BrownhillsBob

January 1st – A better night, at least. Throughout the day, my condition improved. The shivers and shakes left me, my dizziness ebbed away and I was just left with the stomach from hell. I was taking more fluids and getting up more. Still quite weak, I didn’t do too much, and snoozed the evening and following night away. The only consolation of missing two days of the 365daysofbiking was that the weather was so awful outside.

December 31st – I am ashamed. I broke my 365daysofbiking pledge. I failed.

I had grown increasingly ill during the previous night. Nausea, head and joint pain, diarrhoea. I snatched an hour here or there, punctuated by trips to the loo and the most awful nightmares. In the morning, I was still shivering and achy. It was either flu, or food poisoning. I was too weak to move much at all for large parts of the day. I didn’t turn the computer on, or watch TV. I just lay, alternately sweating and freezing. I followed my orders. Plenty of fluids. Rehydration. Rest. My condition settled. I tried, I really tried. But I couldn’t leave the house. I was stuck.

December 30th – Something wasn’t right. The weather had been appalling all day. I’d hidden indoors, and I’d been busying myself with a few other projects. As I pottered around, I felt increasingly unwell. Finally dragging myself out of the house at 8:30pm, it was very black, rainy and miserable. I was not on top form. Every pedal revolution felt like it was draining the strength from my body. I forgot my Gorillapod. I never do that.

After a loop around Brownhills, Clayhanger and Walsall Wood, I returned home, still feeling unwell. Later in the evening, I went out to the pub. I sat there for an hour with a good friend, shivering and feeling rotten, and found myself almost unable to walk home. Something was very, very wrong with me.

Hi bob, is most of your photography taken with a headcam? Ant, regular cyclists from Walsall

The static photos are taken with a compact digital – usually a Panasonic of some sort, mostly a TZ-20, the few very wide panoramas with a Sony Cybershot thing and the odd image with an iPhone of one generation or another.

The video is taken on a sports cam. The first few on a Contour, then a GoPro HD Hero, now a HD Hero 2. Rather than helmet or head mount, I mount it using a RAM mount on the head tube of the bike. It gives smoother footage than on the bars or body, although this doesn’t capture where I’m looking. I edit the footage up on iMovie on a mac.

Best wishes

Bob

December 29th – Now do you see what we have to put up with? This weather is awful. Heading into Brownhills, yesterday lunchtime. Waterproofs on, resolute into the rain. Watching for the traffic, which goes a bit silly in these conditions. Come on, weather, give us a break. Leave the rain if you must, but please, please, please drop the wind. Thanks.

The music is ‘Il Pleure’ from The Art of Noise, a lost classic from a sadly overlooked album ‘The Seduction of Claude Debussy’.

December 29th – I returned, wet and feeling low at dusk along the canal. Crossing Ogley Junction, I stopped to contemplate: I had so many cycling plans for this Christmas; I wanted to go to Derbyshire again, visit Hoar Cross and the Needwood Valley; roam the villages around Mancetter and Nuneaton. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Maybe we’ll get some real winter weather soon – snow, or frosty, bright days with a gentler wind. Ah well, there’s always tomorrow…

December 29th – Chasetown as ever, seemed to be slumbering peacefully as I passed through at lunchtime. Wet, wild, stormy, a filthy day all round. I remember this town before it closed – but there is some great architecture here; the first church in the UK to be lit by electric light, the Old Mining College – run by the wonderful Steve Lightfoot, and this house, Chase Lodge. I have no idea of its history. Great chimneys, and a sympathetic extension. Look at the brickwork at the tip of the gable. That’s a bricky showing off, that is…

December 28th – I hadn’t been up Haywood Warren for a very long time. The steep collection of ridges sit between the Sherbrook and Abraham Valleys, and offer splendid views of Tixall and Shugborough to the north. At dusk, it was haunting. Total peace apart from bird calls and the territorial hooting of an owl somewhere in the woodland behind me. This is a completely different spot with every season. I must return here more often.

December 28th – It was so windy, the only place to head for a bit of decent cycling was the shelter of the Chase. Although the wind blasts through there as it does anywhere else, there is safe haven in the woodland tracks and valleys. I did the usual loop of Birches Valley, Penkridge Bank and Abraham’s valley, before scrambling up Hayood Warren at dusk and heading back up Haywood Slade and Marquis Drive to Castle ring across country in darkness. The fallow deer were in their usual spot, happily feeding. 80 or so photos, but the light was so poor only a few were usable. Curse the winter… I also saw 2 muntjac, a first for me. Hurtling out of the thicket near rifle range corner, they were a blur of red fur about the size of a labrador, and then gone. A wonderful sight.

December 27th – Pritchard-tecture is a curse or a blessing in South Staffordshire, depending on your point of view. The Hednesford based developers have been responsible for much of the commercial redevelopment of brownfield sites around Cannock, Burntwood and Rugeley, often on former mining land. Such faith and confidence in the local economy is wonderful, but the buildings created are not to everyone’s taste. The curved, gaudy, glass and neon structures are certainly distinctive. Here at Great Wyrley, the futuristic buildings certainly improve on their background – the Poplars Landfill site. Give Mr. Pritchard a break, folks…