February 26th – It was a day of discarded objects, but this was odd. A single, high quality aluminium crutch, in the scrub on the inaccessible side of the canal near the aqueduct on the Anglesey Branch in Brownhills. I don’t know how it came to be there, or why. It’s vaguely unsettling. One possible explanation is that a miracle was performed here, whilst the participants were walking on water. Yeah, that’ll be it…
February 25th – Chasetown has always had an odd atmosphere to me. The hillside town – occasionally bustling, but usually giving the impression of any given place at 4pm on a Wednesday – has a really nice High Street, with lots of stable, longstanding traders. The street is on a considerable incline, which gives it atmosphere and character. Sadly, at the moment, the entire road is closed do to gas and sewerage works at the top of the hill by Sankey’s Corner, and at 4:30pm, the place was even more ghostly and deserted than usual.
Perhaps this is the time to stage what I’ve always fancied doing here – a decidedly low rent re-enactment of the stunning car chase from Bullit, on bicycles. In Chasetown High Street. Steve McQueen optional. You know it’d be a blast…
February 25th – Another public service announcement. The hedge clipping season continues – this time, British Waterways have flailed the hawthorn Hedge beside the canal through Catshill in Brownhills, from the Anchor Bridge to Ogley Junction. This hasn’t been done for a while and the towpath is covered with thorns. If you don’t have thornproof tyres, my advice is to avoid that bit of canal if possible for a week or two.
I’ve found out how to enable comments on this thing. Click on the comment link down on the bottom right of each post to leave/view reactions, hurl abuse etc.
Thanks to GreedyGardener for help…
Cheers
Bob
February 24th – Saint Matthews Hall – sometime church hall, Walsall County Courthouse and wine bar, has been turned in a specialist real ale pub by Wetherspoons, and by all accounts it’s a decent transformation. I’d not noticed before, but it’s lit with colour shifting, high power LED lighting. I’m not shire what to make of it; it looks gimmicky and cheap, but it is rather impressive. A curious thing…
February 24th – I took plenty of photos in the morning, as it was another wonderful morning – but sadly, I left the camera in the wrong mode and they were all awful. Luckily, I realised my mistake, and returning from Walsall at 7pm, I took some shots of a peculiarly deserted town. This seemed odd to me; when I was a youth, the euphemistically branded ‘nightime economy’ was normally well underway by this time, but it seems not to be the case now. Few were at the bus stands, and few outside the bars and pubs. Bridge Street was deserted, and the town hall looked imperious in the street light. An odd end to an oddly draining week.
If you can’t work that out from the subject matter, then there’s no hope for you. http://brownhillsbob.tumblr.com/archive
Bob is himself. He’d rather let his work do the talking.
Thank you for your wonderfully kind words. Tumblr is a bit crap, really, and gives no stats, so I have no viewing data. Comments like yours tell me folk are interested in what I’m doing, which is nice and encourages me.
I selected Tumblr for this journal, got it started and then realised my mistake. You can comment if you’re a registered user (free signup) or if I finish the post with a question mark (i.e. it’s a question). However, I seem unable to reply to most comments. If I did this again I’d use anything but Tumblr.
What many folk do is follow me on Facebook where I’m ‘William Roberts’ and comment on the automatic tumblr posts in my status updates. You are, of course, welcome to comment on my main blog too – visit it here.
We’re very lucky to live where we do – right on the edge of a major conurbation, with rolling countryside close to hand. We have canals, bike paths, parks and the most wonderful rural lanes. L love this place and I’m glad you do, too.
Cheers and thanks
Bob
February 23rd – Returning home late through Shelfield, I passed Bunker Service Station. I have no idea why it’s so named, but I noted diesel was now 1.43 a litre. People have often asked me how I can afford to keep buying bits for the bike and feed my gadget addiction – it’s simple. I’ll run for days on a gallon of earl grey, marmite sandwiches and sweet treats like Haribo. I’m not spending huge amounts of dough to sit stressed in a car, watching my sanity and bank-balance wane with the fuel gauge pointer…
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 