Tag: 30daysofbiking

September 23rd – The old boatyard and basin at Ogley Junction have a chequered history, really. Once the home of a commercial boatyard, the truncated stub of the closed Lichfield and Hatherton canal is now being rented out for private narrowboat mooring, and is also in use as a work yard for British Waterways maintenance crews. Hopefully one day, the canal will once again extend from here to Huddlesford, near Whittington, but for now it stops at The Long Pound. Quite what’s going on with the half-car on the trailer is anyone’s guess…

September 23rd – Taking a breather round Chasewater late afternoon, I happened upon a small group of wild red deer. These majestic animals are a common sight on the heaths and grasslands of Brownhills. This group consisted of five does, who stood there defiantly watching me as they cropped on the grass.

September 22nd – There’s no excuse for this – it’s irritating the hell out of me. Gentlemen, I wish you success in your new venture, but for heaven’s sake please learn the name of our town. That’s Brownhills. With an ’s’. There’s something awfully off-putting when you set up a business, name it after the town it’s in and sometime later you discover you’ve spelt it wrong. Get a grip.

September 21st – catching up on the news feeds on the train on the way home, I picked up an interesting fixmystreet report about a field in Engine Lane, Brownhills being cleared of scrub. Since I had to pop into Tesco anyway, I thought I’d swing by and take a look. I was quite surprised to sees the field had been efficiently cleared and all the vegetation was now in a pile. There’s a blog article speculating on the possible reasons for this on my main blog.

September 21st – The next morning, all was right with the world again. The sun was kind, if not terribly warm, and the rain had stopped. The Arrow Valley looked misty and green again – but I wondered how long it would last with the winters drawing in and the autumnal equinox due soon. These really are the end-days of the summer warmth. This time of year is so bittersweet.

September 20th – Had I known what I would face on the commute home, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time fretting about the river. Halfway into my journey to Redditch railway station, it started to rain. By the time I got to the train, it was raining really quite hard. Luckily, I’d come prepared and had my waterproofs on, but the mostly uphill journey (I was running a tad late) and some mechanicals with the bike made this journey a tad trying.

September 20th – I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the River Arrow through Redditch was running very low. It seems to have picked up with recent rains; looking at the submerged vegetation on either side, it’s risen a couple of inches in recent days. Little did I realise that later that day, it was to get a further boost, and I’d be cycling homewards in a rainstorm. Such is life.

September 20th – An innovative approach to flytipping. Load all your shit into a wheelbarrow, push it as far away from roads as you can get, then just dump the perfectly good barrow and the rubbish. Sorted. This scumbag’s rubbish lay by the Arrow Valley Cycle Trail in Redditch for less than a day; a quick phone call to the  relevant council and it was all cleaned up. Top work – I just hope the arseholes left some identifying material in the heap…

September 19th – I remember when love was nothing more than a handful of sticky conkers. Come to think of it, it hasn’t changed much… It’s programmed into the DNA of every bloke in the UK not to pass a horse chestnut on the ground without picking it up. In Brownhills as a child, the only conker tree worth a light was by the bus stop at the bottom of the parade; come this time of year the poor thing was battered half to death. Little did we know that a couple of miles away in the lanes of Stonnall and Shenstone, the shiny nuts were so plentiful that they were lying thick on the ground. The Brownhills tree has since been lost to disease, but I always wondered if it recognised the kids torturing it. ‘I remember your dad. He was a lousy shot with a stick, too…’

September 19th – Hopping off the train at Shenstone, I took a flyer down St. John’s Hill. This is a remarkable place in autumn, and the trees were just beginning to put on their autumn cloaks. Even in high summer, this place is shady and cool. As a kid, I sheltered from many a summer storm here, against all common sense. This is a gorgeous little corner of Staffordshire.