Tag: Brownhills

January 30th – A thoroughly uninspiring day’s riding. I travelled to work on a murky, damp Monday morning and there wasn’t even visible trace of the dawn. 

In the evening, I left Darlaston in light but persistent drizzle that found every not-quite done up zip and flap in my clothes, with a crosswind that made the whole journey an ordeal.

Still, it’s staying late much later now than a month ago – a whole hour – and I keep looking at the green shoots on verges and in parks and know that darkness will reach it’s end soon.

I contented myself with a handful of shots of the canal on my way back to Brownhills, all the time dreaming of warmer, lighter, better days.

January 25th – On the way to work at dawn on a cold morning. There was patchy ice on the canal, but not enough to impede the swans as they scudded toward Silver Street, presumably for food from fellow dawn commuters and walkers. Dawn had wrapped a gentle pink shroud over proceedings, which was lovely.

The light is creeping back into life, tentatively, slowly. 

It’s most welcome.

January 22nd – It was hard leaving the house today. Occasionally in winter it can be, and on yet another headache-grey day, I didn’t expect to find much of note. A 25 mile ride was fast, and the bike felt good under me, but the lack of light was tortuous and made for very poor images. I looked in vain for something of the coming spring – aconites, maybe, or even snowdrops – but all I found was Mrs. Muscovy, the Newtown One, who seems to be getting friendlier – actually waddling towards me today until she realised I had no food. Either she’s been taking tutelage from the begging, uncouth swans or someone’s feeding her and making her tame. 

I hope Foxeh isn’t paying attention.

Way more skittish and frustratingly hard to photograph in any light, let alone this murk, the goo sanders are still speeding around the local canal, here near Ogley Junction. One of the three females present last week seems to have departed, but the remaining birds are acting like a close unit.

January 21st – It seems my optimism at the dawning of the light the previous day was seriously misplaced. Saturday was grey and cold and had nothing to give in it’s merit.

I slid out around dusk after spattering the bike: as usual when fixing up a steed, it always feels faster and way better, although what I’d done had not affected the drivetrain at all. Perhaps it’s a salved guilty conscience over lack of maintenance that makes it ride better.

Chasewater at night has lost none of it’s magic, and I guess we’re again heading into the season of good sunsets, which is another thing to be positive about, but as it was today, the lake and park were still and cold, save for the gentle grumbling of swans sheltering in the lee of the dam.

Spring will be nice this year, I’ve decided…

January 19th – Another late return, another dearth of decent photographic inspiration. January is always hard, but without daylight it’s a nightmare.

I rolled back into Brownhills at gone 10pm, and stopped near Knaves Court for a photo looking back up the hill. It didn’t work out like I planned. But I was tired and needed food, drink and a hug. This will have to do.

Some days, you wake up, leave the house, crawl across the open landscape under fire, then return, utterly spent. This was one of those.

Christmas seems like an age away now.

January 18th – A long, grey and damp day ended very, very late. Having been at  work until late in the evening, I only remembered to stop for a photo as I came back into Brownhills over Anchor Bridge, so I snapped one of my favourite local night scenes.

Despite being very, very tired, the riding was good and fast this evening, and surprisingly dry too. Although this winter hasn’t been wet, the last week or so has been sodden, and I could really do with some bright dry days right now.

So weary of the grey.

January 17th – Coming back into Brownhills on a very wet, stodgy towpath in the evening, I noted it was gone 5pm and not yet fully dark. The lights of the Watermead Estate, reflected in the still canal, were beautiful and atmospheric.

It has stopped raining. It’s been so bad in the past few days, the blessed absence of rain is something to be cheerful about.

January gets you like that, sometimes.

January 15th – Intrigued to note that the former Terrace restaurant on the Watling Street at Newtown, in the hinterlands of Brownhills seems finally to be undergoing renovation of some kind.

Following it’s closure 18 months ago, this once very popular venue has been plagued by vandalism, metal thieves and arson, and rumours in the spring of it being host to a new buffet restaurant seemed to come to nothing.

Taking a nose today, new fencing is going up, and the fittings seem to be being cleared out. A licensing application for alcohol dating from July is on a nearby lamp-post.

I hope something does open at this landmark building. Brownhills could do with a decent restaurant.

January 15th – One of those horrible, headache-grey wet winter days when it never really seems to get light and never stops raining. I plodded out to Chasewater, after checking the waxwings were still at Silver Court. Their numbers had increased, but the light was way too poor to get pictures.

Chasewater was empty save for a few brave souls, and the cafes had closed early. I mooched for a bit, looking for interesting wildlife, but found none, not even the large white geese which seem to have been missing now for weeks. I hope they’re OK but I guess by now they’re very old and I think they may have passed away.

I noticed with some amusement that new signs have been erected about not feeding the birds near the fort (due to pollution in the gravel there) – and something looked odd about the spacing of the ‘s’ on ‘birds’ – and then I realised someone had hastily removed an apostrophe. On all of them. Oops.

Also, is that comic sans?

The canal route I took back to Brownhills on the other hand was quite interesting. In atrocious light I saw the goosanders again, and I wonder if I’d ever be able to get a decent photo of these odd birds. The two remaining Abbey Road ducks were out and about too, as was Mrs. Muscovy, but her photos were so poor as to be unusable.

An awful day to ride, but I did see some interesting stuff which at least made braving the elements worthwhile.