Tag: commute

January 8th – Again, handheld shots. This camera is amazing for this – and I’m noticing the daylight shots are pretty good too. Sorry, I’ll stop prattling about cameras soon, I promise. but it’s a long time since a piece of tech has had this much of an impact on me.

It was an absolutely evil commute home – the suck this season seems to be still petering out and there was some absolutely awful driving going on, and a constant drizzly mist that I believe it’s fashionable to call ‘mizzle’. It searched out every not quite done up zip and pocket. I was soaked, cold and unhappy.

As I came through Walsall Wood the lights and mist interacting with each other fascinated me. I’m not a huge fan of the Walsall Wood pithead sculpture, as is fairly well known, but in the mist and football training floodlights, it looked eerily impressive this evening. 

As to the footballers, their dedication was impressive. It must have been horrid out in shorts.

January 5th – First day back at work in 2018 – more working weeks should start and end on a Friday.

I enjoyed the ride to Darlaston, I’d missed the daily commute, and the shoulder seemed OK with it. I also popped through Kings Hill Park and noticed something.

Jack in the Green has tapped the ground with his cane, and called the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils on.

Roll on spring. 

December 21st – And this is the reason for my sudden optimism. Today is the winter solstice, or shortest day. From here, everything gets better, because the light trickles steadily back into my darkened soul.

The bike GPS tells me the sunrise and sunset times on the main screen, as I love to watch them daily. Today, the sun rose around 8:16am, and set around 3:54. I’ve watched these times all year, and registered the slow acceleration of nightfall from Midsummer, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, minute by precious minute; then cascading and careering through the midway and the end of British Summer Time. Slowing up again, that last push to before 4pm is crushing when it happens. 

By the time I return to work after this, my final commute of 2017, the sunset will already be past 4pm. And no matter what the winter brings, inexorably, unalterably, the GPS will record the gradual steps into the light. And then, at the end of March, I will emerge blinking into the light evenings as British Summer Time commences again.

I have survived the oncoming dark for another year. All I need to dow now is watch the darkness retreat.

December 20th – Returning through Shenstone, I popped into the village to the shop on an errand. Coming back down the village, I was reminded what a handsome pub The Railway is.

The extension in the foreground was once a chapel, then a butcher’s shop, but is now part of the stone-flagged lounge and has a large window it’s great to sit by and watch the world go by.

A lovely pub I’d almost forgotten about.

December 20th – Spotted in Telford on a very brief visit at the new footbridge project, this will only be of interest to those into civil engineering.

The absolute worst sheet metal piling job I’ve ever seen. Not the varying depths – that can be normal, and they’d but cut level afterward; but the sheets are designed to go in true and interlock.

Were they piling guys on the pop?

December 19th – It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas. The office at work is emptying of people as they drift off on holiday, the roads are quieter at rush hour, and as I gradually get my year-end tasks completed, I relax and enjoy the sights a bit more, like this Christmas tree, unusually lit by subtle, static lights in a Rushall garden.

As I stopped to answer a text, I noticed it and the way the lights glinted off the needles. It was beautiful, so I thought I’d capture it for posterity.

Merry Christmas folks, not long to go now…

December 19th – The weather was really warming up – indeed, it felt positively tropical on my first daylight commute for ages into Darlaston – but the hazards were still there, lurking, just waiting to steal my wheels; short patches of shaded road that get little sun on industrial estates and minor roads still hosted lumps of meltwater-lubricated solid ice that were hard to navigate and chillingly jarring when ridden over.

I’ll be glad when the ice goes.

December 18th – I did return however in mist which was pretty eerie – coming back from Shenstone I was wary of ice but the biggest issues were remarkably daft driving (overtaking on a bend in reduced visibility?) and a huge pothole I narrowly missed in Cranebrrok Lane.

My muse, Shensone Station, looks excellent in mist with it’s metal halide lights, and rolling into an ethereal Brownhills from Shire Oak in the orange glow of sodium streetlights was pretty beautiful too, despite the traffic.

December 18th – Off to Telford again, and caught out by a sharp frost, I nearly lost the bike on black ice, having chosen the one bike without ice tyres as I thought it was too warm.

I’d set out at dawn, and in Brownhills, it wa misty and warm. Unusually, as I got to Mill Green, it was cold, clear and frosty. This was unusual, as normally the reverse is true. Turning into Mill Lane I realised ice was a problem and about 100 yards on I did a series of shimmies that would have please Torville and Dean. 

Luckily, I had no following vehicles, and relaxed, I let the bike go where it wanted and gradually let the velocity drain away, before walking back up the lane to the main road.

A close shave, which meant I missed my train; but it did give me chance to catch an icy dawn over Hill Hook.