike front light.

You can’t beat a real camera.

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#365daysofbiking Morning due

October 24th – I had to be in work very early and woke up bleary and grumpy. The cold air, clear skies and empty streets as I seed through north Walsall though were gorgeous.

Cycling through sleeping suburbia I heard alarms waking folk from their beds, and watched the day coming to life and I felt a bit like a low rent Dylan Thomas without the talent. There’s something special about being out legitimately obscenely early. I always love it.

The church visible from North Street bridge was beautiful against the sky as was the college and listening skyline.

Riding a bike can really set you up for the day.

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#365daysofbiking Submission

October 23rd – Another fine autumn day, and I must say, as it usually does, Autumn is starting to rest easy with me. It usually takes me a while to get over the loss of warmth, sun and light evenings, but when I do finally cave in, I find the season gorgeous.

In central Darlaston, the tree-lined roads, fallen leaves and sun-dapped scenery are beautiful and really enjoyable to ride through.

Yeah, go on. I can do this now. I’m ready.

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#365daysofbiking Signal to noise

October 22nd – On my return that evening, I crested Kings Hill during a pink and blue sunset of the most striking kind, and grabbed a chance to catch another of my muses: The Kings Hill cellphone tower with the sky and lights of the Black Country behind.

Antenna, aerials, masts and suchlike have always fascinated me. I know how they work, yet they are still mysterious: Still yet powerful structures exchanging electromagnetic radiation with the atmosphere: Ever present, unchanging yet sinister and secretive.

And particularly beautiful against a sunset or dawn sky…

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#365daysofbiking Crowning glory

October 22nd – Tipton’s Coronation Gardens on a beautiful, sunny autumn day.

The Black Country is my home, the place I love: My past, present and hopefully, future.

William Perry the famous pugilist still takes on all comers here, but is continually humiliated by pigeons. His embarassment is quiet and dignified though,like this small but beautiful park.

When you mention Tipton to people who don’t know the place, they invariably imagine dirt, factories, bleak streets and deprivation.

Both I and William Perry know different. Although he’s still annoyed about the pigeons.

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#365daysofbiking Motortown

October 21st – Nipping over to Bilston mid afternoon on a gloomy, grey Monday, I crossed the Black Country Route near Moxley.

There’s no dobt these new roads of the late 80s and early 90s helped to revive the fortunes of areas like Moxley, suffering huge loss of manufacturing industry, but they did leave many of them feeling like isolated islands in a see of ebbing and flowing traffic.

Moxley church still looks imperious, as it always has done. But now, it lords over a dial carriageway and the frantic hubbub of the daily grind, which I find beautiful and sad.

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#365daysofbiking New forms

October 20th – Cannock Chase was full of really a interesting – it was the first time I’ve seen coral fungus since I was a kid, and there were a whole range of brackets, toadstools, slimes and balls to keep me interested.

Sadly the light was terrible, so few decent photos.

I’ve never known such a good season for fungus. I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before…

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#365daysofbiking Rainy Chase and Sundays…

October 20th – I set off mid afternoon for Castle Ring. It was spotting with rain, that wasn’t;t really forecast. By the time I got there feeling a bit sad, the rain had set in for the afternoon.

Something happened, though, and I found my happiness in the drizzle, getting wet and finding fungi at Stonepit Green and explored a boggy, muddy forest until darkness fell, visiting places around Beaudesert I haven’t been for years.

You can find peace and contentment on even the most horrid days if you stop looking for it and just get on with finding out what’s over the next hill.

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#365daysofbiking Garden ruin

October 19th – Originally featuring tennis courts, gardens and bowling greens, the original, once beautiful Oak Park has been pretty much abandoned and allowed to decay in recent years.

This is a crime, and a civic insult to the miners and citizens of Walsall Wood to whom this place was a gift.

Only the bowling club, with a well kept, securely fenced green still get the benefit of this sad, lost place.

I cannot countenance a world where there simply isn’t the money allowed to look after our civic amenities like this.

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#365daysofbiking Stumped

October 19th – Nipping over to Walsall Wood on an errand, I crossed the sadly fading old Oak Park – not the leisure centre of the same name, but the formerly ornamental park that gave the centres their name.

Near a bench by the old waterlogged bowling green, an amazingly vivid colony of what I think is honey fungus.

There was a fair collection of disparate fungus here, to be fair. About the only thing that seems to be doing well in this sad, lost park.

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