Tuesday March 9th 2021 – It’s a little bit warmer, a little bit lighter later, and it seems to have finally stopped with the continual drizzle.
As a consequence, the towpaths and trails are drying out, and the riding is getting a little bit easier, and less messy.
This stretch at Catshill has been swampy, mushy and slippery all winter. Good to finally see some improvement.
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Saturday March 6th 2021 – The bike was giving me problems I was finding it hard to fix, so I snatched a quick test ride to Chasewater as the sunset looked decent – I really wasn’t disappointed.
It was one of those brooding, dark evenings when you don’t expect much of the dusk but it surprises you – and so it did.
It was still cold though, as the smoke from the narrowboat moored in Anglesey Wharf attested. I know it’s only really just March, and not even too late for snow, but some warmth wouldn’t go amiss.
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Thursday March 4th 2021 – Home again, and a chance to catch the sunset on the exercise ride.
It was an interesting one: A decent sky colour, but not terribly dramatic. I took lots of pictures, but it looked best from the canal at Catshill over the trees.
I could feel maybe a little – just a little – warmth in the air and warm long days are not far away now. For now, I’ll keep pushing on into the dusk, and think longingly of them.
These things, like good sunsets, get me through.
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Wednesday March 3rd 2021 – Returning from work again in the middle evening, it was a much clearer night as I crossed the Pier Street pedestrian bridge back into Brownhills, a traditional homecoming when the canal towpaths are not too wet.
Thankfully, they seem to be drying out a little, at last.
I love the look of the new housing along the canalside here at night. This used to be such an empty, desolate area, especially in the dark. It looks so much more alive and inhabited now, almost cosy in the streetlight.
Definitely change for the better.
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Tuesday March 2nd 2021 – I was at work, and ended up working late. It’s really curious how working from home seems to mean you often doing pretty much the same hours in work, just squashed into less days…
I was heading home weary on a chilly night with a barely perceptible mist of the kind that catches street lights and renders a ghostly hue upon familiar scenes.
As I hopped off the canal at Anchor Bridge, I noticed it through the trees, and capturing it was irresistible.
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Friday February 26th 2021 – It looks like I was right: The period of fine sunsets has commenced.
Some springtimes, it’s better than others, but that’s the luck of the weather.
I spotted it coming on, and powered up the canal on the daily exercise ride to Chasewater where it looked superb, and despite the biting cold, it was fabulous to witness. Catching the moon over my favourite tree at Sandhills on the way back was a real bonus, too.
We really do live in a wonderfully beautiful area.
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Thursday February 25th 2021 – The pandemic has been hard on all of us.
Locally, they area was plagued for a while by anti-inoculation, pandemic denial graffiti that was persistent and prolific.
I don’t know who finally snapped and replied to them in marker pen over the top of older conspiracy graffiti on Ogley Junction Bridge, but my respect to them.
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Monday February 22nd 2021 – As if to answer my prayer for colour, my working from home exercise ride took me out at sunset, and I enjoyed it more than I expected, finding myself heading toward Chasewater on the canal.
On the bend near Newtown, looking toward the Chase Road bridge I saw the sky reflected in the canal, and although nearly dark, it was most gorgeous golden red.
Usually about now we go through a period of getting decent sunsets. It doesn’t last long, two or three weeks maybe – and there is a similar effect for a while when the nights close in in Autumn.
It’s one of the markers of entering and ending the winter darkness.
The period in spring always makes me glad – I hope it’s started.
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Saturday February 20th 2021 – Just north east of Chasewater dam, behind the houses that were once the homes of mine managers, there’s an early spring spectacle every year that’s a must see for the initiated – the annual snowdrop glade.
Sadly, in all the vears I’ve visited it, I’ve never caught it on a sunny day.
But even on a dull Saturday, these carpets of what must be tens of thousands of tiny white wildflowers are stunningly beautiful, on land that was formerly industrial.
And visible from here, people pass by on the dam and nearby footpaths without realising the beauty they’re missing not 50 years away.
It’s just a secret for those who know…
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Thursday February 18th 2021 – Haring around Chasewater dam on a working from home exercise ride – for once in the daylight – I nearly came a cropper.
I was a shade off catching my pedal on this protruding piece of steel pipe.
It has a close fitting cap and is padlocked shut.
This erstwhile cyclist and walker boobytrap is not some idle lump of former mining equipment stuck in the ground, or a piece of scrap the local tatters have missed – but a monitoring well for the land around.
Ground engineers monitor the area around Chasewater Dam for groundwater pollution and signs that the dam may be leaking. To do that they have a number of these bores, drilled and sleeved, which are dipped and monitored regularly for changes in water level and the chemical composition of the water within.
These are a familiar sight around Chasewater, but also many of the public open spaces in the area that require ground monitoring – like Brownhills Common, Shire Oak Nature Reserve and Clayhanger Common.
So mind your step and watch out when cycling off road: They are quite sturdy and not very forgiving…
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