Tag: bad weather

January 8th – Again, handheld shots. This camera is amazing for this – and I’m noticing the daylight shots are pretty good too. Sorry, I’ll stop prattling about cameras soon, I promise. but it’s a long time since a piece of tech has had this much of an impact on me.

It was an absolutely evil commute home – the suck this season seems to be still petering out and there was some absolutely awful driving going on, and a constant drizzly mist that I believe it’s fashionable to call ‘mizzle’. It searched out every not quite done up zip and pocket. I was soaked, cold and unhappy.

As I came through Walsall Wood the lights and mist interacting with each other fascinated me. I’m not a huge fan of the Walsall Wood pithead sculpture, as is fairly well known, but in the mist and football training floodlights, it looked eerily impressive this evening. 

As to the footballers, their dedication was impressive. It must have been horrid out in shorts.

January 8th – Off to work on a miserable, grey and cold morning. I hit the canal in Walsall to avoid the morning crush hour and was accosted in Pleck by a very cross character demanding food. Sadly, my supply of corn was in another jacket, and the swan who was so aggressively begging showed it’s displeasure by repeatedly pecking my feet.

Of course, the swan was not starving, but urban swans are very lazy and accustomed to the high life, and when loafing in ice-free swim holes near bridges on cold days, they have little better to do that harass passers by for tidbits. I suspect the policy works best on passing mothers and fathers with children, whose guilt twanged, will come back with food.

The ice itself wasn’t severe. Moorhens and coots skittered about on it, but I doubt it would have supported the portly resplendent girth of your average drake mallard. 

On the wonderful Dru Marland Canal Ice scale, I guess it was somewhere between IC2 and IC3. Check Dru out here: she’s wonderful.

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January 1st – Something odd has happened and I haven’t really register why. 

As I passed the canal overflow at CLayhanger Bridge in the darkness, I noticed it was very noisy indeed, and that the canal was really full and overtopping considerably. 

I find this puzzling – we’ve had a fair bit of rain, but not that much, surely? Or have I missed it all?

When the overflow is running at full blast it’s a lovely noise and a fascinating thing, almost hypnotic to watch.

I just can’t see where all the water’s come from…

January 1st – Oh hi 2018, where did you spring from? Not yet back at work and sunset already past 4pm. You can stay, new year, you can stay.

Well, the Canon GX7 is a remarkable bit of kit if I’m honest. I’d been home all day with guests and family stuff to do, and nipped out in the evening on an errand. I found Brownhills and Clayhanger somnambulant, deserted and desolate. It had been raining. It was very windy. I was feeling, if I’m honest, low.

Then I got to playing with this camera. My goodness, I think I’m in love. Some familiar muses here, from the otherworldly portal of Silver Court and it’s ethereal cashpoint glow to the dystopian Ravens Court, I’m going to have some fun with this one. Oh yes.

Unexpected clarity on what could have been a really low evening.

December 29th – Winter is a normalisation process for me. I enter it, kicking and screaming and resistant, headlong into the darkness; I fight my way through the suck, the suck that is the autumn commute, and by the time I emerge blinking and dazed from Christmas, I’m sort of used to it. 

I’ve got used to the absence of light – which is OK now as it’s returning; I’ve acclimatised to the cold; and I’ve learned once more to look for oddities and interesting images in low-light urbanity.

Silver Court in Brownhills does Architecture and Morality. Peter Saville has nothing to fear.

Meanwhile, I trundle towards new year still nursing a bad shoulder and dreaming of warmer days…

December 28th – It’s rare I’ve seen roads this hazardous.

Many of the backlanes as I returned at sunset, where gritters can never be expected to reach were thick with lurking black ice. On the ice stud tyres with lower air pressure I was sure-footed but careful; in a car or on a motorbike, hitting this at even moderate speed and braking would have you in the hedge.

Fine on the bike, when dismounting several times I slipped on foot.

This is of course the kind of weather we used to get every winter, but in recent years have been relieved of, so take care folks, particularly if on two wheels.

I know the forecast was to warm up overnight with rain, but this is dense, thick ice that will be well lubricated with meltwater in the following 24 hours.

Take care folks.

December 27th – Still suffering with the shoulder, I went for a short ride to Tesco after darkness fell.

This period – between Christmas and New Year – can vary in character immensely. It can vary from being wonderful (in decent weather) to being deadly dull if the weather is bad. I’m not feeling anything much at the moment, as I’m still recovering from the enervation of work recently. 

Looking out at the lights of the Watermead Estate from the canal at Silver Street, I was hoping for good weather and a quick recovery.

December 26th – I headed to Chasewater, which was brooding and quiet. 

Quiet that is, apart from the bickering, squabbling flock of waterfowl of every shape and size gathering around the boardwalk balcony as someone fed them seed.

The water boiled with desperate pecks and defensive wing flaps. There were fights, squabbles, pecked heads and nipped tails.

We all love these lakeside clowns. But man alive, they have no manners…

December 26th – The Boxing Day weather was altogether better, but still somewhat grey and overcast with that keen wind. Again, bad weather was forecast for the evening, with heavy rain and even snow predicted. 

I slipped out at lunchtime into a grey landscape, and was encouraged to find these bright honey fungus clumps growing on an tree stump on the Black Path.

Some days, the mere sight of something natural and bright is enough to improve your day.

December 25th – As I returned towards Brownhills the rain got heavier and heavier. My waterproofs were working well, but it was cold, I couldn’t see due to the rain in my face and everywhere was sodden.

But if felt like the best ride I’d had for ages.

Something about the harsh weather, darkness and wind mingled, and made me feel alive.