Tag: 365daysofbiking

May 15th -South Staffordshire is currently littered with oddly placed scaffold towers like this one, either side of the Birmingham Road at Shenstone Woodend. Their placement and purpose has caused some consternation, but there’s a simple explanation. Having upgraded the Ray Hall to Drakelow high voltage feeder line last year, Electricity Alliance are now upgrading the parallel one that also connects to a switching compound at the former Hams Hall station in Warwickshire. The towers – with nets suspended between them – prevent cables dropped from the transmission lines above from falling into roads and railway lines.

I’m wondering if this is a precursor to building the new gas combined cycle power station at Drakelow…

May 15th – I haven’t a clue who Nog is or was, but he scratched his name into wet concrete on Anglesey Bridge, Brownhills, 12 months ago today. Never noticed the inscription before, but I noticed it today whilst pushing my bike up the steps off the canal bank.

Just lately, everyone seems to be talking about synchronicity.

May 14th – Binary Wharf is an oddly named canalside housing development in Walsall Wood. Named after the former home of a computer software company it replaced – Binary House – it’s architecturally quite interesting, with a varied roofline and an odd mix of levels. I was terribly disappointed when it opened that the numbering system was decimal, the only correct numbers to use would should have been 000,001,010,011… Oh, to live at 101, Binary Wharf…

May 14th – A hop out to get some essentials saw me caught in a downpour. Mooching around the canal, I noticed that the remainder of the old railway bridge at the canalside on Clayhanger Common was slowly being reclaimed by nature. Nothing more than the steady hydraulic pressure of organic growth is splitting apart the brickwork and reminding us that nature is really in charge, and it’s got all the time in the world.

May 13th – the flowering of Vetch – the wildflower so common in meadows, in heath grasslands and verges is one of the signs of summer. There are several varieties in the UK, and the most familiar is the yellow and deep crimson variety that grows flat in lawns, often too low for the lawnmower to cut. As kids, we called this ‘Egg and Bacon’. 

This example, spurred on by the recent showers, was proliferating near the bypass bridge at Chasewater Heaths.

May 13th – Finally break the longstanding deer deficit. At the rear of the old Rising Sun Inn, on Brownhills common, I come upon this old doe. I scared her, actually, coming around a blind spot in the track. Clattering feet, snapping saplings, she headed for the thicket where she glared at me, my infernal bike, and chewed solidly.

She looks a bit mad, actually. Since that heron, all the wildlife I see seems to have a vague look of mental instability. Is it a sign of something?

May 12th – not a half mile away, on the Canal Bank near Bentley Bridge cemetery, the rushes are in flower. These vivid yellow water blooms will continue for some weeks, complementing the colour provided by water lilies and other canal bank wildflowers such as orchids. This is the reality of urban wildlife; hidden, often unknown and strikingly beautiful. Get out there and enjoy it.

May 11th – on the way home, I took the long way and cycled up to Springhill along the quiet, leafy Whitacre Lane. Here viewed from the A461 Lichfield Road, Whitacre Farm nestles on the Stonnall side of the hill.

Sadly, it’s a farm no longer; converted into luxury homes some years ago, I remember the soft fruit farm that existed here in the eighties. The large, imposing, blue-brick barn is now a handsome house, yet as a kid, I parked my bike in there while I picked gooseberries. If I did that now, it would be in somebody’s lounge…

May 11th – this morning found me in Telford, early. I find the new town to be a generally unfocussed, soulless place, with no real centre. What it does have, however, is a remarkable quantity of off-road cycle paths. This one crosses the motorway to Priorslee. This network is wonderful – shame it’s almost totally unmapped and not serving a nicer place.