Tag: commuting

July 26th – I’m really liking this summer malarkey. I think it might catch on. Commuting in just a teeshirt and jeans is so liberating. This morning it was dull, but warm. Whilst changing trains at Nuneaton, I leant my bike up against the glass of the waiting room. As I did so, I noticed this little indicator of the advancing seasons: a moth. I’ve no idea what species it is, but the way it was resting caught my eye. With the warm sun and still conditions, there will be a lot of Lepidoptera emerge over the next few days. There’s been a marked shortage this year. 

Hello, little fella. Welcome to summer!

July 24th – The trains were awful this evening. I left New Street at 5:35pm, and my train limped into Blake Street, where it prematurely terminated – an hour later. Hot and bothered, I welcomed the journey through Little Aston and Mill Green. I noticed how fine Little Aston church looked in the sunlight. It’s and interesting building; sometimes I don’t like it, other times it looks wonderful, depending on the light and the season. I do love how it’s still got the air of a rural parish church, even though it’s surrounded by suburban sprawl. The surrounding meadow just makes it that bit more beautiful.

July 23rd – I found myself commuting to Leicester this week. This means an early run to Lichfield Trent Valley, a change at Nuneaton and cycling from South Wigston. This is a journey unique in the British railway system in that it features the two worst stations in the country (apart from possibly Hale and Dovey Junction). However, this year, South Wigston has been a delight. I have no idea who, but someone has been guerilla planting flowers on the scrub on the northbound platform. Earlier in the year it was a riot of grape hyacinths, bluebells and primroses. Now it’s a peculiar but delightful yellow unknown flower, roses, budleia and foxgloves. Beauty in such an unexpected place. It can’t be cultivated, because it’s still just scrub.

July 16th – Another wet day, another late, miserable commute home through the lanes of Stonnall and Lynn. I surely must have done, but I don’t think I’ve ever known a summer like this. Everything is saturated, even my goodwill. The bike is suffering, I’m suffering. Yet we both carry on; floods, muck and wind.

When summer does come it’s going to be bloody wonderful.

July 10th – There’s no end to the rain and grey weather. The light was so poor all day that my photos were all drab, lifeless and depressing. I’m sorry about that, it’s just the conditions. However, it’s July and high summer, and I’m commuting in high viz, full waterproofs and with lights on in daytime. This can’t go on: we must get the sun back eventually. Stuff Chasewater for a week or two, I want to feel the sun on my back and the freedom of cycling in a teeshirt and shorts again.

July 6th – It rained. Possibly not the biblical deluge forecasted, but my, did it rain. I braved the start of the storm in the morning, and it rained steadily all day in Birmingham, where I was working. Leaving at 5pm it was still pouring, the short, soggy dash to the station I considered a foretaste of a grim journey home.

The weather surprised me, though. I got to Walsall and the rain was stopping. After a short hop to Caldmore, the skies cleared, and blue sky was in full effect at Shelfield as I passed through. Stopping at the Arboretum Junction, however, I was shocked at the amount of surface water still present. Is it the surface, or what? Mystifying.

June 7th – Birmingham New Street. This is Birmingham New Street. All regular travellers through Birmingham’s derided main station will recognise that tannoy jingle. I have a love-hate relationship with the place; dark, grubby, overcrowded, a nightmare on a bike or for the elderly or disabled. Yet, unlike so many stations, the layout is logical, compact and easy to grasp. It just carries way too much traffic and we need a new station – possibly on Eastside – to relieve it, then maybe the platforms could be reduced in number and widened, some natural light could be let in. 

There’s history, here, too, but not many realise. The arches at the end of platform 2 and 3 are a remnant of the original Victorian Station, as are many of the retaining cutting walls. The signal box – a remarkable Brutalist style structure designed by Bicknell & Hamilton to resemble an electrical component, is listed and a wonderful thing. As developers tear away at the upper levels, the ‘regeneration’ (how I hate that word) of this much misunderstood transport hub will not solve any of it’s functional problems, but I’m still rather fond of the old dump, if I’m honest.

May 31st – A really bad commute home this evening. The train I was due to catch – the 16:08 from Telford to Brum – was running 30 minutes late. Then cancelled, which meant there wasn’t another train until 16:51. Then it reappeared on the system, and rolled up at about 16:40… to terminate short in Wolverhampton. Resigned to my fate, I changed onto the stopper train from Wolves to Walsall that stops at every anthill and lamp-post. I arrived in Walsall – this train itself late – at about 18:25. I should have been at home with my feet up by then, and I still had to cycle home.

Wolverhampton station is a barren, soulless place. Like the city itself, I’ve tried to love it, but can’t, sadly. Always seems way too harsh and way too neglected to me. It matched my mood perfectly.  

May 31st – At Telford, the Cycle-to-Work scheme has been a great success. This project of the previous administration, like most things, has been severely curtailed, but it’s still a decent deal. I used to be one of only a couple of cyclists here, but now, on this summer morning, there’s barely room for my bike in the shed, and they’re due to erect another. Each one of these bikes represents a car not taking part in Telford’s rush hour, which has to be good. Over various shifts, there must be 50 or so cyclists here now, and some pretty nice bikes of all varieties. I like to see this.

May 8th – Bloody typical. A miserable bank holiday Monday, followed by a crestfallen return to work on a gorgeous, bright sunny spring day. I was heading to Telford, which means catching a train from New Street’s platform 4c, which I always think of as being Birmingham’s equivalent of platform nine and three quarters. There was something about the light today, the sun, the music I listened to on the way… it did feel very good to be out, even if I was going to work. Most peole seem to hate this station, and aspects of it are truly horrendous; but I also have a genuine affection for the old place. It feels like home, I guess.