Tag: car

August 9th – The day ended much better than it started. Still feeling sad, but the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and all around me things were trying to make me smile. 

The chocolate lab enjoying the wind flapping his ears in traffic in Walsall town centre; the kitten dozing on the bins in The Butts; the coos actually came to see me at Jockey Meadows and a chance encounter with normally snooty eyebrow cat at Catshill Junction all made me feel a bit better.

When stuff’s bad and life feels grim, sometimes the best thing to do is keep riding and enjoy the small things life shows you.

April 20th – I was rolling down a back street in Birchills, Walsall when I spotted this fellow in the road. Outwardly in rude health, but clearly dazed, I think he’d had glancing contact with a vehicle and was stunned. I took his photo – chaffinches a re glorious, beautiful wee birds – then gently picked him up, checked him over and popped him in a nearby hedge to hopefully recover.

Wonderful to get so close to such a beautiful bird, but sad the circumstances in which it occurred. Hope he was OK. I think I probably saved him from being squished if nothing else.

March 17th – Maybe it’s some chemical in the water, or the heavy urban atmosphere, but a strain of really huge swans have started breeding in Walsall Arboretum pool. 

It’s been a long time since we had boating on Hatherton Lake; tragedies and expense seemed to finish it for good – but a private operator has tendered to operate these cute pedaloes – and why not?

Users will have life jackets, and a whale of a time I’m sure. A great idea. Just watch out for Brer Alligator, and of course, the famous Plastic Hippo who dwells grumpily in the deep.

I could actually be persuaded off my bike if someone could fit one of these things with an engine. I could cruise about town, in a flying hat and goggles. 

Stately, indeed.

Perhaps they should try it with the Mayor first – I can really see it suiting Smithy’s style – and we could flog the new jag. Win-win.

June 10th – Sights you don’t see everyday. Late afternoon, I’d nipped down into Wednesbury on an errand, and on the Darlaston Road at Kings Hill, the road was closed off by Police. There was a supermarkey delivery lorry lying on it’s side, and it looked quite bad. It turns out another vehicle was involved, but thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt.

That’s what you call a bad day at work.

A sobering thing. Stay safe out there, folks.

October 16th – It seemed a little previous, considering it’s two weeks to Halloween, but as I waited at the lights at the Pleck Road/Bridgman Street junction in Walsall on my way home I spied this real pumpkin on the parcel shelf of the car in front. Nicely carved, too; beats a nodding dog.

It certainly made me smile.

October 8th – Also in Walsall Wood, change is incremental. This was once the site of Walsall Wood Library. A squat wooden hut, it wasn’t much, but I spent loads of time there as a kid, just as I did at the one in Brownhills. The library was moved into a better building some years ago, and the plot stood derelict and empty for ages. Planning applications came and went, and finally, the site has become a car sales showroom. 

You’d not think a library was ever here; but then, you’d not think there was ever a working men’s club where the gym is next door, or greenspace where there’s now a vile-smelling KFC.

Those cars are parked on my memories.

January 25th – This is one that’s been annoying me all week, but haven’t managed to catch well on video until Friday night at Rushall Square junction. As well as seeing moppets driving around peering out of a small aperture in an otherwise frosted up windscreen, the failure to clean snow from your roof is lazy and dangerous. Three times this week I’ve been overtaken by people – all three in Little Aston, as it happened – who, with the burst of speed – cleared snow of their roofs into me or my path. At 20MPH it’s not funny.

It’s also against the law. When it snows again, be a treasure and wipe the snow from your roof, eh?