Tag: bad weather

#365daysofbiking The wind and the willows

February 29th – it seems odd this is the third February 29th in the history of this nearly nine year old journal, but it’s just the way the dates fall I guess.

On the canal at Walsall Wood, another subtle sign of spring – pussy willow catkins. Like the hazel ones, the male flower of the smaller willows.

Bedraggled, wind-buffeted, but in some proliferation. As I’ve noted all week, spring is coming, it’s not holding back. It just needs some decent weather to accelerate the process.

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#365daysofbiking Downtown lights

February 28th – Brownhills High Street. The rain was still perched upon my world as I came home, looking for a takeaway and some solace in the gloom.

A couple of minutes later I met an old pal, we dived into Costa for a coffee, and rolled the years back.

Brownhills isn’t nearly as depressed as it was; things are improving, slowly.

It almost looks beautiful in the rain. Or have I got meteorological Stockholm syndrome again?

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#365daysofbiking Here, there and everywhere


February 27th – The Peter Saville thing. It’s everywhere of late.

Later the same day. The rain didn’t stop, it doubled down and rained harder and more fiercely.

Stood, dripping, waiting for a late train at Telford, the rain shimmering on the glass of the new bridge, catching the lights. The angles and patterns of metalwork.

It felt brutal, if not actually truly Brutalist.

Find out more about why I’m in love with Peter Saville’s work here.

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#365daysofbiking Go with the flow

February 27th – The weather at the moment is almost continually foul.

Everywhere is saturated. The canal overflows are at full capacity, like here at Clayhanger; the towpaths are a long series of conjoined puddles. The roads are filthy, swamped and traffic bad tempered.

Every ride means carefully drying waterproofs and bags on arrival.

I’m used to it now. I don’t even frown when I see the rain.

But we must be due an end to it now, surely? Or at least a cessation in the merciless, continual wind please?

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#365daysofbiking The geometrid

February 26th – Another rainy, grim day. As I returned home from work mercifully early (and of course, sunset is getting later at a pace now) I turned to look back across the Pier street Canal Bridge.

Peter Saville’s designs keep cropping up in my everyday life.

I loved the curves and vanishing points of this.Never really noticed it before.

There’s always something new, even in the most familiar places.

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#365daysofbiking Think pink

February 24th -On Stafford Park, Telford after a thoroughly awful commute nature was doing it’s damnedest to cheer me up.

It actually succeeded. How stunning.

And the rain had stopped, too…

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#365daysofbiking Spume

February 23rd – A blustery circuit of Chasewater was hard work but enjoyable. My fitness is returning but the wind – enough to whip up spume on the reservoir – was making life very difficult.

The skies were good though, and when the sun came out, there was perceptible warmth on my face.

I guess we’re all just waiting for better days now.

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#365daysofbiking Thorn at my side

February 22nd – On a potter to Brownhills, despite the awful weather spring is clearly getting on her throne with fine displays of blackthorn and other early blossom.

These trees by the Pier Street Bridge in Brownhills are putting on a fine display. In late summer there will be a fine crop of bullate and sloe here.

I get the feeling that nature is just waiting for a spot of good weather then everything will explode into leaf…

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#365daysofbiking Outreach

February 21st – In the wind and withering of a horrible Friday night commute, I crossed Bentley Bridge in Darlaston Green, and stopped to answer a text. looking to my left, I thought the cherrypicker lifts in the yard down the canal looked almost prehistoric in the way they caught the yard lights.

Years ago, this would have been a busy canal, with Garringtons drop forging factory either side – the narrows still visible in the distance where there was a drop bridge between the two yards.

Today, it was much cleaner, and quieter, apart from the wind and the sound of rain on the canal.

How times change.

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#365daysofbiking Stuck in the mud

February 18th – One of the more grinding, miserable effects of the tremendously wet year so far has been the constant sea of mud that accompanies any off-road ride: From towpaths to cycleways, every journey is accompanied by damp and filth and the unpleasant, dogged drag through goop.

When things finally dry out a bit it will be so lovely.

But that feels a long way away right now.

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