Tag: Christmas

December 21st – Recklessly running an errand into Pelsall without my passport, I took a scout round for the village Christmas tree, which was certain to make an excellent photo. There was just one snag: I couldn’t find it. After a surreptitious scout around the obvious locations, I gave up and took some night shots of the principality looking a bit festive. The only thing that came close was a tree near station road, interestingly lit to make it look conical. I decided to quickly move on – some tyke had clearly made off with the Pelsall pine and without my visa, I’d be prime suspect….

December 19th – Monday was a busy day of dashing about in frankly awful weather. It was a horrid day, and the Christmas spirit utterly eluded me. Finally getting on the bike at 8pm, I shot round the wet streets of Walsall Wood for inspiration. It was coming up the Lichfield Road towards the church that I noticed these views; they’re really, really festive, yet there’s little hint of Christmas in them. Despite the downbeat mood and wet weather, I felt much better after spotting these. Tomorrow was going to be better…

December 9th – I like Christmas as much as the next man – that is, I generally keep my head down and enjoy the break. However, I don’t think I’ll ever match the enthusiasm of some of those who have adopted the odd suburban American tradition of decorating the outside of one’s house with lights. This example is in Rushall, and I quite like it. There are plenty of examples locally. I find the whole phenomena utterly baffling.

December 4th – A wet, miserable day. I had planned to go up on the Chase, but the weather was so bad, I settled for a circuit of the town in the early evening. Up on the A5, I admired the lights of The Terrace restaurant. This popular venue has been going for years and has a good reputation locally, and even at 5pm on a Sunday it was clearly very busy. Hard to believe this was once nothing more than a petrol station and transport cafe.

Decmber 3rd – Brownhills no longer gets a Christmas tree. All that happens in these straitened times is that workmen hang lights of the trees next to Morris, the metal miner on the central island. Morris is lit up in blue at night, which I’ve always thought to be horrid. The tree-lights are also blue and make the whole ensemble look like a cheap decoration. At lest things look a bit more festive up on the High Street.

November 28th – Christmas is bearing down upon us. Last week, I recorded the unlit Christmas tree, ready to be decorated in St John’s churchyard, Walsall Wood; a week later there are lights in the tree and wrapped round the lampposts down the high street. It’s not the fast return of Christmas that bothers me, it’s the increasingly short gaps between them that bothers me. Humbug.

November 24th – Tonight, as I came from Walsall Station (always go home with the wind behind you if possible), I noticed the Christmas lights had been switched on. This is a long way from last year, when council leader Mike ‘Blofeld’ Bird was making a big show that there was no budget for Christmas, before u-turning and passing around the upturned flat cap of councillor Anthony Harris and begging enough from business to pay for a tree. It seems our leader has realised austerity is not a vote winner, as this year there’s a full timetable of events planned. The switch on this year seemed to involve a crowd of happy young kids singing round the tree, which does look rather decent in front of the Crossing at St. Pauls. So much better than the lamp-post based wigwam Amey took the piss out of the town with for a few years…

November 22nd – At least is was dry on the way home. Dry and getting colder, but as I shot through Walsall Wood the lights of St. John’s church looked warm in the gloom. I guess there was some event going on there, but I liked the contrast with the dark exterior. I noticed also that Walsall Wood again had a fine Christmas Tree – not yet lit up. This is probably the work of Councillor Mike Flower, who’s personally stepped in as an act of unusual generosity and felicity to get the Wood a decent tree since he’s been elected – a huge difference from Brownhills where they throw a string of pound shop lights over the trees by Morris Miner. Mike’s a nice lad, really. Shame he fell in with the Tories…