April 5th – You know it’s spring when petals dapple the roadsides and fading daffodils, stick to your tires, shoes and bike and you don’t mind one little bit.
All we need now is some sun and warm weather.
Some things about spring really put a spring in the step.
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April 5th – Telford and Wrekin Council, Network Rail and whoever else spent 10 million pounds on a new footbridge and all they got was this lousy structure that forms huge puddles.
This is brand new. It’s badly designed, badly executed and not nearly fit for purpose.
I’m not a negative person but this is bloody awful.
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April 4th – A break in the rain, and I made a dash for it, mostly avoiding getting too wet, but oh my goodness it was cold.
Not cold enough for snow, though.
Warm enough for spring snowflakes, as I found this clump growing and flowering beautifully at Sandhills. Gorgeous white flowers with delicate green tipped petals, snowflakes look a lot like snowdrops, but are bigger and bushier and flower later.
A real treat on an awful day.
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April 4th – Returning from Birmingham, into a downpour that was totally expected at Shenstone. An hour I waited in the cold just for a cessation in the rain, as there was a headwind and I had no waterproof trousers.
At least I got some work done. Thanks to the mobile internet…
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April 3rd – Too rushed to take many photos today, but pulled up short by a flash of cerise in the Clayhanger hedgerow – blackcurrant blossom. Always beautiful, mostly overlooked.
On a grim, cold and windy day a real fillip.
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April 2nd – Since it’s spring, I note that the aggressively begging Canada geese are back on the canal near Clayhanger Bridge. Although they’d both clearly been grazing the freshly mown grass on the towpath, they were both hungry and refused to let me pass until I gave them a treat.
Curiously, this seems to be their permanent state, no matter how much food they have…
Fortunately, I’ve been anticipating their reappearance and had some seed in my pocket ready for these shameless muggers.
I’m glad to see some traditions holding steady.
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April 1st – It’s the 8th birthday of this blog today – on April 1st, 2011 I started by joining the #30daysofbiking project egged on by Renee Van Bar, top cyclist, pal and Dutchperson. I enjoyed it so much, the only thing that ever stopped me riding was a very bad case of food poisoning at New Year 2012. Apart from those lost 2 days, I’ve cycled every day since then.
That’s cycling for 2,920 days out of the last 2,922.
I’m quite pleased with that. When I tell the #30daysofbiking people about this they always treat me like some kind of oddity.
Every day I get on my bike and ride somewhere, and take you readers along with me. Thanks for joining me and sharing my journeys, be they work, errands or pleasure.
And what better time to mark this achievement than to note the fresh white beam leaves of a new year? Gorgeous in their ridged perfection, they are beautiful and I was pleased to see them near Clayhanger Common.
Cone on then, grab your coat – I’m up for another year of this. Are you? Hop on.
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March 31st – Well, here in the UK is the start of British Summer Time, for me the real start of spring.
I hate the clocks going back in autumn and the self-imposed hour advance in darkness. It’s a silly, pointless habit we started decades hence and have never had the balls to stop.
As I crossed the M6 Toll motorway near Hammerwich at well past 7pm, the sun was setting dramatically behind the forest of streetlights and made a movie scene of the traffic upon it.
I’m so pleased to have the light back in my life.
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March 31st – Up to Chasewater on an evening ride. I’d been resting and didn’t feel like going far – particularly as it was bitterly cold, even in the sporadic sun patches.
I noticed this small heard of 5 deer on the opposite side of the canal from Anglesey Wharf, where they’d been recorded swimming a few days previously. These deer love water, or so it would seem.
They were quite tolerant of my company, unusually enough, and even walked towards me, the better I guess to check me out for maybe a treat or two (Sorry ladies I had nothing).
Catching them jumping forward and back over the fence was a real treat. For such large animals they are so very graceful.
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March 30th – Spotted on a recently cropped tree stump near the canal by Birchills locks, some impressively horrid-looking slime mould fungus that looks for all the world that it might spring to life and try to take the country by force at any minute.I’ve not seen any of this stuff for years. It was clearly living off the tree sap and the general moisture on the stump.
Stomach-churning and fascinating at the same time.
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BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 