Tag: 365daysofbiking

#365daysofbiking Living on the skyline


Tuesday February 16th 2021 – Time for a favourite tree update.

The tree I love most of all is this particular horse chestnut, visible clearly on the skyline at Home Farm, Sandhills from the Wyrley and Essington Canal at Catshill, not more than 100 yards from Anchor Bridge.

I love it’s shape, the way it punctuates the rural landscape here, right on the very interface of the urban West Midlands with rural South Staffordshire.

It’s also my gauge of the seasons. I follow it’s colours as it weathers the the year: At the moment it is resolutely bare, but it will be in bud, and soon, from my distant towpath vantage point, I will see the familiar sheen of bright green emerge, before it comes into full leaf.

Usually it lags behind the fields and hedgerows, always the more eager neighbours, and so it is this year, with the field between us bright green with fresh crop growth.

I live for this view, this skyline. And that tree.

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#365daysofbiking A fleeting visitor

Monday February 15th 2021 – One of my most beloved spring flowers, one that was also one of my mum’s favourites too, is the humble aconite.

These small, yellow, woodland flowers are not terribly common, but there, if you look really hard. They don’t last long, a couple of weeks in flower, tops, with only a few days at their peak, but they’re well worth catching.

These, just past their best, were spotted growing under trees on the Hortonwood cycleway in Telford, in a spot one would normally pass without noticing.

I’ve passed by that spot many times – and all that while they’ve probably been trying to get my attention. Poor things…

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#365daysofbiking Roadside delicacy

Sunday February 14th 2021 – The snowdrops are shaping up excellently this spring, I must say. I had thought the cold weather might stunt or harm them, but that’s not the case.

Coming up a very windswept and damp Barracks Lane, these delicate little flowers growing beside the vet’s paddock at Warrenhouse were just the beautiful thing I needed to see on a grey, late winter Sunday.

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#365daysofbiking Cervine suggestion

Saturday February 13th 2021 – It’s a fact that in the Brownhills and the wider South Staffordshire area, on the fringes where urbanisation becomes rural, red deer are now present in large numbers, and often become victims of traffic collisions.

This is particularly true around Chasewater, which has several large, itinerant hears of these human-tolerant beasts, so it’s been necessary to put up warning signs for road users.

I do wonder if, in a cruel twist of fate, this one on Pool Lane was knocked sideways by a leaping stag…

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#365daysofbiking Harsh days indeed

Friday February 12th 2021 –  It’s been a hard week on the bike – cold, grim days, ice under the wheels and rain and snow.

Some weeks of commuting are like war: You push on, enduring them, trying not to become a casualty, stoically going forward as much as you can.

I was glad it was Friday and this week of bitter riding had passed. All I need right now are sunny days – even if cold – and a sight of some decent signs that this harsh season will end.

I was glad to be nearing home.

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#365daysofbiking Mind how you go, now


Thursday February 11th 2021 –  We’re in an odd time of snow, with showers every day but little actually settling much. What there is, is powder and pack ice and I’m impressed with how well the Continental Top Contact II Winter tyres are handling it. For a non-studded tyre, grippy and trustworthy.

Which is just as well, it’s lethal out there.

Mind how you go, folks.

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#365daysofbiking The dead zone

Wednesday February 10th 2021 –  Still very cold, I had to call in to Walsall on my return from work.

This is at a shade before 6pm on a regular weekday.

Normally this would be busy with commuters, people grabbing a drink or groceries on the way home.

This is pandemic Britain. Haunting, beautiful, but utterly incomprehensible.

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#365daysofbiking Ice magic

Tuesday February 9th 2021 –  It was very, very cold. There was periodic, not really settling snow but continual sub zero temperatures, and hedgerows near puddles around the area like this one in Green Lane had become ice grottos.

You don’t see this much: Last time I’d seen one this good was a decade ago at Stubbers Green: Every time a vehicle passes, it splashes water onto the vegetation, where it ices up.

Beauty, even in the harshest days.

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#365daysofbiking to the point

Monday February 8th 2021 –  About the only thing the pandemic has been good for has been the re-emergence of political graffiti.

It’s everywhere – the angry, the conspiracy theorists, even satirists are having a go. They’re all a bit rusty but it’s coming along nicely.

Here at Catshill Junction, just on the bridge, some disaffected soul has expressed themselves. Blunt and to the point.

Generous offer but I’d rather not, cheers.

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#365daysofbiking Foreboding

Sunday February 7th 2021 –  Out on a short ride up to Aldridge, it was bitingly cold and I could sense winter coming in again for another go.

I don’t mind the cold; it’s life affirming and just part of life’s pageant, after all, but I’m aching for this winter to end. The foreboding told me my relief would still some way off.

The canal was grey and the towpath hedgerow still very much of the season, and the ride was hard work.

Oh well, while you’re marching you’re not fighting…

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