Tag: Brownhills

July 28th – A terrible, quickly snatched photo on my way home just before midnight, but I met this charming soul in the dark feasting on slugs and snails active in the rain. Attracted by an unusual noise, I was surprised to find two adult hedgehogs seemingly arguing over a particularly densely slug infested stretch of roadside verge.

The larger of the two legged it when it saw me, and once again I was reminded of just how fast these odd creatures can move, but this one hung around for a quick picture.

What a handsome set of spines it has! Great to see not one but two of these sadly rare pest control experts…

July 23rd – I returned in steady rain, from the old cement works bridge down the canal to the heart of Brownhills. This part, near Pelsall Road with the old South Staffordshire Railway Railway bridge in the background – one of only two listed buildings in Brownhills – looks particularly beautiful, especially on a grey, rain sodden afternoon.

Beauty lies where you find it…

July 16th – The dying light intensified it’s drama as I headed back wearily to Brownhills. The Parade is always a treat but with so many mature deciduous trees there now, a low sun is a real treat.

It’s not hard to see the beauty in this place. You just need to be receptive to it and find the right light.

July 14th – I never lose sight of how lush and green a summer is – even a dry one like this has so far been. From a familiar vantage point at Catshill Junction I can see that everything from gardens to towpaths, Clayanger Common to the thickets and roadbeds are lovely, variant shades of green.

The shades and hues change from fresh to weathered over the season, before turning more golden at the end of the summer, but are always so, so beautiful.

Cycling, and being outdoors in winter generally, makes you appreciate this so much.

July 4th – It was a day of cats. Cats everywhere. Strolling, taking the air. Sleeping, lounging, supervising, watching. These are just a selection of the lovely pusses I met out and about on my commute.

Stripes was lounging under a car in Birchills, and was annoyed because I caught him washing his bum, legs asplay. Ginger was snoozing, half asleep in the shrubs near Catshill Junction, and is a cat I’ve seen many times. The pair of flat out sleepers? The same pair of sleepyheads I saw last week in Scarborough Road, Pleck, presumably waiting for their staff to return home.

Presumably the lack of sun but general still warmth encouraged these lazybones out today. It was wonderful to meet them.

June 25th – I wasn’t expecting much when I headed to Chasewater; battling a strong wind and drizzle, the place was all but deserted and my circuit of the lake looked set to be dismal.

However, I was to be proven wrong; first of all I spotted a group of three red deer browsing the north heath contentedly, and they were happy for me to take pictures, even seeming to pose. But the real treat was waiting on the brow of the hill.

There was an adult female plucking greens from the trees, and after stopping to photograph her too, I noted she had another adult and two fawns with her. They progressed down to the marsh and loosely joined with the earlier three.

The antics of the fawns – never still for a moment – were lovely and the deer weren’t a bit shy or skittish. I watched them for a long time, even thought the rain was pretty steady.

However used to these gentle, beautiful beasts I become, I still can’t remove myself from the shock that we have them here, living on our green spaces. A wonderful, beautiful spectacle.

June 25th – better day, but not for the weather. I was looking forward to a longish ride out, but the ongoing local issues and squally weather meant the ride I’d hoped for wasn’t going to happen. I contented myself with a loop around Brownhills, Chasewater and Walsall Wood.

At Anglesey Wharf, despite the poor day, the wild sweetpeas have clearly survived the scrub clearance last Autumn and are blooming beautifully around the old coal-loading chutes.

They cheered me up immensely, and I still find it remarkable that such lovely flowers sprout from what was once a dirty, grimy place. fantastic to see.

June 24th – A terrible, terrible day; bad news locally made social media and managing the main blog fraught with difficulty, and in the evening, I just had to switch off everything and walk away.

I found solace in spannering the bike and taking a ride around a late-night, somnambulant Brownhills to get some shopping from Tesco, which doesn’t close until midnight, and late hours Tesco is always an otherworldly, odd experience.

The TZ90 I’m currently using – having returned the Canon deeply unimpressed – is much better in low light that the TZ80 and I’m much happier with it as a camera than I thought I would be. There’s hope for the Lumix superzoom compacts yet, it would seem.

At points this day, I could quite happily have taken a torch to my entire online existence, as if it never happened; sometimes running the kind of local blog I do gets more serious than one would ever imagine. 

But a run out on the bike and some healthy distance made me feel better, and I started Sunday refreshed.

June 22nd – Two poor pictures, but ones I just had to share, as they’re of birds I don’t see very often locally: Jays. There was a pair of these intelligent, resourceful corvids bickering over something and chasing each other from tree to tree. I assume one had interloped on the other’s patch, but whatever was happening, there was a lot of squawking, warning chiming and wing flapping.

These are beautiful, colourful birds and they were battling in the trees near the Pier Street Bridge by Clayhanger Common in Brownhills.

A rare delight and I’m sad I didn’t get better pictures.