Tag: 365daysofbiking

#365daysofbiking No through road

December 1st – Green Lane is a major rat run between Walsall Wood and Sheffield, and has been closed for some weeks for drainage work. Theoretically supposed to be reopening the next day, I went to see how the works were progressing.

Oh dear, I don’t think that’ll be open for a while yet. I guess bad weather must have really held them up.

Since there’s no pedestrian way around, looks like I’ll be coming back along the A461 for a week or so yet…

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#365daysofbiking Conical

November 30th – Chasetown has Christmas lights for the first time in a long while too, which is nice to see. Oddly though, their two Christmas trees (which appear identical, which must be a clue to their origin) are artificial, conical arrangements covered in some kind of canvas.

There’s one at usual near the former police station, and one outside the new offices of Chasetown Civil Engineering.

They’re interesting things, not entirely sure I like them but they are very striking.

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#365daysofbiking Fade from grey

November 30th – A misty, murky day definitely not conducive to good photography. It had been very frosty, but by the time I had change to get out with time on my hands, the frost had gone.

I had business in Burntwood and went via Chasewater and Brownhills Common – the dam looked really eerie in the fog. Spiderwebs on gorse caught water droplets and became precious.

A cold, grey but starkly beautiful day.

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#365daysofbiking Fruition

November 29th – Popping up the hHigh Street at teatime, I noticed the first community funded Christmas tree for Brownhills was now up and lit for the season.

This is a real proof of the power of community – volunteers raised the money and paid for the tree to be erected entirely on their own volition and it’s a beautiful testament to the power of community.

Our first Christmas tree in a decade, I think… well done to all involved: Take a bow!

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#365daysofbiking On a green hill

November 29th – I nipped into work for a short while in the morning, and out of necessity, went through Bloxwich and down through Bentley, the sprawling suburb that separates Walsall From Willenhall.

Bentley has a fascinating landmark: A church on a large hill.

Emmanuel Church is a modernist, almost brutalist design by Richard Twentyman in the mid 1950s, and although interesting, I’ve always found it to be a stark, unsettling building. Twentyman was an acclaimed church architect who had also designed pubs and crematoria, so perhaps the stark nature of his work was appropriate.

The church though plays second fiddle to the Bentley Cairn, something I’ve never really stopped to look at before – it’s simply put an extraneous rock with some debate over the actual origin, but it marks the site of three halls which were historically significant. The cairn was restored and enhanced a decade or so ago, and now is a bit of an out of the way curiosity.

The views aren’t bad, but are not quite as good as one would expect, either; interestingly, the green hill with the striking tower atop looks far better from below than the surrounds do from atop it.

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#365daysofbiking All kinds of wrong

November 28th – For once, the trains weren’t too bad.  It was, of course, still a rain-sodden day and I was tired and wanting to be home.

I stood and waited and took three shots of what I could see: The exaggerated perspective and vanishing points – the people, crowding tensely but oddly patient – the train, engorging with people wanting to be home like me – the sleek, dripping machines waiting peacefully beneath their feast of wire.

New Street Station is still, and probably always be a conundrum to me. I both adore it, and loathe it. It’s like a bad mother to me: It may be all kinds of wrong, but it’s still mine.

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#365daysofbiking Waiting to fall

November 27th – In contrast to the cotoneaster, nobody seems to want the sour, hard crab apples growing just up the way from them.

The leaves on the tree have nearly all fallen, and so has most of the fruit, which lies on the ground rotting, untouched even by foxes.

I wonder how bad the winter would have to be before these were eaten by something?

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#365daysofbiking Orange aid

November 27th – In Telford again, more berries, but unlike the holly ones on Monday, these laden boughs of cotoneaster will be very much appreciated by the songbird population.

Cotoneaster are really appreciated by blackbirds who will defend a discovered bush for weeks if need be. The berries are bitter, but laden with sugar and a read aid to the birds over a cold winter.

If the adage about heavy crops of fruit meaning we’re due a cold spell is true, looks like we’re in for. a bad one this year…

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#365daysofbiking Puddled

November 26th – And in Telford, the lift on the Shrewsbury side of the new bridge had failed again, so I had to shoulder my bike and clime up the stairs.

It seems the drainage holes added still haven’t cured the formation of puddles on the deck of this ‘21st Century Bridge of which any town would be proud’.

I wonder if this is the shallow end?

Is it me or is everything connected with modern railways in this country utterly crap these days?

In the place that was made famous by a state of the art bridge, the state of this art is appalling.

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#365daysofbiking A careless display

November 26th – Just lately, local rail travel in the West Midlands operated by West Midlands Railway has been a shambles. Not enough staff, cancelled services, late running. The service this autumn has been atrocious, and little does more to sum up the careless attitude to customer service than the sage of the passenger information board at Blake Street on the Birmingham bound platform.

It’s been out of action now for about 18 months. Possibly longer, and displays an error message with completely the wrong time.

When asked why it has not been fixed, customer service waffle about overhead lines needing to be off to undertake the repairs and other stuff, blaming Network Rail. It doesn’t wash.

It would be relatively trivial to fit a working, temporary display in the safe zone nearby. That the company cannot do this, or make a proper arrangement with Network Rail within 18 months tells us much about the attitude of the operator to its customers, that pretty much they don’t care.

As long as they can blame someone else, who cares that your punters aren’t getting service information?

It might be amusing, but we’re paying for this crap.

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