Tag: canal

May 24th – Still feeling a bit ropey, and with dreadful weather, I didn’t get out until late afternoon when the sun decided to make an appearance. Sadly, the heavy rains have again blathered the towpath at Anchor Bridge. Where the water streams down the embankment, the shale footpath has washed from the side of the concrete drain cover again,leaving an 8-10 inch deep channel, 6 inches wide across nearly the full width of the towpath.

This is deep and large enough to wedge a bike wheel in, or lose a foot down – especially with inexperienced cyclists or kids. Take care. The rest of the path northwards to the bridge is also eroded badly and is quite hazardous.

Horridly enough, that’s a used syringe in cavity. I suspect it washed down with the storm water, possibly out of a drain. 

I shall contact the CRT on Tuesday.

May 21st – It really is about the flowers right now. On a weary homeward commute I noticed the honeysuckle at the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood was coming into bloom – and the buds are prolific and dense this year. The unsung heroes of the scrub and verge, the buttercups, are also prolific on the canal banks, commons and heaths, providing welcome food for bugs and bees.

At the moment, every journey is rewarded with new flowers to see!

May 17th – Out for a leisurely ride in the sun, I took the canal to Newtown. On the embankment near the Chase Road, I spotted these colours of late spring and early summer. Hawthorn, laburnum and lilac, all growing wild on the side of the canal in an otherwise unremarkable bit of Brownhills.

People will tell you this place is ugly, boring and worthless. It’s not. It has immense beauty. But your eyes have to be open to see it – and so does your mind.

May 16th – I’m out in the elements all year round, and from the darkening in Autumn, the loss of leaves and closing in, I long for the days when everything is lush and green again. The jacket summer lends improves just about any spot – for me, it’s not just the warm air, the sun on my face or the birdsong – it’s the emerald greens of a summer in full flush, of the flowering and blossom, and of the maturing and fruiting.

For the last 5 months, this view hasn’t been worth a light, really. But today, on the cusp of another season, the sounds, sights and scents make this a lovely spot.

This has to be my favourite time of year.

May15th – I finished up early, had something to eat and then returned to Birmingham on the Snow Hill line. I used to trave that service a lot, but for five years now I’ve barely troubled it. Many of the landmarks from the line I knew have gone, or changed. 

When I got to Brum, it was too nice to hop on another train, so I dropped onto the canal, and rode home through Bordesley, under Spaghetti Junction, over to Pipe Hayes and along the Plant’s Brook Cycleway to Sutton. From there, I rode through the park home. A great ride – Brum canals are at their best in sunshine, and even the heron was out sunning itself. The dogroses at Tyburn were beautifully scented, and the canal limpid and lazy. 

Plant’s Brook cycleway is lovely, and I shall use it more often. Even the rabbits in Sutton Park performed for the camera. 

A wonderful afternoon.

May 13th – The purple lupins (always earlier than the pink ones) are coming out on the canal bank above the big house at Clayhanger. I’ve never been sure if these are truly wild, or long-time feral escapees from the long gone garden of Ernest Jones, who had tennis courts and delicate flowerbeds at the foot of the embankment here nearly a century before. 

They are beautiful, complex and fascinating, and yet anotherindicator of the seasons escapement clicking over another notch. Spring goes from whites and yellows to blues and then purples. Summer is pretty much upon us now.

May 12th – Whilst taking my call and being glared at by the local wildlife, something else caught my eye at the canoe club on Silver Street. Tethered out of harm’s way is a mobile work raft. I can’t be certain, but Brian Stringer mentioned that the exterior of the Pier Street Bridge was to be cleaned for the canal festival, and I think that’s probably what the platform raft is for. 

They’re a common sight where bridge maintenance work is going on.

May 12th – That cheeky squirrel. I was cruising around the canal looking for the swan family – still nowhere to be found – on my way home from work. I stopped at the hazel thicket on the bend by the Watermead Eastate to answer a call. All the time I felt I was being watched. 

It seems Nutkin wants me to move along now, and not make a fuss….

Yet another example of why I’ll never make a wildlife photographer…

May 11th – I’d really not been well. My stomach was bad, and my body ached, so it was just as well the weather during the day was poor, as I didn’t feel like I’d missed much. I got out at dusk, and took in the sunset, spinning up a wet canal towpath to check up on the swan family. Sadly, I didn’t catch them – once the cygnets hatch, they tend to move around a lot so I’m not overly concerned – but I did catch an impressive sky. 

In the distance, I could see it was raining still out towards Tamworth. A fitting end to a pretty horrible day.

May 10th – Not a great day, blustery with rain showers, but the flowers and blossom still look good. On the local canal bands hawthorn, gorse, laburnum and cowparsley combine to leave the hedgerows a riot of yellow and white, the colours of spring and early summer.

All these are quite ordinary, overlooked blooms, but do look at the gorse and cowparsley – fantastically complex and beautiful.