#365daysofbiking Some velvet morning:
October 10th – Seasons and situations have a habit of redeeming themselves. This chilly, but sunlit and misty dawn in Mill Green, on the the way to the station, I fell in love with autumn all over again.
Ever year I’m furious with it for stealing my summer, then it goes and does something beautiful to win me over.
I’m so glad I was around to see this.
#365daysofbiking Station to station:
October 9th – I’m curious about long term plans for Telford Station. At the moment, it’s a bit player in the huge new linkway bridge project, but for an interchange serving such a large area it’s a fairly poor facility: Just two platforms, a booking office with short opening hours and a couple of waiting rooms.
There are just two trains an hour in each direction, 15 and 45 minutes apart which is a bugger if you miss the one and have a 45 minute wait.
The peak time trains are fiendishly busy and Telford doesn’t get a fair crack of the whip here at all.
This was destined to change with the introduction of the new timetable in Autumn with a ramping up to three services and hour with an extra, welcome, stopper: However with the Chase Line electrification not completed, the rolling stock is not yet available and the change has been postponed until 2019.
For such a large, economically powerful town Telford’s railway provision is pretty poor.
#365daysofbiking I dream in colour:
October 9th – In Telford for the morning, I had business up on Stafford Park and the hedgerows and trees along the cycleway were absolutely gorgeous.
The blue sky merged with the reds, golds, yellows and the still green and made a beautiful multicolour palette as I cycled past on a lovely warm, sunny autumn morning,
Autumn’s pretty fine once you stop struggling and accept it.
365daysofbiking I am traffic:
October 8th – A snatched photo on the way home in the dark. This is a normal commute at the normal kind of time and I’ll have to get used to this now. Rushall Square is always kind of beautiful at night. Even when traffic free, it appears busy with traffic signals, street and shop light mingling.
These commutes are the hardest of all, the first in unusual darkness. But their urban beauty is hard to ignore.
Ah well, down the hatch…
365daysofbiking Noble jacket:
October 5th – Darlaston is probably at it’s very best in autumn. An indisputably industrial, highly urbanised Black Country town with a huge amount of greenery, it wears the multi-coloured noble jacket of autumn beautifully.
In Victoria Park, looking towards the Mystic Bridge, autumn is just starting to paint the trees in shades of yellow, gold and orange.
The sadness of the summer’s loss is now passing, and I’m quite enjoying the change in the scenery.
365daysofbiking Buttered up:
October 5th – I said a good few weeks ago now that butter and eggs, or toadflax is one of the harbingers of summer’s end: When it comes into flower, you know the season is at an end.
Still going strong in early October, it’s one of the few things still in flower, resolutely brightening the canal towpaths, edgelands and hedgerows.
A beautiful, but sad flower.
#365daysofbiking Telephone man:
October 3rd – I stupidly left my camera at work, but took some shots with the phone camera over Clayhanger Bridge going to the village to undertake an errand on my way home. The phone is an iPhone XS and althoughhe range in the images is a little harsher than I’d like, phone cameras have come a long way considering the obvious limitations of the physical design.
I quite like these images, showing the the Brownhills Canal is also showing beautifully the colours of the season.
I also loved the sky reflection on the canal…
#365daysofbiking The united colours of autumn:
October 3rd – After the rain of the night before, the morning commute was warm, dry and almost humid. I made the very best of it by riding the canal the long way, and wasn’t disappointed – the autumn colours are very beautiful this year, and the canals and wooded areas of Darlaston are absolutely gorgeous.
There are some upsides to the time of year after all.
#365daysofbiking Sucked under:
October 2nd – The Suck is brutal this year. The dark evening commutes are hard and the driving is bad. But today was unexpected, unforecast drizzle all the way, and with no waterproof trousers, I was soaked and miserable.
This is the hard bit of winter. Dark, wet and cold, it’s going to get a lot worse before it begins to improve.
Every year this gets more and more daunting.
#365daysofbiking Maturing:
October 2nd – Spotted on the canal in the during the morning commute, both the Walsall Wood swan family and the Walsall group. All in rude health and maturing to adulthood.
Woody the single cygnet at Walsall Wood this year is clearly thriving and he was happily browsing the weed with his parents never far way, his white plumage really coming on now.
More advanced, and loafing at the back of the factories on Pleck Road, the large Walsall family were having a communal chill out and preen session.
It never ceases to amaze me the positions swans are comfortable to get their legs into…
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 