Tag: commute

#365daysofbiking The village green preservation society

March 3rd – I’ve honestly lost track of whether this is an early or late spring. I don’t suppose it matters, but I think it’s a bit early. The rain seems to be tailing off a bit now, and the daffodils are taking over from the crocuses which are now passing over.

Early, passing through Walsall Wood, the patch of grass next to the Red Lion, in front of St Johns Close – remarkably claimed to be a ‘village green’ some years ago to best a planning application – looked gorgeous as many patches of Walsall verge at the moment with a dense, beautiful carpet of flowers.

This is always an excellent display and never gets enough appreciation.

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#365daysofbiking Downtown lights

February 28th – Brownhills High Street. The rain was still perched upon my world as I came home, looking for a takeaway and some solace in the gloom.

A couple of minutes later I met an old pal, we dived into Costa for a coffee, and rolled the years back.

Brownhills isn’t nearly as depressed as it was; things are improving, slowly.

It almost looks beautiful in the rain. Or have I got meteorological Stockholm syndrome again?

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#365daysofbiking Here, there and everywhere


February 27th – The Peter Saville thing. It’s everywhere of late.

Later the same day. The rain didn’t stop, it doubled down and rained harder and more fiercely.

Stood, dripping, waiting for a late train at Telford, the rain shimmering on the glass of the new bridge, catching the lights. The angles and patterns of metalwork.

It felt brutal, if not actually truly Brutalist.

Find out more about why I’m in love with Peter Saville’s work here.

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#365daysofbiking Go with the flow

February 27th – The weather at the moment is almost continually foul.

Everywhere is saturated. The canal overflows are at full capacity, like here at Clayhanger; the towpaths are a long series of conjoined puddles. The roads are filthy, swamped and traffic bad tempered.

Every ride means carefully drying waterproofs and bags on arrival.

I’m used to it now. I don’t even frown when I see the rain.

But we must be due an end to it now, surely? Or at least a cessation in the merciless, continual wind please?

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#365daysofbiking The geometrid

February 26th – Another rainy, grim day. As I returned home from work mercifully early (and of course, sunset is getting later at a pace now) I turned to look back across the Pier street Canal Bridge.

Peter Saville’s designs keep cropping up in my everyday life.

I loved the curves and vanishing points of this.Never really noticed it before.

There’s always something new, even in the most familiar places.

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#365daysofbiking No reservations

February 25th – In Telford again, crossing the cycleway bridge over the motorway to Priorslee.

The display of blackthorn blossom on the motorway embankment here is always stunning, and always reminds me of a dusting of snow. It’s gorgeous.

One of the nice things about Telford is that the town is full of road embankments, reservations and edge lands where humans rarely go that are an absolute haven for wildlife and biodiversity of all kinds.

An interesting side effect of modern town planning.

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#365daysofbiking Keep trying

February 24th – And nature, she kept trying thought out the end of my journey.

Outside the place I was supposed to be an hour previously, this single yellow solitary soldier was the first of it’s cohort to wake from spring on the bank opposite the bike shed.

I felt proud and pleased for it, it’s comrades still in bud.

It made me much, much happier.

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#365daysofbiking Think pink

February 24th -On Stafford Park, Telford after a thoroughly awful commute nature was doing it’s damnedest to cheer me up.

It actually succeeded. How stunning.

And the rain had stopped, too…

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#365daysofbiking Outreach

February 21st – In the wind and withering of a horrible Friday night commute, I crossed Bentley Bridge in Darlaston Green, and stopped to answer a text. looking to my left, I thought the cherrypicker lifts in the yard down the canal looked almost prehistoric in the way they caught the yard lights.

Years ago, this would have been a busy canal, with Garringtons drop forging factory either side – the narrows still visible in the distance where there was a drop bridge between the two yards.

Today, it was much cleaner, and quieter, apart from the wind and the sound of rain on the canal.

How times change.

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#365daysofbiking Resolute

February 20th – Despite yet another foul day, the flowers of Kings Hill Park in Darlaston have decided the time is ripe and are putting on a thoroughly gorgeous show.

Miniature diffs, crocuses and snowdrops mingle, with the full size days getting ready for act 2, followed later by the fantastic tulips in the planters.

With such resolve to being beautiful, one can really lift the sadness of another day of bad weather.

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