December 6th – Out in daylight for the first time in a while, and the afternoon was hard and cold. Over to Burntwood for some shopping, I hammered it up the canal in a harsh but golden hour before dusk. The huge black and white smug cat was a gem at the back of Milfield School, and that dog… I could just take it home. Gorgeous.

Returning over Chasewater,I was snagged by the moon rising over the motorway – I’d forgotten the night-time beauty of the distant windy sweep of cars as they passed.

December 5th – Out late again, I shot past Walsall Wood church and noted the Christmas tree and church look nice again this year. I love the fact that the local councillors buy the tree themselves out of their own pockets and give it to the community. 

They don’t have to do that, but the fact hat they do, even though we’re miles apart politically, is a true act of festive felicity.

Shame the street lights always wreck any night shot of Walsall Wood church.

December 4th – Tough day, so on the way home I hopped over Chasewater for some pictures in the dark. I really like Chasewater like this; when it’s dark in winter and there’s nobody around. The night was still, and the air cold. Waterfowl were gathered on the wake-line mast anchors, roosting out of reach of foxes, and gulls bobbed lightly on the mirror-like water.

There wasn’t a soul around.

Just what I needed to settle my troubled mind.

December 3rd – It was very late when I came home through Brownhills. There was a frost, and the roads, despite having gritted, were glistening in that menacing way winter cyclists know and are wary of.

I’m still rocking he new Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres I fitted a few weeks ago; these revised rubbers are vastly superior so far to there older incarnation, and they’ve been excellent on wet, greasy roads. I wondered what they would be like on ice, so took them for a run up the canal towpath.

They seemed to hold the track well. Only time will tell, but so far I’m very impressed.

Watch out for the black ice folks, it’s a killer.

December 3rd – There’s a lot of grumbling about Christmas lights at the moment. I find it all a bit puzzling, to be honest.

This country voted in an austerity-pushing government, and people are now outraged austerity is affecting things near to them, like Christmas lights. I guess the pitch of such a policy was that it would always apply to others…

I think Brownhills lights are OK, to be honest. They’ll not set the world afire, and Blackpool has nothing to worry about, but they’re cheerful enough. 

Personally, I preferred the lovely window display in the upstairs flat window of a shop in High Street. That seems more about Christmas to me.

December 2nd – High above Town Wharf in Walsall, a curiosity.

On the flat roof of one of the new apartment blocks, a plastic goat. I’d heard it talked about by Dan Slee a couple of years ago, but never got around to looking for it until I saw someone talking about it on Facebook last weekend.

The question is ‘why?’ but probably should more be ‘why not?’

Walsall still has the capacity to surprise and delight…

December 1st – Another piece of architecture that’s bothering me is the old Three Crowns in King’s Hill, Darlaston; another one I pass frequently, for years it was being used by a jig and inspection company, but now seems to be empty. It;s a genuinely lovely building, which underneath the fake timbers and facing really deserves a better future than dereliction and eventual loss.

The trouble is, who would take on such a building?

I feel sad about this one every time I see it. I hope it gets saved.

December 1st – I keep passing this, and often wait at the lights looking at it – and every time I do it irritates the hell out of me.

On the Pleck Road junction in Walsall, where it meets Ida Road and Rollingmill Street, there is a new build block of apartments. Blessed with an aesthetic only a mother could love, it’s not the physical ugliness that bothers me – but the finish of the woodwork, external plumbing and hardstandings.

If this is what the outside quality is like, one can only wonder about the inside…