Wednesday November 18th 2020 – Another place that looks beautiful at night like Chasetown is Walsall Wood.
Whatever the time of year or weather, the High Street always looks welcoming and bright at night, and despite being a town these days, still retains a village atmosphere.
Stopping on the canal bridge and taking a few minutes to admire the combination of shop lights and traffic is a nice restorative on a grim commute home.
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December 12th – Walsall’s Christmas lights are not ostentatious these days, but Walsall always looks sort of Christmassy at night anyway.
Whether it’s Bridge Street or Leicester Street, the street lighting, vehicles, building lights and architecture combine to make something quite festive and magical.
For all the stick it gets, Walsall isn’t a bad old place.
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January 31st – I shoot around Walsall’s new ring road all the time, and it’s not a road system I like at all. The junctions are complex and often, badly thought out; it’s unfriendly for bikes and the signals are only just seeming integrated with each other after ten years of being fiddled with.
However, it does have it’s plus points. Sweeping over the hill and canal bridge from Place Road past the old Smiths Flour Mill and up towards the Magistrate’s court is a delight, which flows well on a bike if the traffic lights and drivers will allow.
It’s also rather beautiful.
Don’t be deceived though; despite the marking and seemingly wide cycle lane there, it’s shared use, full of obstacles and soon Peters out to nothing.
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January 16th – As I neared the crest of Shire Oak hill, it was murky and drizzly and the kind of night you really don’t want to be out in.
There wasn’t much traffic, either, which seemed strange – but I did note the model ‘works buses’ – not these days going to Crabtree or the BRD, but shuttling workers back and forth between the Birmingham and Black Country conurbation and Amazon at Rugeley.
These services run seemingly throughout the day and night and I’d love to know more about them.
December 5th – I wanted to take some night shots of Aldridge, which felt quite Christmassy), but realised my tripod was at home. Out of 20 or so handheld shots, this was the only one to be anything close to usable, and this only just.
But it does convey the atmosphere.
Oh well, maybe next time.
October 13th – Hurriedly snapped in evening traffic at Rushall. Michael Jackson didn’t die, clearly – he’s now keeping his head down. starring in recruitment adds for Travel West Midlands.
September 25th – Spotted this sign on a marker post by Stepping Stones. Chase Hppper bus? There was once a bus service on these rough trails? Really?
Does anyone know what it was, and when it ran?
February 1st – I’m coming to realise the value of multi-storey car parks as crow’s nests for taking a view of a town. I rode up to the car park on the roof of Aldridge Shopping Centre to see if I could find a decent photo, and I wasn’t disappointed.
One thing that’s always piqued my curiosity here is the truncated access ramp that never was; at the back of the centre, an unfinished sloping access way is abruptly truncated on the edge of Rookery Lane, hanging in mid air without explanation. Legend has it that the required planning permission was not in place to complete it, or denied, and the alternate spiral one further down was built instead.
Wonder if that’s true?
October 28th – 6:00pm, Walsall Bus Station. Oops. The bus was touching the railings, and I suspect the driver was touching cloth. Although no significant damage appeared to have occurred, the bus was halted here for some time.
Ironically, the advert on the side is promoting bus driving as a career.
April 27th – clearly, today was drive like a fuckwit day, and I’d missed the announcement. Why is that on some days, you just feel really uneasy on the road and see a whole traunche of daft road use? Today was one of those.
I was on an early morning commute to work in Redditch – 7:50am on the Smallwood Island. Some duffer in a cream car just stops in the middle of the island. I have no idea why. I check he can’t suddenly floor it and hit me, then get the hell out of there.
A little further on, we see a community transport bus overtake me, only to cut me up turning left. It’s why I hate left hand cycle lanes; they encourage this behaviour. It wasn’t dangerous in this instance, but it’s as irritating as hell.
I was glad to get home this evening.
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