Tag: canal

March 19th – I was cycling back along the canal for a change. Spring must be in the air, as cats have started to be more noticeable of late. Indolent indoor wallahs in the winter, you see lots more about as the season changes. 

I spotted this fine marmalade chap drinking water from the canal at Catshill Junction, appropriately enough. Cats seem to prefer natural water to the stuff from the tap, and this must be a sign the canal is clean.

The elegant, nonchalant balance and casually draped tail are wonderful.

March 12th – It’s still bitterly cold, with an evil, lazy wind chill. The wind itself has slowed a little, and coming home tonight, the sunset and skies over Clayhanger and Brownhills were beautiful.

Had this been a day in spring or summer, it would have been gorgeously warm. Oh well…

March 12th – The Black oak bridge has been in a grim state for a while, having recently lost some of it’s guard rails. When I noticed last week that the bridge was to be closed today for repairs, I was interested to see how the people repairing it overcame the problem of the the rotten angle iron rail supports that hold the guard planks up.

It seems we’ve been visited by Bodgitt & Scarper. When I crossed the bridge tonight, I too a look at the fix. The planks were only painted one side, and not cut or erected very well. On the northern side, they aren’t fixed to the uprights, but fresh supports have just been hammered in between the top and bottom rails to do the same job. 

It’s a fix, of sorts, but it isn’t well executed, and on the northern side, will probably fall apart at the next vehicle scrape. I know the Canal & Rivers Trust – formerly British Waterways – are short of cash, but there’s little excuse for such poor work.

Disappointing, I’d say.

March 6th – The warm sunshine and springlike air disappeared today. It was one of those grey, murky days when it never seemed to get light. I had to go to Darlaston for the first time in ages, and I enjoyed the ride, despite the indifferent, drizzly weather. Hopping onto the canal up to Bentley Bridge, it’s a welcome, pleasant and solitary byway through the former industrial heartlands. 

This place is still noisy with commerce and manufacture, of course, but as nothing compared to the heyday. I always think of this place a slumbering, one eye slightly open, waiting for the great leap forward.

The Black Country will rise again. In the meantime, the contemplation and enjoyment of it’s placid waterways, even on a dull day, is a wonderful thing.

March 1st – Although still very cold, it feels like spring is stirring. Crocus tips are turning colour in preparation to bloom, and the birdlife seems busy. I noted the swans on the canal near the old mill by Home Farm were looking cosy again. I’m convinced it’s the same couple from last year who nested, laid and failed to hatch their eggs – hopefully, they’ll have more success this year. 

The crested grebe was pottering about on Chasewater, away from the gull roost by the valve house on the damn. He was hard to photograph in poor light, but he was a beautiful chap, and did the customary grebe dive fro fish, which must mean there’s still a few in there.

If only the weather felt a bit more spring-like.

February 24th – I passed the boat yard at Ogley Junction as dusk was falling. I note with some disdain that the dredgers and associated butties and tugs are still languishing here,12months to the day after the blue machine toppled over in Anglesey Basin, it remains abandoned with the other equipment – including a decent tug – brought in to do the job. Behind them, the white and yellow frame of a brand new, unused dredger called ‘Hamster’, left here at least four years ago by British Waterways and never used. Such machinery is extortionately expensive. Just who can afford to purchase it and then let it rust away, unused, to nothing?

Madness. And they wonder why the Canal & River Trust is struggling.

February 23rd – There’s been a lot of work going on in the fields of Home Farm, at Sandhills, as seen from the canal at Catshill. Trenches have been dug along the fields a few metres apart, and pipes buried there. It’s either an irrigation or drainage system going in – it’ll be interesting to see what’s planted here. The machinery doing the job is fascinating.

February 15th – I was off work with stuff to do all day. I slipped out just in the sunset hour, too late for the colour, but just in time for the drama. The going was good and the bike felt fast, and I rode it liquid along the towpaths of Brownhills. The light was superb – just when you think you’ve seen a place in every light possible, something different happens. From Catshill Junction to Pelsall Road, the soft lights of the Watermead to the harsh geometry of Humphries House, the whole of Brownhills seemed to be high on twilight drama.

Brilliant, really enjoyable.

February 10th – Returning along the wet canal towpath in almost total darkness, the going was hard. From the roving bridge at Ogley Junction, not much was visible, so I whipped out the gorilla pod and tried a long exposure shot into the darkness. Not too bad a result, really. It certainly shows how much of the residual light is sodium street light pollution, mainly here from the rear of the CNC Speedwell factory.

And it continued to rain. Rain, rain, endless rain.

Come on spring!