Tag: Brownhills

November 15th – While capturing Morris, the lights of the former Brownhills Council House – The Parkview Centre – caught my eye. It was an interesting original building – not handsome or beautiful, but a tour-de-force of civic pride in a growing town made prosperous by coal and bricks. The brick legacy is reflected in the light terracotta masonry, and engaging detail around the windows, doors and eaves.

Sadly, up until recently, the hundred year old clock has neither been accurate nor reliable, and is affectionately known as the ‘three-faced liar’ to locals.

Recently, the timepiece has been refurbished following welcome work instigated by the Brownhills Local Committee, with new mechanisms and seems to be holding time well; it was a mere minute fast in this picture.

Unfortunately, the civic pride the building and clock conferred has been utterly destroyed by the hideous, architecturally lazy and cheap extensions added in the last decade to make this landmark suitable as a health centre and library.

A more botched, unsuitable conversion would be hard to find.

November 15th – It had been a long day, the energy was low, and I didn’t have much time. I spun up the High Street at teatime and rode the backstreets for a bit. Returning, I looked at something thats so familiar, I rarely pay it much attention: Morris, the Brownhills Miner. Much as I feel uncomfortable with the extravagance in a faltering town, I do love him. John McKenna’s work in drafting all those fragments, then welding them together in a finite-element model like this is stunning, and always has been. So much better than the laser cut by numbers tat in Walsall Wood, this took a really skilled artist a huge amount of time to design, facilitate and build. I just wish the blue lights didn’t make it look so cheap.

Morris is such an obvious and cliched subject, I’ve only rarely featured him here, but it’s worth it, once in a while, just to share him. The politics and cost aside, it’s a terrific thing.

December 13th – Further along the canal,I played again with night photography. Interesting that the lack of moonlight tonight made for such grainy images, but I like them, all the same. I hated it at first, but I’m quite getting to like the ghost-flats in Brownhills. The colour comes alive at night. 

November 13th – Heading home from work late again, I hit the canal for a bit of a mental challenge. It’s been a hard couple of days, and night riding in a darker than usual environment is really good for clearing the head. I wait until I get to a dark spot, then kill the lights for a bit. It’s great fun.

This image is taken without flash, and this is how it looks from the bike.

The front light I’m using at the moment – a Hope Technology Vision R4 – is great, and bright enough to stun a badger. Here, it’s on the lowest of three ‘trail’ settings, and it’s more than adequate for tiding in woodland at night.

As soon as the weather clears, going to try it out on the Chase one evening…

November 1st – On the other hand around by St. Jame’s Church, things were atmospheric in a different way. None of the street lighting in the paths through the church grounds is working, and the area is dark, peaceful and atmospheric. The photography was poor, but I liked the shadows, the sodium light and the otherworldliness. Must come back and do this with a better camera.

October 24th – At the other end of the day, I came back at 6pm, and noticed it was already coming on dark. I stopped briefly at Shire Oak to sort my lights out properly, and reflected on the fact that next week, after the clocks go back, I’ll be doing this in the dark. I’d better start remembering my tripod…

I hate this time of year with a passion.

October 13th – After the rain had passed. It’s been a grim weekend, really; the weather has been atrocious, and I’ve not got any miles in to speak of, but I also felt flat. I’ve been pretty low now for a few days, and I guess it’s the comedown after a good summer. I’m not feeling the cold, but I’m feeling the loss of light desperately. I’d made plans for a ride or two this weekend, and not even entertained the possibility that the weather might prevent it. I suppose I got out of the habit. That’s what a good summer does.

Today, I spent the day getting things done I’ve been meaning to for a while, writing and reading. The rain more or less cleared by 6pm, so I went for a silent spin around Clayhanger, the old railway line and the canal, before doubling back through Brownhills. Other than the odd passing vehicle I didn’t see a soul, and it was warm and peaceful. Everywhere was drenched, and the world felt oddly silenced, like it was tired, or just fed up of the rain and now glad it stopped.

I know how it feels. Autumn is always really, really tough for me, but this one is really getting me down. It’s like sand in my gears, I feel it eroding me.

October 12th – It’s quite hard to take photos on such a rainy day. You find all the good pictures are facing the rainfall, and because the light is poor, you need long exposures, usually resulting in the lens gathering raindrops. I stopped on the Pier Street Bridge to check out the golden streetlight on the canal surface, and managed to keep the lens dry enough to capture the narrowboats in their moorings. Spinning round and interested in the combination of light, wet surface and steelwork, I didn’t realise I had gathered the raindrops. But they worked out quite well, really.

October 12th – Lower than a snake’s knees. I had a mountain of other work to do, the rain was pouring most of the day and the autumn blues were really biting. I couldn’t get it on to write, or get myself organised. It’s fair to say I was as miserable as sin.

I went out as dark fell early, and shot up the canal to Chasewater in heavy rain. I blasted through puddles and threw the bike round corners and inclines to try to get my mojo back. It worked, for a fashion. 

I noticed at Newtown near the A5 that the anti-vehicle gate – swinging unlocked for the past 6 or 7 years – has been wired shut with barbed wire by someone. This is not good – folk in mobility scooters do come down here and the gates are supposed to be locked with RADAR keys. I’ve never really been sure what purpose this one serves, anyway, as it doesn’t prevent motorbike access from either of the adjacent bridges. 

I’m a bit concerned about this.

October 11th – One of the odder fruits of autumn is beech mast. Beech nuts have a pleasant flavour if chewed, with a green, dark and astringent taste; they grow in a prickly, hard rough burr husk that falls from the tree after opening. Since a mature beech is of a considerable size, the mast litter under such a tree is often deep, and has a distinct crackle when you walk or ride over it.

There isn’t a hint of moisture in the husks, which are hard, and they put one in mind of something prehistoric, perhaps the scales of some long-extinct dinosaur.

This example, along with several others is growing along the Lichfield Road at Sandhills. They are lovely trees.