October 5th – As I noticed yesterday, the dark evenings are on their way. Once more incontrovertible, it was dark at 6:40pm as I cycled up Clayhanger Road. Grim, dark and for boding, This is what many commutes will be like for the next few months – time to start carrying the gorilla pod again.
October 4th – I was accompanied by a forgotten companion on my return from work this evening – nightfall. It was 6:45pm, and nearly dark when I arrived home. A little bit of a shock to the system. This made photography difficult, as I hadn’t got a tripod or gorillapod on me. Sweeping down a dark and deserted Maybrook Road, the dusk made for an interesting shot with the camera sat on a street cabinet. This part of town – on the Walsall Wood/Brownhills border – always seems deserted. Even in the daytime.
September 30th – A grim and unphotogenic afternoon. I’ve been considering for a few days now, what makes the winter landscape so grim? Lack of greenery, muted colour? Or is the winter light different? As I looked out from Clayhanger Bridge on a previously beautiful view – lush and verdant in summer – I realised the landscape was still green, really. Still lush. But the light that was now dying, wasn’t kind. It was grey and unsupportive of colour. Rather than enhancing nature, it seemed to be muting it. Perhaps that’s the key.
September 30th – A grim, wet and windy day. I went out about 6pm, and enjoyed a spin round a dark and deserted Brownhills. It felt very wintery, but the wet roads sang under my wheels and the unusual solitude on the streets was welcome. In Coppice Lane, Brownhills, I noted the scumbags have been flytipping again; 2 complete leather sofas and at the top, garden waste.
If you pay people to do jobs like gardening or rubbish removal on the cheap, you’re contributing to this problem. It costs everyone money, as our council tax has to pay for the cleanup.
The animals that do this are arseholes. No more, no less.
29th September – A evening spin to Chasewater, and the golden hour was beautiful. Autumn’s coming on apace, now. Great sunset views at Anglesey Basin, Chasewater and, of all places, Tesco car park. Maybe the season isn’t so bad, after all.
September 27th – As I returned along the canal, something remarkable happened. A rainbow formed. In the distance over Hammerwich from the canal, the sky went from blue, to dark, to blue again, and then moved to form the most incredibly vivid rainbow. It lasted about ten minutes, long enough for me to wonder if there really was a pot of gold at Meerash Farm, but then, as quickly as it formed, it dissipated. It left one cyclist transfixed. Remarkably, all this occurred with no rain where I was. Sometimes, you’re just in the right place at the right time, and today, this was the case. I was privileged to see this. Nature, reminding us that it holds all the cards and will perform when she’s ready.
Perhaps autumn isn’t so bad after all.
25th September – It’s damned hard to find decent photos in the rain. Leaving Walsall, I noted that the surface water problem at the Arboretum junction is ongoing. For some reason, whatever they surfaced the new road with, it doesn’t drain well. There seems to be a permeant layer of water of the surface, and that can’t be safe. It’s notably confined to new sections of the road, and I’ve never quite seen this before. Most odd.
Approaching Brownhills, I passed the decaying husk of the Wheel Inn, the lost pub on the Lindon Road, Brownhills. I had hoped something would be done with the building after the fairground people bought the yard behind, but little has changed. Walsall Council have recently been making noises about forcing owners to sort out derelict eyesores: if, as I suspect, the building is owned by Pat Collins Fairs, then that particular enforcement notice would be interesting, to say the least…
23rd September – This is an awful photo, but it was an awful evening. It does, however, show that the flooding problem at Anchor Bridge, Brownhills, has been alleviated somewhat. In very heavy rain, a pool still forms on the southbound side, but of nothing like the severity it was, and I think most of that is more to do with the physics of the road than any drain blockage. It’s taken a long time, and an awful lot of folks to sort this out. Well done to everyone who’s had a go over the years – from councillors to locals.
Sorting stuff like this shouldn’t be that hard…
September 23rd – A foul afternoon. I popped over to a freind’s house to do some bike spannering, and it was raining hard. Brownhills was hardly photogenic… But passing St. James Church I noticed the lights were on and a service was In progress. St. James is a good example of recovered memory – for most of my adult life I’d have sworn it had a clock, that chimed. I’d have put money on it. It was only after photographing it for an article 2 years ago that I realised it had no such thing. What I’d actually been hearing on still, summer nights was the three faced liar on the old Council House.
September 16th – Silver Waters (oh lord, that’s a preposterous name) is coming on apace. Most of the foundations have now been laid, and a show home has positively sprung up on the patch of wasteland off Silver Street, Brownhills. Fortunately, the doom-mongers predictions about the diggers finding the remains of the swine disease/foot and mouth cull from Swingbridge Farm in the 1960s have been unfounded (not surprising, really, as the pits for that were dug adjacent to the farm and are now lying beneath public open space).
I must say, those are massive drains, there. They seem a bit excessive for a relatively small number of dwellings. Wonder what the reason for that is?
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