Tag: A461

February 26th – I was thankful for the favourable wind on the way home, but the grey, half-mist half-drizzle was miserable. I normally love this journey, but today, it was dismal. It did, however, have some bright moments; the buzzard spied over the field near Muckley Corner was a long, lucky shot in very poor light, and the snowdrops on the verge at Sandhills are numerous and cheering. 

Mostly, though, the A461 just ground on into the grey afternoon. Come on sunshine, where are you?

April 27th – Prompted by what, I don’t know, but during the day several people reported that they’d seen a gully cleaner on the Lichfield Road at Sandhills. Since I’d been complaining about the state of the drains here for ages, I thought I’d check out the situation. Sure enough, about 60% of the drains are now flowing freely, with one flowing in reverse (clearly a blockage in the intermediate culvert). The worst ones were left untouched, as I guess they need the solid silt removing by some other means. The road had much less surface water, although it still wasn’t great, it was much better. There appeared, however, to be an issue with the other drains in the verge, which was contributing to the surface water considerably. All in all, not a bad result but it would be nice to see them all cleaned and back to functionality.

April 18th – A river ran down the A461 Lichfield Road at Sandhills after a moderate shower. Out of all the storm gullies on the Walsall bound side of the hill, only 2 were flowing freely, all the others were blocked with silt. It seems that Tarmac – the contractors looking after the roads for Walsall Council – don’t like to bother cleaning drains. I’m 100% sure that the jobs are passed on, but in four years, I’ve never got a gully cleaned out. I give up, to be honest. Most of the storm drains on Shire Oak’s main roads are blocked.

April 12th – That’s what I love about spring – the firsts. First snowdrop, first daffodil. First yellowhammer. First house martin. Everything starts over in spring, and so it is with the bluebells. These are my first this year. Sadly, they’re the foreign interlopers rather than the English variety, but they’ll do (the English only have blooms on one side of the stem). They’re growing beside the busy A461 Lichfield Road at Sandhills, just near Brownhills. Now we’ve got bluebells, can my favourite, the wild garlic, be far behind?

February 9th – On the A461 Lichfield Road, between Rushall and Shelfield, a truly remarkable bit of parking. The rear tyre of this car hasn’t made it onto the pavement, but is about two inches clear of the road, too. One assumes the driver is too lazy or incompetent to even park the car properly, let alone the legality of leaving it on the pavement. Sadly, I doubt if a parking enforcement officer will wander this far from the revenue stream in central Walsall….

November 8th – Oddly, a few minutes later, I found myself stood in the rain and dark, experimenting with long exposure shots of the A461 Lichfield Road. I’m not really happy with any of the results, but some are interesting. It’s actually very difficult to catch the essence of traffic at night, and I’m thinking hard about ways to do it.

May 6th – conversely, this handsome house has recently been beautifully renovated. Standing at the other end of Springhill, at the very crest itself, The Willows has a surprising and proud history.

This sensitively restored building was once The Red, White and Blue pub, and latterly a plant nursery. It’s a bit sad that the current name doesn’t hint at the extensive history of a lovely building.

May 6th – A late trundle into Lichfield to get some shopping done. At the northern edge of Springhill, on the A461 Lichfield Road, Ivy House Farm lies semi-derelict.

The tumbledown farmhouse, seemingly already partially truncated at some point in it’s life, is currently up for auction, presumably marked as ’…some renovation required’. There is a second derelict cottage over the fields near the tollroad behind. A interesting mystery.