September 9th – Returning to Brownhills via Green Lane on the Walsall Wood/Shelfield border, I noted flytipping here was on the increase. After a relatively quiet summer with few incidents, the arseholes are back. Sadly, I can’t report these dumped window frames to the council as they’re on private land. It’s clear the idiots who did this just smashed the gate open with their truck. The same gateway has the remnants of other’s flytipping also.

Please think before you employ a very cheap workman. One of the ways they can be so cheap is to flytip, like this. Think on.

September 9th – I’d attended the Bandstand Marathon event in Walsall Arboretum, and had a great time. What made the occasion wonderful was it’s relaxed nature, with people drifting in and out and from place to place within Walsall Arboretum as the mood took them. Also wonderful was the fact that bikes were allowed. This led to a good bit of bike watching on my part, as I always welcome the chance to eye up another rider’s steed. It was late in the afternoon when I spotted this fine tandem. I didn’t get to see who owned it, but what a fine thing it is… there simply aren’t enough tandems being ridden these days.

September 8th – A great sunset. I’d been stuck in all day working, but my sunset escape was slightly hampered by forgetting my trusty camera, so I was restricted to my phone. Not too bad, I guess, but it didn’t capture a glorious golden hour around Stonnall and Brownhills quite how I would have liked. There was a delicious slight chill, and the sun was low any golden. A wonderful end to a lovely day. These days must surely be numbered now…

September 8th – This is a relic of a different time, and most people never, ever notice it. This barcode sign, fixed to a lamp post on the Chester Road in Brownhills, just down from the Shire Oak, is a remnant of a system devised in the the eighties and implemented in the nineties for automatically assessing road maintenance. Surveying vehicles would drive the roads, checking the surface, just as they do now, but in the absence of cheap, accurate GPS, onboard systems looked for markers like this. Upon registering one, the recorder then reset a distance counter. The marker sign was read automatically, and the location of a defect being recorded by the distance from the last marker seen. Thus repair vehicles could locate faults the same way. Each sign gave a unique number. The whole network was obsolete in less than a decade, but the signs remain, puzzling anyone who notices them. 

September 7th – It had been a gruelling week. In Leicester for most of it, I’d had enough. The weather had been great, and I’d missed it by being holed up indoors all week. I escaped early on Friday afternoon, and endured a sleepy commute home on hot, sweaty trains. At Shenstone, I emerged in fresh air and sunshine, and immediately headed up Church Hill to the churchyard. I love Shenstone Churchyard, it’s overgrown air of neglect and nature’s reclamation softens a church whose dark, Victorian gothic I’ve never been fond of. It’s a peaceful place, and although I don’t like the church, I admire it and it’s bold architectural ambition, replete with vulgar gargoyles. I felt relaxed, already.

September 7th – I catch the train from Nuneaton to Leciester sometimes with a chap called  Igor. Igor is into all kinds of bikes, both bicycles and motorbikes. This madcap Lithuanian likes his steeds rough and ready: he rides a battered, but well-maintained fixed wheel most of the time, but on special occasions, for example Critical Mass rides, he gets out his tall bike. Home made from two frames, this is a classic of the genre, and it is ridable with practice. Tall bikes are great fun, and beloved of urban cyclists who often knock them up for kicks… just another wonderful tribe in the patchwork of the cycling scene. They did once have a practical use: European lamplighters used to make them to make their duties faster and easier. A lovely thing, and a really nice chap, too. Bonkers and wonderful at the same time.

September 6th – I don’t really want to think about this, but that’s remarkable scaffolding on the side of the former Midland Hotel on the corner of Colmore Row and Church Street in Birmingham. I can’t imagine how you even begin to erect something like that. My admiration for those who do is unbounded. Ugh.

September 6th – in Birmingham early evening, I spotted this fine and clearly well-loved steed locked up outside the Odeon on New Street. A great example of British engineering, Moulton are a design icon. This is a folding bike full of technical genius and innovation, this example has a Rohlhoff gear hub, one of the best such hubs ever produced. It may look odd, but this is a fine bike with a devoted, cult following. A joy to see.

September 5th – the fruiting will soon be upon us. Already, I’m seeing early ripening and falls from wind damage and squirrels. The sycamores growing alongside the road at Sandhills, Shire Oak are heavy with their unique spinning seeds, and the beeches have already shed a few nuts. I’m already collecting these, as I do every autumn, for spreading on wasteland and hedgerows as I cycle. More about my guerilla planting later in the season…