February 6th – A grim commute. It started dry, and with a decent enough day forecast, left the waterproofs at home. On the way to Blake Street, the drizzle intensified and I arrived somewhat soggy. I haven’t had much luck with the morning commutes this week.
There’s still something captivating, though, about wet stations in the half-light. Oh well, here’s to a better day tomorrow. Hopefully.
January 29th – The wind and rain drag on. The day started decent enough, but by midday, dissolved into a morass of squally showers and buffeting winds. With an eye to the wind direction, I got the train back to Walsall and let the wind blow me home, which it did wonderfully. Bullings Heath – the old name for the area around the Black Cock pub and bridge in Walsall Wood glistened in the drizzle, the light reflecting off the wet asphalt.
In a way, it was beautiful, but I wish the rain would stop for a while.
January 28th – The weather continues to be warm and windy. Fighting it coming home from work, it was hard to believe that only a few days before, it was sub-zero temperatures and ling snow. No trace remained as I hauled the bike over Shire Oak Hill. The lights of the pub looked welcoming, and the temptation to pop in for a swift pint was strong.
January 20th – People seem to have their own realities, and nothing has brought out the selfishness and plain nastiness in some people as profoundly as the bad weather.
Ever since the snow came, people have been complaining about, and to, Walsall Council on social media. Horrified that they’ve been delayed, or that driving conditions are bad, they attack the local authority for not gritting, for being unprepared, or lazy. Time and time again I have seen people berate council employees because things aren’t as they expect and that’s what they apparently pay council tax for.
Sadly, the truth is a little more difficult. As a cyclist, I travel slowly. I intersect with gritters on the roads with startling (and often painful) frequency, because they move about twice as fast as me. I have seen them around Brownhills and on all major routes I use frequently, since just before the cold snap started. They have spread whatever the conditions, and pretty much continuously over the weekend. That’s good folk, working hard, in very difficult road conditions, to try and ameliorate the problems caused by the snow.
There is clearly a fundamental misunderstanding about how roadsalt works. It can take hours or even days to take effect, and relies on moisture and the passage of traffic to disperse it. Temperature severely affects it’s efficacy. It cannot deal with fast settling snow. A gritted road may take 24 hours to clear properly, even with continuous application. Road salt is not fairy dust. It doesn’t magically remove ice and snow. It’s a deicer, a slow one, and it’s an aid, not a total solution.
Walsall’s gritting operation costs each household about £2.50 per year.
The thing about using the roads in bad weather is to develop, and hone the skills required. It’s our responsibility to ensure we’re as safe as possible. We can’t abrogate that responsibility totally to a third party just because it snows. The man I watched slide round a corner into a kerb in Little Aston on Friday Morning probably now understands this. A £60,000 Range Rover is only as good as the driver’s skills.
Walsall Council does many things badly. Some things, a few, it does really well. They’ve always been among the best at gritting, and have worked hard to communicate their activities on social media. When met with abuse, petulance or idiocy, the public facing employees have been stoical, polite and workmanlike, often in unpaid, out of hours time.
When I see people being stupid, unpleasant or misguided on this, I will always step in to defend the council and it’s employees wherever I can. So far this weekend I’ve had hate mail, nearly had my Facebook account pulled in an infantile spite attack and been roundly abused by a noted local journalist. None of these people have shown a shred of humility towards those who are actually charged with the job they are expecting to be done.
There’s a widely held belief that gritters are not being sent out; that roads have gone untreated. That the powers that be cannot grit every inch of every road has been met with incredulity. It seems beyond many that the weather currently has control, and whilst we can mitigate it’s effects, nobody can actually make it go away.
This afternoon, at 4pm, on Anchor Bridge, I was passed by the grittier that, on social media 3 hours later, Walsall were being attacked for not sending to treat Brownhills High Street. Further down the road, at Silver Court, a team of council workmen had cleared the snow by hand from the frontage and steps, and then gritted it. At the other end of Brownhills, lorries were returning to the depot for refilling, before leaving again in series.
Meanwhile, people are fretting on Facebook already as to weather their bins will be emptied tomorrow. As far as I’m aware, nobody has died in Walsall yet for the want of an empty dustbin.
It’s bad weather, folks. We used to get it a lot. It’s not the end of days. The mark of humanity should be be grace under pressure, from all of us. Not just those there to serve us.
January 17th – It was snowing quite hard when I came home. Racing another cyclist out of Walsall in that unspoken duel that often happens between two homeward-bound cyclists, we played cat and mouse along the Lichfield Road. Sadly, my younger, fitter counterpart was carrying less stuff (including less middle-aged spread!) and just outclassed me. But he set a cracking pace and I was heading home in good time. At Anchor Bridge, I stopped to admire the snow on the frozen canal. It was settling quite well now. Weather-heads are predicting heavy snow tomorrow, and the world’s going bonkers again…
We’ll see.
January 14th – Well it snowed. A little, no more than an inch, really, and very, very wet; it was pouring with rain as I left for work. Taking care to avoid the school run, I wound my way around the backlanes, taking an undignified delight in the white landscape. I love the snow. Hope we get some more… but of the dry variety. Public transport held up, and there weren’t too many folks driving like idiots. I got very wet, but I had fun. Not bad for a Monday morning…
January 8th – It’s still very mild, and in the morning, I started out into a dull, overcast and hazy day, with a high mist that cloaked the top of the Sutton Coldfield TV transmitter masts. It didn’t bode well, and true to my expectation, the commute home was wet. Why do railway stations always look so dramatic in the night time rain? All those textured surfaces, I guess, and bright lights, I guess.
I think I’ve spent to long admiring stations in the rain, of late…
January 1st – If you’re thinking of traversing Bellamour Lane, between Colwich and Colton, near Rugeley, I’d leave it a couple of days. Under the railway bridge, the road is flooded to some depth. I tried it, but gave up when the water rose up to my crossbar. The road could certainly do with a with some ‘Road Closed’ signs, I certainly didn’t appreciate the u-turn and long journey round.
December 31st – I returned to the top of the Black Path in Brownhills, where I’d accidentally found the flooding on the previous Saturday evening. This time I had a decent camera and could record the fact that, stood in the middle of the pool, was a lit and working street light. I suppose the connection point is above water level, but even still, it seems remarkable. The remainder of Holland Park still seemed rather waterlogged too.
I’m hoping now for a period of stable, dry weather to dry things out a bit. Wonder if I’ll be lucky?
December 30th – I’d been going stir crazy, and the weather was more or less OK when I set out. I went round Chasewater, then up through Hednesford and up onto the Chase. Birches Valley was packed with people, dogs and bikers, despite the drizzle and wind, and so I doubled back up Penkridge Bank to Rifle Range Corner and on to Abrahams Valley for peace, quiet and a chance to do some badger watching in the dusk. Heading back on the A51, I surveyed the floodplains of the Trent. The wind blew me to Rugeley, and over to Breretonhill; but fought me all the way home to Brownhills. A great ride, but the weather was hell.
Hopefully, conditions will steadily improve now.
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