Tag: dark

September 14th – This last few weeks I’ve been travelling home late a lot, and commuting in the dark. During these tired, weary evenings the rides have occasionally been very solitary, but one thing keeping me company has been the moon. Watching it wax and wane over successive fine nights has been a genuine joy, as has being observing the position every night.

This evening, with low cloud and mist on the ground, when the moon occasionally emerged, it had a lovely orange red hue.

It’s an odd friendship, me and the moon…

September 1st – As I arrived home in darkness, I caught sight of a critical milestone on the bike computer: Sunset was now taking place before 8pm. From now until November, the darkest will positively gallop onwards, and summer, with it’s warm and light evenings will just be another memory of a season passed.

How I hate the encroaching darkness.

June 17th – I came through Chesterfield near Stonnall in the afternoon and the skies were very threatening, yet failed to deliver their apparently evil intent.

Equally menacing was the murder of crows, calling and chattering from the overhead lines. It was very Hitchcock.

I hurried home before the storm arrived… be it inclement weather or angry corvids.

April 9th – A short spin from Brownhills to Newtown and back was under the most peculiar spring weather – bright sunshine but with a dark and very threatening sky, To catch it’s glory I came back from Newtown along the canal to Brownhills, and was fascinated by the eastern skies.

This place is beautiful. Never let anyone tell you different. Even when the weather is poor.

February 20th – A foul, grey and wet day hemmed me in and I only left the house to get some shopping in. While out, I looped up the canal and back to town; it was dark, desolate and windy and I found the experience particularly joyless. 

I did find cheer, however, in the bike on the back of the narrowboat moored at Siler Street, which seemed made to measure to fit in place, and for the waterside grotto at the back of the houses on Lindon Drive which seemed like the ideal place to chill out on a more temperate evening. 

A lot of thought has clearly gone into that little sanctuary.

January 4th – A wet commute both ways; not full on rain, but periodic drizzle. It was a clingy, cold kind of wet that soaked you without actually doing much.

Fed up of the traffic on the way home, I hopped on to the canal at Walsall Wood – a real mistake. Everything is saturated, and the mud and puddles are endless.

November 17th – This new Hope R2i light I’m testing is rather good. This is on a middle setting on the canal in total darkness near Aldridge (obviously, no camera flash was used). Battery life seems good, and the optics give a decent beam. I’d say this is better than the R4 I was using last season, but actually has two less led elements.

A real discovery. It’s no lightweight, but it’s a very good light.

October 23rd – Unusually, I’ve passed through Birmingham New Street Station a lot this week. It doesn’t really get any easier, and although it’s home, and something I’m fond of, it’s still difficult: down on the platforms it’s still 1970, and all the posh lights and fascias can’t change the fact that even in the nicest weather it’s dark, dingy, cold and often wet.

I often look at folk on the other platforms, and wonder where they’re headed, and if they’re as ambivalent about this place as I am…

October 19th – The last time I was in this spot at this time of day was Friday, when I was feeling black and down. Today, I stopped in the chill air and looked to the retreating sun.

I got out the camera, recorded the sunset over my town, the place I love, then remounted and headed off into the light.

I feel so much better today. If only I could remain in light.

September 17th – Uh-oh, in comes autumn. The days are still warm in the sun, but when it goes in, the temperature drops considerably. There’s an edge to the air, and in the evenings it’s started to feel rather chilly. Sunset is earlier and earlier.

From Catshill Junction today, the trees and scrub are starting to turn.

Autumn is unstoppable, and bearing down on me now…