January 9th On the way back into Brownhills, I passed another pub with a difficult recent history. After a long period of stability, the Shire Oak went through a few landlords in quick succession, and was closed for a good while, before being reopened on Christmas Eve last. It’s a decent house when in the right hands and I wish the new hosts well; such a prominent, landmark pub, standing as it does on a major junction, should do well and it would be very sad if it were lost. 

Good news here too, though, as a refurbishment is on the cards. I hope everything works out for this historic community boozer.

January 9th – A long day at work, and a blustery commute there and back – but at least it blew me home. Had to nip down to Stonnall on the way back, and noted that the Old Swan Pub seemed busy. A pub that’s changed hands a few times, I think in this day and age it must be hard work to make it pay. 

It looks well loved and cared for at the moment, and it looked to be humming inside.

It also looks brilliant at night.

January 8th – Even at the other end of the day, on a dark canal bridge in Brownhills, heading to Tesco to get the weekly shop in, life felt better. The ghostly white they painted most of Humphries House has never really done much for me, but it does look impressive at night.

I’ve reflected today – what’s improved my mood is actually going back to work. That’s also very unusual; but so much didn’t go to plan over the New Year period that I was getting really quite despondent. That’s unusual, but now I’m back in the routine, it all suddenly seems a million miles away.

Life’s odd like that, sometimes.

January 6th – I’d not noticed this before. On the canal near Darlaston, a high factory wall, and by some twist of nature, soot and the wind, a pair of buddleia plants, slowly and tenaciously taking the brickwork part by the action of gentle and sustained hydraulic pressure alone.

Although it’s destructive, I love to see this; nature reclaiming the constructed. It’s nice to see nature winning occasionally.

January 6th – An early, grey commute was brightened by something I’d never seen before, a heron in Jockey Meadows. A fair way from the canal or Ryders Mere, it must either have been resting or hunting in the water meadows here.

The photos are awful, and very long distance, but I’ve never seen a heron here before.

It set me up for the day.

January 5th – A fiddly maintenance job this evening. Studded ice tyres currently fitted to my bike have small, very hard carbide studs in them to grip black ice. They sit in pockets in the tyre tread, and on the back in particular, if you skid on tarmac or brake very hard, they rip out.

Once I’ve lost ten or so, I delve into the spares box and whip out a small bag containing replacement studs, supplied by Schwalbe, the tyre manufacturer. 

By deflating the tyre and pinching the cavity, with pliers one can pop fresh studs in, using a drop of washing up liquid as a lubricant. Fiddly at first, once you’ve got the hang, it’s easy to do.

It may sound overzealous, but for the want of a couple of studs, you could slide. A stitch in time, and all that…

January 5th – In the New Year Quiz on my main blog this year, I asked about the bulkhead pipes visible sticking from the mounds of a couple of local landfill sites; the answer was that they were gas collection points, to feed a gas turbine that generated electricity from the otherwise wasted methane evolved when the buried refuse decomposes.

This plant – humming away continuously in the way only a gas turbine can – is just off Brickyard road in Aldridge and has been running for at least 3 years fuelled by as from the Vigo Utopia landfill, generating electricity which is fed back into the national grid.

Refuse operators will paint this as ‘green energy’ – it’s no such thing; it’s not renewable, is finite and is no cleaner than any other methane power plant. It is, however, making use of gas that formerly would have been wasted, so it’s a good thing.

There is a similar setup at Highfields South, not more than a mile away.

January 4th – I’ll be perfectly honest here – I felt lower than a snake’s knees; the black dog was truly upon me and I’d been trying to ignore it for days. I’ve no idea why, other than stuff just wasn’t going well generally, but I did what I always do when life gets the better of me: I got out my cyclic antidepressant and rode it hard.

I rode over to Farewell on a journey that started sunny, but ended dank and misty, but it was enjoyable. Although cold, there were signs of life and colour in Farewell churchyard that pleased and encouraged me; and the winding icy lanes were a challenge. 

The old holloway of Cross o’ th’ Hand Lane was as dramatic as ever.

Coming back through Wall, the church and Roman remains were excellent stopping points as ever. My mood wasn’t completely lifted, but I felt a lot better.