May 1st – meanwhile, on the other side of the recreation centre playing fields, this sight to gladden the heart. New leaf growth, heralding another summer of green trees and warm days.
Bring it on. It’s been a long winter.
Tag: 365daysofbiking
May 1st – Welcome back to the old Oak Park bowling green. This old, neglected facility – overlooked by the bright, perfect club green in the middle-distance – has been a pond since at least last November. Now spring is here, and drier weather, it’s drained and the grass is growing again.
It’s sad that nobody seems to care for this once pristine public space.
April 30th – I see someone has been busy renewing all the footpath signs around Jockey Meadows and Coppice Woods off Green Lane, Walsall Wood, which is great. The new ones are lovely wooden jobs, well made. Excellent stuff.
I notice they make a specific and accurate distinction between public footpaths and permissive footpaths. This difference in status is crucially important and sadly little understood by many walkers.
Nice to see this – wonder how far the signage extends?
April 30th – Spring really is here. I’ve waited a very long time for it, but today, I noticed the trees at Blake Street coming into leaf.
There is nothing I can really add. Is there really anything more beautiful, hopeful and optimistic than this?
April 29th – In contrast, old British Rail. Where else would one find a springtime shadow like this? Tyseley may be down at heel, but it has a real, old-school charm.
April 29th – Birmingham New Street – new start? Well, it’s bright, and smells of resin, I suppose. It also smells heavily of engineering compromise, forced retail opportunity and bodge.
My first experience of the much vaunted new station access way was this morning, and after all the hype, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s very much unfinished, and some aspects of the project show quite bad judgement.
This is no longer a station, but is a shopping centre with railway platforms. Everything is quite a bit longer to get to than before, and the access points funnel crowds carefully past the new shop units. The platforms themselves remain as narrow and cramped as ever, but with new escalators and lifts that go direct between concourse and platform, instead of via the subway. Sadly, they’re tiny, unable to accommodate a bike and pushchair at the same time, or my bike lengthways. This is dreadful.
The new concourse is nice, the light is pleasant and it’s quite airy. I’m not keen on the stone flooring, but each to his own. The cafe looks nice, and the information up there was good, unlike the platforms where a mixture of old, incorrect signage and new stuff just confused people.
The ticket barriers are much better, and access with a bike is OK even when crowded. However, the exit in Stephenson Place is bizarre, and doubles the length of the journey to Moor Street, meaning I’ll no longer make tight connections.
My advice to anyone planning to park a bike in racks there and travel is don’t do it. There are woefully few racks, stuck in a dark corner of the Moor Street access subway, a while away from the station. Although covered by CCTV, the Sheffield stands are only bolted down. An industrious pair of scallies with a spanner and some bottle could clear those stands of bikes in minutes. This is unforgivable.
On the whole it’s nicer, but functionally more awkward in many ways. It’s much more walking to get in and out, and I wouldn’t fancy it with limited mobility. The architecture is nice, and they’ve worked hard to make a space with no natural light more human-freindly. But the pokey lifts, poor access to Moor Street and focus of retail jarr with me a little too much.
It’ll be interesting to see how things develop.
April 28th – I’ve not really studied this old, derelict mill on the canal at Rugeley before, but it’s quite fascinating, actually. Built in 1863, it’s older than I expected, and I’m interested in its history. Most intriguing are the metal canopies installed awkwardly below the upper row of windows. Wonder what their purpose was?
April 28th – The weather seems to be in regression again. Horrid winds and overcast skies accompanied me as I cycled out via Chasewater to Cannock Chase. My ribs were still painful, but there’s no sense in avoiding it; have to keep moving to get better. Despite the weather, nature is getting on with things. I noticed the inseparable pair of Grebes near the south shore of Chasewater, and a first for the year, a huge group of very, very young ducklings on the canal at Rugeley (for some reason, all my pictures of them were awful, but there were at least 14 in the group).
Let’s hope the sun shines for them soon.
April 27th – It’s true what they say, the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. This young lamb – one of the small flock at the Big Tasties smallholding between the canal and the A5 at Newtown, Brownhills, expertly squeezed his head through the wire mesh to reach the greenest shoots.
April 27th – Still sore, I slid out in the afternoon and checked out the canal to Wharf Lane. Just at the old quarry access road there, I noticed a few white hyacinths growing there. They smelled divine, and were gorgeous in the sunshine.
You don’t see many of those in the wild. I’d guess they’re the result of dumping garden waste.
Beautiful, whatever the origin…
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