Tag: bad weather

March 3rd – Cold, windy. Horrid journeys to work, fast and fun journeys back. It seems we’re in for a blustery spring, but it was light nearly all the way home tonight – another week, and I might get home in the light.

Ah, blessed light.

I’ve been fiddling with the new camera – astoundingly to me, these shots were all handheld (I don’t have steady hands). This one seems more sensitive, if that’s the word, and seems to select a faster shutter in lower light than previous models. I’m liking it a lot.

It was a fair sunset tonight, but clear, and harsh. I was glad to get in.

March 1st – On a distinctly un-springlike day, I headed into Pelsall in the morning, and came back along the canal via Nest Common. The canal here is as stark and beautiful as it every is; a shimmering sky-coloured ribbon stretching off on three directions. However, the journey back – along muddy, churned towpath until I reached the better surfaced part at Ryders Hayes – was awful. 

Walsall Council and the Canal & River Trust are said to be investing, like Birmingham, in canal routes that don’t need surfacing, while ignoring spots like this and the canal through Rushall. It doesn’t make sense to me.

February 24th – Little firsts are the art of getting through winter. Little, tiny victories that mark the passage from darkness to light, and tonight, on my way home from work, it was my first normal-time commute in something approximating daylight, rather than darkness.

OK, it was wet, windy, murky, verging on the brink daylight, but it was perceptibly not dark. A little victory.

The joy of this almost totally took my mind off what an unutterably foul ride it was…

February 22nd – The weather was vile. Windy, with rain and snow that moved horizontally, and the bike was acting up too. It wasn’t a great ride, to be honest, and Chasewater was deserted. 

I noticed the valves were closed again after being opened last week, without too much effect on the overall water level, which is around 300mm from full.

If we get much more of this weather, the reservoir will be full in no time at all…

February 19th – Snatched quickly whilst stopped at the lights, on the commute home 13 hours later. The ring road in Walsall is almost deserted, and it’s raining. Everything is wet, and colours blend and blur in the night. I’m tired. My eyes are sore from fatigue. But the wind was behind me, it was pleasingly warm, and to see the beauty of the wet, urban kaleidoscope was a minor but tangible joy.

February 19th – Still working long hours and not finding much time or energy for anything else, but hopefully things will ease a bit next week. Winter returned with wet vengeance this morning with driving rain and a headwind. I battled my way into Darlaston, which looked grey and lifeless.

At least the chap waiting for his breakfast at the canteen window on Station Street had cover, of sorts.

February16th – The greyness continued, and hung over the morning commute like a portent. Wet, dark and with a building wind, I edged into Darlaston over the River Tame at Bentley Bridge. The flood channel here has never been pretty, but on this awful Monday morning, it had something about it.

Maybe, somewhere downstream, there was a brighter day.

February 13th – I had another stop to make on the way home – Asda. I was so bleary I got scant few of the things I was supposed to get, and if you ever want to know what a supermarket looks like after a riot, do visit Asda in Walsall late on Friday night. It was like a scene from The Day After. Complete with the walking dead – me.

I poured myself liquid down the marketplace, and the lights of the deserted Bridge snagged my attention; the night-time workers were about – posties, shopfitters, sign people – but nobody else. The light, the colour, the wet surfaces. In a moment, this place was precious.

I smiled to myself, and rode slowly, inexorably home. I remember very little of the journey, except it took me 45 minutes.

February 13th – Unlucky for some, it was not a great day for me; I was at work far too late, and I stubbornly remained long after I was any use. Tired, mentally exhausted, I came back from Darlaston in a miserable fug; I’d mislaid something and spent an hour looking, which was bothering me. There was a steady, eroding drizzle and a slow puncture was dogging my progress. Hunger was also on my shoulders.

I rode somnambulently into Caldmore for indian snacks to take home. My usual store of choice was long since closed, but another nearby was open, and I hungrily chose vegetable kebabs, samosa, spinach paneer bhajis and pakora. The sauce was bravely supplied in a plastic bag, which I popped unopened in my travel mug. I wasn’t too fuzzy to risk a saddlebag full of goop, no matter how tasty.

I was still knackered, but I felt brighter. There was food in my saddlebag, and the rain was easing. Maybe I could make it home without stopping to pump up the tyre again…

January 29th – I rode home in a heavy, but short snow shower, which left a light dusting of snow. Heading towards Clayhanger, I stopped on the bridge. I love the interaction between the streetlight and snow, and how the vehicle tracks define the landscape.

Wonderful. I hope we have more snow – I love it. Such an adventure!