December 12th – A wet, horrible day, but a remarkable, surprising find – a rosy earthstar.
This curious thing, looking like plasticine or glazed ceramic, is a fungus like toadstools. It’s relatively rare, and I’ve never seen one before. It’s in a bunch of about 5 in various stages of life on a small patch of CLayhanger Common, and I spotted it entirely by chance.
A great find on a very unpleasant day.
December 8th – A grim day in which everything went wrong, including leaving home with a flat camera. At work, I recharged it, but I left for home in steady rain and got as far as High Heath before I felt motivated to use it.
Today, the ride in had been dogged by wind and a mechanical issue, work itself had been a succession of protracted difficulties and conflicts, and the ride home was wet and I was without waterproofs. I stopped in a deserted, wet Green Lane, this desolate view is exactly how I felt.
Tomorrow will be better. It has to be.
December 5th – A day of high winds and blustery squalls, I left it until late afternoon to get some shopping in. Choosing Aldridge mainly so the wind would blow me home, I rode up the canal, but the towpath were so muddy form recent rains that riding them was a chore; the cloying mud stuck to my tyres and jammed in my mudguards. A real battle.
These hardy canoeists made up for it though. A beautiful scene.
December 3rd – I went to work on a grey, threatening, but mostly dry morning, against a steady, but not harsh headwind. There was heavy rain and a gale forecast – so serious, a public Christmas light turn-on event and market had been cancelled in Walsall.
I missed the worst of the rain, and it merely spotted a bit as the wind blew me home. I averaged 19MPH – only the traffic lights stopped me. A remarkable journey in what is also unusually warm weather.
This year has been a bit strange meteorologically.
November 30th – Telford, early in the rain. Not quite fully light. The skeletal, brutalist 80s footbridge and covered walkway at the station is like some strange portal. Ghosts of people, further away than you think; exaggerated perspective and peculiarly yellow lighting.
An otherworldly, slightly unsettling place.
November 30th – New Street again, but early morning feelings rather than late night ones. Seven in the morning, steady rain, not yet clear of the night before.
Something about the light, machinery, wet urban surfaces, overhead wires and signals spoke quietly of urban strength, reassurance, safety, control. Alpha Tower in the distance stood as a fixing to location.
My feelings towards this place are ambivalent these days. But this morning, on the darkest and most miserable of days, something beautiful happened and it took my breath away.
It’s what Birmingham does, and I suspect has always done.
November 29th – An early afternoon loop up to Chasewater of a warm but blowy day caught me in the rain once more. The canal was deserted and everything looked grey; Chasewater was little better.
The wind was such that it drove groups of swans into the shallows over by the dam for shelter, and they didn’t look very happy about it; even the gulls loafed idly in the shallows.
I’m fed up of this weather. There has to be better spell on the horizon. This is grinding me down and making photography very hard!
November 28th – back in Brownhills later that afternoon, during a respite in the rain I headed to get some shopping in. On my way I noted that the lower meadow on Clayhanger Common was flooding and returning to it’s normal winter boggy state, which it’s designed to do. From the Pier Street bridge, I regarded the hardy, wind-buffeted canoeists with admiration.
For a couple of seasons, I wondered why so many craft had been motored at Silver Street at various times. It looks like there’s my answer – and now the Canal and River Trust have clocked that people are mooring here and are after money.
Let’s hope they use the proceeds to clear their marina up… it’s in a terrible state.
November 27th – In Telford, the skies westwards were foreboding, and eastwards more optimistic, but it was to be a terrible afternoon both in terms of work and the weather. The stark beauty of low sun and early winter cycleways was gorgeous, but the western sky wasn’t making idle threats and I would return home in a rainstorm, battling bad connections having had a terrible day.
Sometimes, the omens are not good from the start.
November 19th – At the other end of a crowded journey, the barren beauty of Walsall Station at night from Platform 1. Vaguely brutal 70s red brick architecture, vanishing points, extreme perspective, lights, hard surfaces and a little rain.
It’s that late night feelings thing again.
You can keep your Grand Central new New Street. I’d rather have this, any day of the week.
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