Tag: cat

January 31st – Oh my days, or nights rather. We never get a normal moon anymore. All we get are ‘super moons’, or for some reason our already lovely satellite is pronounced unique by the media at any given time around on it’s 28 day appearance cycle. 

I have to admit, this time it was impressive; a blue moon true enough – it’s second fullness in the month, but it was large and bright and shone out in the sky of an urban Walsall, guiding me as I cycled home. 

It was beautiful, but then, it always has been. It is special every time, because it’s distant and mystical and humans went there once. And sometimes, on cold nights in late January, the thought that if humans can go all that way and return is very reassuring. If we can do that amazing feat, perhaps we can do anything, and life is not so bad after all.

I was not the only soul the moon was clearly guiding on; as I crossed the Black Cock bridge in Walsall Wood, I startled a small, brisk, nervous cat who was clearly up to important cat things, and had no wish to share them with a human on a strange mechanical contraption.

January 9th – Oh my, what a gorgeous puss this one is, a garden wall sentry in the Butts, Walsall.

Uninterested in me until I called, it was watching human proceedings down the street. An impressive neighbourhood presence, I suspect someone loves this one a great deal.

I think the cats must be emerging out of frustration. I later saw, but was unable to photograph a black puss hunting on the wasteland at Bentley Mill Way. I’m not used to seeing cats this active in the dead of winter.

Welcome though. Most welcome…

January 6th – Meeting this fellow in Pier Street was a shock. Of course, I’m assuming it was a fellow, but this large puss  had a very male disdain for my very existence and was clearly wishing I’d go away.

In the winter months it’s a joy to meet a cat out and about rather than curled up in the warmth and this one, despite the face, obliged me by tolerating it’s picture being taken.

I do hope we meet again on friendlier terms.

January 3rd – I was being watched, and I had a feeling this particular ball of floof didn’t care much for me at all. In fact, it looked positively hostile.

I was heading up to Walsall Wood on an errand, and I saw him in a canalside garden at the back of Lindon Drive, just near Catshill Junction. On the far side of the canal, I was in what must have been forbidden territory to the cat, and I’ve often wondered what canal cats make of life on the bank they can rarely get to.

Make no mistake, this is a stunning puss with gorgeous eyes. Someone loves this fine feline dearly. I just think he wanted to end me.

Still, nice to see a cat in Winter. Bit of a rarity at the moment…

October 23rd – I was riding to work when I met a gorgeous little lady with a happy, proud brush of a tail. Trotting though The Butts, she meowed at me as I was answering a text and then hurried towards me, greedily accepting chin and ear tickles and nose boops. 

Circling me and begging for more fuss, she was hard to photograph, but happily pottered off when she could see I needed to continue my journey.

A little bit of furry, tiny tabbyness on a damp Monday morning.

October 16th – With the sun more or less returned to normal and a ferocious tailwind, I hammered back to Brownhills late afternoon for an appointment. Watching me from the far side of the canal near Silver Street, a familiar character who clearly doesn’t care for my sort much, but that’s a huge bruiser of a cat. A real character.

At the old market place by the Pier Street Bridge, I’m happy to see the housing development is using forward with footings already in for the first houses.

It’ll be so nice to see this place inhabited and alive again.

October 1st – In and around Hints church, the fungi is booming; most of these examples were spotted in God’s Acre itself, with some remarkable specimens growing undisturbed amongst the gravestones and memorials. I spent a happy half hour there, just seeing what I could find, all the time with the feeling I was being watched closely. 

Then the reason for my feeling of paranoia became clear – I was being watched by an elegant, snooty siamese cat from the edge of the graveyard!

September 26th – Despite the colder, more inclement weather, the catroplis of Scarborough Road in Walsall continues to introduce new characters. This absolutely tiny, beautifully shaggy mature tabby was doing it’s best to ignore the nutty cycling guy but couldn’t resit a sniff from the safety underneath a nearby car.

And what a gorgeous set of whiskers!

September 25th – Heading home on a grey day, there was little to inspire, but whilst admiring the colours in the scrub near the new pond in Clayhanger, wishing we had sunshine to set them afire, I noticed a cat there I’d not seen before, presumably a ways away from home. A lovely ginger tabby, it gave me one glance, then high tailed it back down the old rail line path.

Even the cats didn’t want to speak to me…

September 17th – I left at lunchtime and headed to Wolverhampton, hopping on to the canal at Wednesfield, then heading to Tipton at Horseley Junction. I was going to Tipton Canal Festival, a do I’d heard great things about but never been to. 

Despite the periodic rain, there was bright sunshine too and it was indeed a great event – more on my main blog later in the week. From Tipton, I meandered on the old line into Birmingham via the Toll House Loop, past the M5 viaduct with it’s maze of fascinating scaffolding and derelict dignity of Chance Glassworks.

The cats stayed out until the rain came, and the weather worsened as I approached Birmingham. The peculiarly black, wet heron summed up the feeling of the waterfront at Gas Street perfectly. Is it common for herons to be so black?

By the time I reached Aston the light was failing, the pavers on the towpath were treacherously slippery and the rain was penetrating, so I hopped on a train to Shenstone.

A great ride, despite the weather, that reminded me of why I love Birmingham and the Black Country.