Tag: Brownhills

#365daysofbiking Living on the skyline


Tuesday February 16th 2021 – Time for a favourite tree update.

The tree I love most of all is this particular horse chestnut, visible clearly on the skyline at Home Farm, Sandhills from the Wyrley and Essington Canal at Catshill, not more than 100 yards from Anchor Bridge.

I love it’s shape, the way it punctuates the rural landscape here, right on the very interface of the urban West Midlands with rural South Staffordshire.

It’s also my gauge of the seasons. I follow it’s colours as it weathers the the year: At the moment it is resolutely bare, but it will be in bud, and soon, from my distant towpath vantage point, I will see the familiar sheen of bright green emerge, before it comes into full leaf.

Usually it lags behind the fields and hedgerows, always the more eager neighbours, and so it is this year, with the field between us bright green with fresh crop growth.

I live for this view, this skyline. And that tree.

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#365daysofbiking Roadside delicacy

Sunday February 14th 2021 – The snowdrops are shaping up excellently this spring, I must say. I had thought the cold weather might stunt or harm them, but that’s not the case.

Coming up a very windswept and damp Barracks Lane, these delicate little flowers growing beside the vet’s paddock at Warrenhouse were just the beautiful thing I needed to see on a grey, late winter Sunday.

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#365daysofbiking Cervine suggestion

Saturday February 13th 2021 – It’s a fact that in the Brownhills and the wider South Staffordshire area, on the fringes where urbanisation becomes rural, red deer are now present in large numbers, and often become victims of traffic collisions.

This is particularly true around Chasewater, which has several large, itinerant hears of these human-tolerant beasts, so it’s been necessary to put up warning signs for road users.

I do wonder if, in a cruel twist of fate, this one on Pool Lane was knocked sideways by a leaping stag…

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#365daysofbiking Harsh days indeed

Friday February 12th 2021 –  It’s been a hard week on the bike – cold, grim days, ice under the wheels and rain and snow.

Some weeks of commuting are like war: You push on, enduring them, trying not to become a casualty, stoically going forward as much as you can.

I was glad it was Friday and this week of bitter riding had passed. All I need right now are sunny days – even if cold – and a sight of some decent signs that this harsh season will end.

I was glad to be nearing home.

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#365daysofbiking Mind how you go, now


Thursday February 11th 2021 –  We’re in an odd time of snow, with showers every day but little actually settling much. What there is, is powder and pack ice and I’m impressed with how well the Continental Top Contact II Winter tyres are handling it. For a non-studded tyre, grippy and trustworthy.

Which is just as well, it’s lethal out there.

Mind how you go, folks.

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#365daysofbiking to the point

Monday February 8th 2021 –  About the only thing the pandemic has been good for has been the re-emergence of political graffiti.

It’s everywhere – the angry, the conspiracy theorists, even satirists are having a go. They’re all a bit rusty but it’s coming along nicely.

Here at Catshill Junction, just on the bridge, some disaffected soul has expressed themselves. Blunt and to the point.

Generous offer but I’d rather not, cheers.

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#365daysofbiking Greetings from the side street

Monday February 1st 2021 –  The year ticks by, faster than I’d have imagined, given the circumstances. My beloved spring will not be far off now.

On the way home from work I had to drop a letter coffin Brickiln Street, and as I returned to the High Street, I stopped to put my gloves back on, and realised the view was oddly Hopper-ish.

I don’t know what it is, it just appealed to me. These quiet side streets are still very much my Brownhills: I know them as well as I did when I was a kid, I frequently came up here to the long-moved Library, my second home, the site of which is still a vacant plot years from the old library’s demolition.

There was nobody around much on this Monday evening, but Brickiln Street was very much crowded with my memories.

I put the gloves on, had a wistful last look, and rode off, all the time wondering where all the intervening years had gone.

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#365daysofbiking Defying gravity

Sunday January 31st 2021 – Some trees have a property, and it’s mostly, but not exclusively oak trees – that they do not drop their leaves when they die off in autumn.

Instead, the tree keeps the dead leaf attached, shedding it the following spring.

The behaviour is called ‘Marcescence’ and scientists don’t really know why it occurs. It may be to protect leaf buds from browsing animals like deer, or to faster recover nutrients from the dead leaves by absorbing them back into the tree directly, rather than through the soil.

Whatever the reason, it’s very curious.

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#365daysofbiking Lighting up time

Saturday January 30th 2021 – I had to nip to the shops on an errand, but wanted to miss the worst of the lockdown queues, so went as late in the day as possible, and then headed up to Walsall Wood to get some bits for a DIY project, I realised it was still just about light at 4:45pm.

Spring really can’t be far away now, the light is flooding back.

Even on this grey, chilly winter day, it filled my heart with joy.

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#365daysofbiking Overdrawn at the Banksy

Friday January 29th 2021 – Brownhills has had a bit of a fad in recent years for stencil graffiti art by – it must be said – out of town artists, the most prolific of which seems to be North Birmingham street artist Itchers.

In total we have They See Me Rollin, in Brickiln Street, Flower Man on the side of Archers Florist, Winnie the Pooh on the wall of the Church Road Car Park, and now, this. This isn’t an Itchers, I don’t think.

This lad chasing the like balloon appeared on the wall of the former Forward Garage some weeks ago, and is a competent enough artwork.

It’s just a straight lift of Banksy, though, and whilst nicely and confidently executed, it would be a pleasant change to see some non-stencil street art.

Just for a change.

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