June 19th – It’s honeysuckle time again. On the southwestern flank of the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood, a large scrub of the delightful climber rambles and spreads its velvet red love to passers by. In a few days, this will be alive with bees and insects, and smell divine. It’s actually huge, too, quite the largest, healthiest patch of the plant I’ve ever witnessed.
If you can, do go check it out. It’s stunning.
April 2nd – Something odd happened on the way home tonight. Spring came to me.
I came back through Walsall – when I entered the railway system at Telford, it was dull and cold. When I emerged, blinking into the light on Platform 1 in Walsall, the sun was oddly warm on my back. It was still bitter, and the easterly that sapped my essence on the way home was worthy of any winter, but I could feel the warmth. Pulling my gloves on in the odd entrance tunnel to the orphan platform, I noted the sunlight shining in from outside. From the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood, it could have been an evening in April.
At last.
I was knackered, but spring is finally tapping on my window. Welcome back, old friend.
March 6th – The guard rails on the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood have been missing awhile. The bridge itself is ageing badly, perilously steep and in poor condition. Following a temporary bodge – cable tying mesh over the missing rails which kept snapping off – locals complained and now, next Tuesday, 12th March 2013, the road will be closed while they are properly repaired. That in itself will be no mean feat, as the supports of heavy angle iron have rusted to dust.
It’s good to see repairs being made, but I can’t help thinking this particular canal crossing can’t be far from the end of it’s useful life. The problem is, it would be so difficult to engineer a solution complying with modern standards, that I can’t ever see it being sorted, to be honest.
February 9th – A grim day. Grim all round, really; not feeling in the best of health, and the weather was overcast, wet and miserable. I’d had a thoroughly depressing couple of hours unsuccessfully fiddling with bikes, and had to nip up to Walsall Wood. In such murky, unphotogenic conditions, it’s difficult to find subject matter, but as I got to Bullings Heath and the Black Cock Bridge, I thought how quant and villagey the area looked. It’s true that riding a bike can lift your mood. From a feeling of darkness and a depression that didn’t seem to want to go, I suddenly felt happier.
Bicyclic antidepressant: cycle one, twice a day.
April 2nd – Working in Telford today meant returning late from Walsall with the wind behind me, a few weeks since I’d undertaken this commute. The wind eased me home, as did the impending drizzle, and my legs found quite a bit of energy from somewhere. Cresting the Black Cock Bridge, I noted how grey it all looked, and how depressing it seemed. Yet it was 6:45pm and still light. That’s a good thing, I guess. I put the camera away, and sped downhill to Brownhills with a less heavy heart.
June 30th – Unusually in mid summer, a night ride. Returning from a drink in Rushall, I returned via Green Lane, Walsall Wood, to see if there were any owls, badgers, bats or deer about. Plenty of bats, but other fauna evaded me. The Black Cock bridge is a notorious feature of the area formerly known as Bullens Heath, being steep, rickety and narrow. It looks even more forbidding at night.
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