January 27th – Heading back to Brownhills, dusk now getting later and later. Tis pleases me, and the opening out is now well underway. Another cold month or two, and then, hopefully, spring. Right now, it’s still a battle, but it’s one I’m winning; this winter hasn’t seemed as dark as others in recent years and I’ve felt a lot better about it.
I am looking forward to leaves, colour and warmth again, though.
All in good time.
January 27th – It’s been over a year since I reported the brickwork n the local canals collapsing into the water – both on the bend between Pier Street and Catshill junction, and on the stretch between Catshill and Clayhanger Bridge.
The Canal & River Trust came out once, and erected safety tape, which the guys cutting the grass removed.
Since then, loads of other spots have deteriorated.
This cavity is large enough to trap a bicycle wheel or child’s foot. If you rode or stepped into it, you’d fall into the canal.
Watch out folks – the C&RT don’t give a toss so you’d better be on your guard.
January 25th – This had turned into Lloyd Cole’s lost weekend. Little was going right and I’d spent hours trying to battle with technology, and achieved little.
I escaped in the evening, into a desolate, somnambulant Brownhills, and cruised around the town centre happily lost in my search for a picture.
Sometimes, it’s good just to put the stuff down, get on the bike, start pedalling and stop thinking.
January 24th – Despite the gradual shift to white LED lights, the colour of the urban night here is still sodium orange. It makes for interesting, haunted townscapes and renders corners of the town eerie in the monochromic light.
Here at Holland Park, normally a busy, bright, pleasant place, it looked empty, haunted and unsettling. It’s fascinating once you get used to it.
January 23rd – A warning to fellow cyclists and walkers on the canal near Clayhanger Bridge in Brownhills. Some kind of work has been undertaken on the sluice set into the towpath, and the sheet steel covers now are proud with a void around the edges.
It’s a real trip hazard, and I can’t imagine what the people who left it like this were thinking.
Take care.
January 20th – I’ve been hoping for a decent fall of snow – not just to try my tyres out properly, but just for the novelty of it. Sadly, it seems I’m not in luck just yet.
As I left work, it was snowing quite well; the rate ebbed and flowed during the ride, and conditions got steadily harsher as I neared the high ground on my way back to Brownhills.
On the canal, I realised the snow was settling well – not only on the path, but on the ice surface of the frozen water.
Sadly, by the time I got in, the snow had eased off, and didn’t amount to anything much that evening.
Oh well, better luck next time.
January 18th – A thoroughly gorgeous but cold morning, greying over to rain by the time I returned home – but in a convoluted series of errands that saw me go from Brownhills to Pelsall, Walsall Wood then the Ogley Hay and Burntwood, I noticed loads of great stuff. It was a fine day to be out, to be here, to be on a bike. it’s not often you can say that in January.
Small snatches of things – sun and mist over the canal at the Black Cock Bridge; the emerald green of winter crops growing well at Lanes farm; the view of Chasewater from the north heath. All perfect, really.
For the first time in a couple of winters, I note the canal towpaths are softening as they’ve been lifted by the frost. This is excellent, and how they’re designed to work. A good, hard solid freeze expands the water in the grit, leaving the track soft and muddy when it melts. This is then re-levelled and smoothed out by folks walking and riding over it, self-healing dips and potholes in the process. It works a treat.
A beautiful day.
January 12th – Just a warning to local cyclists that today, the hedge alongside the canal towpath at Catshill, next to Lanes Farm, was flailed. On the plus side, visibility is now great again over the hedge – this is important, necessary work that has to be done now before birds start nesting.
On the negative site, the towpath is now unavoidably strewn with that sharp enemy of cyclists across northern Europe – hawthorn spines.
I’ve often thought they should make planes out of the same stuff these thorns are made of – it can work it’s way through some very tough tyres, and causes about 80% of the flats I get.
If you’re not rocking puncture proof tyres (or even if you are) this stretch of towpath is probably best avoided for a week or two.
January 10th – Over to Burntwood to get some shopping in, I went via the canal and Chasewater. Just at Home Farm, where Brawn’s Wood used to be, I noted a new gap in the hedgerow, stomped down. It didn’t look man-made, and there’s no beneficial human shortcut I can see here; but earlier in the week I noted deer footprints coming off Clayhanger Common near Catshill Junction Bridge and I thing they’re probably coming this way now and on to the fields at Springhill and Sandhills.
Further on, on this clear, hard and windy day, Hammerwich and beyond to Lichfield Cathedral were very visible and made interesting zoom photos.
How I adore that view, and this stretch of canal.
January 8th – Even at the other end of the day, on a dark canal bridge in Brownhills, heading to Tesco to get the weekly shop in, life felt better. The ghostly white they painted most of Humphries House has never really done much for me, but it does look impressive at night.
I’ve reflected today – what’s improved my mood is actually going back to work. That’s also very unusual; but so much didn’t go to plan over the New Year period that I was getting really quite despondent. That’s unusual, but now I’m back in the routine, it all suddenly seems a million miles away.
Life’s odd like that, sometimes.
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