BrownhillsBob

May 3rd – Curiosity got the better of me, so on the way home from work I cycled over to Chasewater to see how the water levels were going. There’s been a quite marked rise since Sunday, as runoff and the streams and creeks that supply the reservoir catch up with the recent weather. I feel the most interesting stage of the gradual refilling will come inn about a metre’s time, when the pool at the foot of the pier rejoins the main lake. However, that will require far more water, and far more bad weather. I’m currently getting webbed feet as it is…

May 2nd – On the other side of the precarious footpath mentioned in the last post is this chemical waste facility, now operated by Veolia, a huge international waste disposal company. These days, it’s a modern, well kept and operated plant, but it wasn’t always thus. Under the tower is a borehole to the former mine workings below, and into this void were pumped millions of gallons of toxic waste. Contained by marls, it is thought to be safe; yet other surface waste dumps nearby, operated by former operators like Polymeric Treatments, were not so successful. Claiming to have invented a system of mixing highly poisonous materials with concrete, the ‘Sealosafe’ process was widely considered to be a failure.

Operations here were controversial through the late seventies until the nineties, with smell, nuisance and just plain fear all being factors. At one stage, operators had a surface lagoon full of slurry which became the subject of a standoff between the local council and the company concerned, which ultimately led to regulation of an entire industry.

These days, the tankers slide in and out of here largely unnoticed, and the controversy has abated. The laws governing these kinds of operations are probably now the tightest in Europe, and rightly so. We still get the occasional smell, but on the whole, there’s little to show of the ferocious political and activist battleground this once was.

WE have to accept, I guess, that if we want to live in a world with shiny metal goods, wonderful kitchen cleaners, beautiful plastics that all manner of complex chemical processes are required. These generate massive quantities of very, very nasty stuff. Whilst the commercial operation of sites like this is not ideal, we need to accept their necessity, and in technical terms, our area is highly suited to this kind of disposal in terms of geology.

A complex history, largely misunderstood and forgotten.

May 2nd – Heading off the canal at Leighswood Bridge there’s a footpath that somehow, against huge odds, has managed to stay open despite wending a precarious way between Europe’s largest inland toxic waste facility and an immense marlpit.

The red marls that have been opencast here for centuries made the area of Aldridge and Stubbers Green famous for it’s brickworks and tileries, producing high-quality engineering bricks and building materials that an entire industrial revolution was built out of.

These days, marl is excavated in an almost robotic process. An excavator works down the face in terraces, and four huge trucks are filled in a constant relay, each carrying three excavator bucketfuls to the Wienerberger brickworks up top. At the base of the excavation, there’s a pool of drainage water. This is returned to a settling lagoon on the surface by a pump, floating on a raft, cleverly made out of empty drums. Note that the marl itself is quite dry, and not the clay-like material one would expect. Impervious to water, it makes an ideal void into which landfill of most grades can be dumped when the opencast is exhausted. This area is surrounded by landfill sites utilising former marl pits, and under it all, millions upon millions of gallons of toxic slurry dumped in the deep coal workings that also riddled the landscape.

There’s nothing so valuable as a hole in the ground.

In many countries, this would be considered environmental destruction. Here in the UK, we call it industry.

May 2nd – First of the year. These four healthy cygnets are with their mum near the central island on the new pond in Clayhanger, behind the big house. Safe from foxes and predators, they should be fine. The pair nested in the reeds near the island. Four isn’t a huge clutch, but it’s respectable. I was 30 metres away on the opposite side of the pool, with dad hissing at me from the other side of the reed bed. He wasn’t screwing around.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Swan up the canal at the back of Sadler Road was fast asleep on her nest, no sign of hatching there, yet…

May 1st – There are some things that Walsall Council does really well, and one of those things is generally their grass cutting and greenspace management. However, something has gone horribly wrong. I was heartbroken this morning to see that the top grass cutting operative delegated the task of mowing the verges in Shelfield along the A461 Lichfield Road has mown off all the daffodils. As many gardeners will know, after flowering, daffs absorb nutrients back out of the foliage to develop the bloom within the bulb for next year. Cutting off the tops will prevent that happening, and next year’s plants will grow blind – without blooms. Cheers, mate, I really owe you one. Not.

Those flowers are usually beautiful, and a welcome splash of spring colour in a drab urban landscape. Now, they’ve been wrecked for next year. What an idiot.

May 1st – After yesterday’s break in the sun, it was back to the rain and howling wind, which unusually, was behind me on my way to Darlaston. I haven’t been this way much in recent weeks, and the commute was reasonably enjoyable, despite the rain. The flooding on Green Lane, Walsall Wood has occurred for as long as I can remember, and never gets any better, even though drainage works have been undertaken. This is the lowest point in Jockey Meadows, and is the crossing point of the marsh that drains from Shire Oak and High Heath. It’s easy to come a cropper here – I’ve seen cars hit the water and slew, and drenching the cyclist is a fun game for the local driving yobs.

vwcampervan-aldridge:

We visted the Royal Observer Corps Nuclear Bunker at Cowley , Yorkshire. It’s right on Earls Ridge near to Wainman’s Pinnacle. Little is left, the hatch has been chopped clean off and lies on it’s side, the entrances have been filled with concrete. The pipe is uncovered and given it’s exposed position I suspect it’s full of water. Still it’s in a lovely place!

April 30th – I was going to break up today’s images into groups, and then I thought better of it. Today’s theme was clearly late spring, early summer, and an utter contrast to the previous day. I left mid-morning for a short meeting in Telford with the sun on my back and wind in my face. The damp landscape hummed with life of all kinds. The rustling of new foliage, the splash of water draining away in roadside ditches, the song of finches and blackbirds, busy in the hedgerows. At Stafford Park in Telford, a line of cherry tress had me stunned, and closer to home at Little Aston and Stonnall, wildflowers brightened the verges, field margins and spinneys. The lanes were crisp and bright, the scent of oilseed rape had risen and everything smelt delightful.
Are days like this better for the preceding bad ones, or do they always seem this good?

I’d appreciate ID help with the flowers, please, if anyone knows.

April 29th – Chasewater was lovely in the damp twilight. The rain where I was had ceased, but there was still a shower ongoing on the northern shore, which hung in a damp cloud. To the west, he sky was bright and reflected off the surface of the pools and wet ground. The dam itself looked soft and distant through the wet air. The smell, too, was beautiful; the after-rain scent mingled with balsam and pollen. An oddly beautiful evening which was very, very unexpected.

April 29th – I held back all day, hoping to avoid the wind and rain. Sneaking out late, the rain stopped and the cloud fractured. I headed for Chasewater, and I noticed this damp mum and daughter in a field adjacent to the old Highfield House on Pool Road. The hardiness of horses never ceases to amaze me, and this frisky little foal was joyous. As Mike Hawes pointed out on his tumblr over the weekend, spring is really here now.