Tag: 365daysofbiking

December 7th – it was a beautiful afternoon with a very unpleasant wind, but the sun and commons of Brownhills were a joy to behold. The heaths and scrub glowed beautifully, as did the canal embankments.

These days it’s hard to imagine these beautiful places have a harsh, lingering industrial legacy.

Looking for deer near the site of the lost Coombe House, at Coppice Side, I spotted this monitoring well, a int of a none-too-pleasant past; this is the edge of a former landfill and boreholes like this are regularly unlocked and ‘dipped’ to monitor contamination. The EX symbol warns of an explosive gas hazard – methane, mostly, from rotting refuse buried underground.

This is a problematic site and will require monitoring for many years to come. 

I looked up from it to see the backside of a young hind disappearing into the the copse…

December 7th – I don’t remember Brownhills having the waterfowl when I was a kid that we have now – swans, mallards, coots, canada geese and more all dwell on the canals, pools and waterways, often aggressively hassling walkers for food.

I love these comical birds and their antics. Today at Chasewater, with the boating lake still dry,the residents were crowding the southern shore around the castle, jonesing for scraps and seed – so greedy, they didn’t even mind the presence of a dog.

Down by the watermead, an aggressive beggar blocked my right of way and pecked my tires.

I think they’re wonderful…

December 6th – Nice to see the water level rising at Chasewater again. The Nine-Foot Pool is linked to the main lake by a balancing culvert, below the level of the main dam channel. This is replicated at the same level by a drain culvert that’s usually closed opposite. A month ago, the water was clear of the portal, it’s now over half way up. 

The depth gauge on the pier has been removed, so all I have to go on is heigh to submerged features, but I’d say we’ve gained 300-400mm in a month or so and are now about 1000mm of full. A winter’s rain will soon see that full again.

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…