Tag: canal

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 20th – Another gorgeous but brittle cold morning commute. The ice and a very, very light dusting of snow were evident on the canal as I cycled up to Bentley Bridge, but the canal itself looked superb in the hazy sun.

Further on, the mystic curved bridge at Victoria Park looked stunning, too. In recent winters, we haven’t had many days like this. This year is really making up for the deficit.

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 14th – A cold day with a punishing headwind. Following brief snow the night before, there was an icy covering when I battled to work. I saw the Kingfisher on the canal again – but my ice tyres were so noisy that all I saw was the cobalt blue flash of the bird flying away.

The tyres did make short work of the conditions, though, and the twin spires of Wednesbury looked beautiful from James Bridge Aqueduct.

January 13th – I know these are poor quality pictures, but I hope you’ll forgive me just this once because they show something astonishing: it’s a kingfisher, by the canal. That on its own is notable, but not remarkable; however this fellow was just in the bushes overhanging the Walsall Canal next to the Scarborough Road Bridge in Pleck, Walsall.

If Walsall were a city, we could call this place inner city; it’s one of the most densely populated parts of town, and not the kind of place one would expect to see such a glorious bird.

These were very hurried, very long range shots (30x zoom) on a dark, overcast day in a rain shower. A Community Payback team were working not 20 metres away. 

This is stunning to me. I never thought I’d see such a thing in a place like that.

A real find on a very grey 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.

January 6th – I’d not noticed this before. On the canal near Darlaston, a high factory wall, and by some twist of nature, soot and the wind, a pair of buddleia plants, slowly and tenaciously taking the brickwork part by the action of gentle and sustained hydraulic pressure alone.

Although it’s destructive, I love to see this; nature reclaiming the constructed. It’s nice to see nature winning occasionally.

New Year’s Day – I was miserable. The weather was miserable. That’s all there was to it.

I wasn’t feeling good – not over-indulgence, but the semi-regular bad stomach and that post-Christmas feeling when the work that seemed so far away two days ago is suddenly noticed, bearing down.

I span out after dark, up Coppice Lane and the cycleway, and back along the canal. It was raining, and windy so quite tough going. But I felt better for it, and got home more cheerful than I left it.

I always find January 1st difficult if I’m hemmed in. Tomorrow will be a better day.