Monday November 2nd 2020 – A windy, wet day with little to commend it. I took this photo from Catshill Junction bridge in the pitch dark on a long exposure and it’s not great, but does show the movement in the skyline well.
It was a foul, wet night – it’s rare I leave the towpath to hit the High Street due to mud and slipperiness but I did tonight.
But one thing redeemed the shot: I never realised the swan family were there, hiding in the dark.
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Saturday, October 24th 2020 – Another wet day, and it was raining heavily as I nipped out for shopping in the evening.
This weekend, the clocks go back and I hate the loss of evening light with a fierce passion. The wet Saturday just compounded that and I felt miserable.
But something about the lights of the town, the fresh air and sounds of the rain combined and I actually began to find it quite soothing.
The shine of rain at night is very underrated, and it can make the most mundane places beautiful. But also this year I am determined not to be brought down by winter. I must keep on, must keep finding the beauty in the everyday, and try myself to shine through the gloom.
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Thursday, October 22nd 2020 – I’m still ambivalent about the iPhone as a camera. It’s a huge advance in photography without a doubt, but outside of it’s quite narrow comfort zone, you can really tell that it’s relying heavily on software post-processing.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the lauded ‘night mode’.
Here on the canal near Silver Street it took a stunning image on my way home from work – yet look closely and it’s very harsh.
I know I’m expecting way to much from something in an incredibly small package with tiny optics, and it is extraordinary, but the technology still has a very long way to go.
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Wednesday, October 21st 2020 – Also looking good in the royal blue dusk that’s been coinciding with my evening commute is Coppice Lane, alongside Brownhills Common.
A lonely, quiet and often desolate part of Brownhills, an edgeland populated mainly by silver birch copse on scarred industrial land, it has a ghostly, haunted atmosphere at night.
But in the right light, the sky, trees, road and streetlights combine and make it special.
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Monday, October 19th 2020 – The autumn is now in full swing, and the leaves are dropping at a rate.
Combined with the rains, it can make cycling hazardous as the leaf litter turns into a slippery goop that steals wheels and makes for interesting braking.
No such concerns on the Black Bath beside Holland Park, however, where the lights, sky and seasonal detritus gently combine for some great dusk colour.
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Sunday, October 18th 2020 – A rest day, with just a small loop around town in the evening to keep my legs moving.
It was dry and quiet when I rode up to Catshill Junction and back down the High Street. Not a soul around in the blessed, blanketing dark.
I love to see the town like this. It has such a curious character at night, when you feel like you’re the only person to witness it.
Long rides are wonderful, but sometimes the short ones are pretty fine, too.
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Friday, October 16th 2020 – I’ve long been an advocate of Brownhills, my hometown, and the fact that it has some beautiful parts. Way more than many outsiders would ever expect.
But it’s also a fact that some bits are a bit grim, like with any town, particularly post-industrial ones in desperate need of regeneration.
Silver Court is not terribly unpleasant. It’s nothing like say, Windmill Lane in Smethwick West used to be, or some of the forlorn, decaying 1960s parades of shops in big city suburbs like Longbridge or Castle Vale. But it’s very much 60s, brutalist and in its final stages.
Ingeniously built clinging to a pronounced slope with a very split level design, it’s an odd, partially prefabricated row of shops with maisonette houses above, each with a small yard above the back of the shop premises accessed by a rear thoroughfare on top of the lowest level, the garages.
The shops are now about 50% occupied. The homes have problems with leaks and poor construction. There are issues with flytipping, and the parade frontage is grubby and dark.
But I’ve always love the view along it at night, deserted, with just the light of the ATM halfway up.
One day this edifice will go, and I’ll be glad I recorded this otherworldly place by night.
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Wednesday, October 14th 2020 – The darkness, as I’ve pointed out, allows me a different selection of subjects, often ones which aren’t particularly interesting in the daylight, yet come to life at night or in twilight.
One of those is my old muse of Clayhanger Bridge and the canal overflow nearby.
I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about the way the streetlight on the bridge, the reflections on the water and the sky and skyline combine. And the whole thing seems to vary hugely depending on the weather and time of evening.
I’ll never tire of it, even if readers do…
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Tuesday, October 13th 2020 – Another darkness commute, and less than two weeks until the clocks go back. I hate this time of year, I really do.
The one downside of having a GPS on the bike is that it allows you to morosely monitor the closing in of the days, but also the opening out, which is why I keep the data field active.
As the daylight slips away and I get used to the return of the night, it’s hard to find good images and can be difficult to be positive: But in truth, you can’t have the great, long days of high summer without paying for them with cold, rain-sodden commute in winter.
So onward, into the dark…
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Saturday, October 10th 2020 – A dreadful, wet autumn day of the kind that makes you want to hibernate for the whole winter. Everything was wet: Doing jobs about the house meant walking muddy water in and it was best just staying put and plan for better days and decent rides out.
Hopefully Sunday would be an improvement.
I escaped late in a lull in the deluge and did a short loop of Brownhills, yup to Anchor Bridge and back through Clayhanger. At Anchor Bridge you’d be hard pressed to spot the effects of the rain – – but the towpaths were too sodden to ride and a telltale sheen on the tarmac belied the all-pervasive damp.
I picked up a curry and headed home: Even on this short ride I felt grubby and wet. Hopefully better days will come soon.
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