January 3rd – My dislocation was compounded by the darkness. Despite the moonlight, the town seemed very dark and deserted, from the alley at the rear of the church to the footpath over the spot, which I rode over to Clayhanger to visit a pal.
Sometimes I hate the darkness. Sometimes it’s my best friend. Right now, I just wish it would hang back a bit.
Roll on spring.
December 22nd – With a light heart and the wind behind me, I returned via Walsall in mild drizzle. It was warm, and I had to stop to take off some layers – the weather has been crazy this last few days – windy, but blowing hot and cold.
We’ve just passed the winter solstice and this makes me happy. I’m in the darkness here and now, but from here, the days lengthen in that all too familiar sinusoidal acceleration pattern, and soon, we’ll have light and leaves again. Fact is, I’ve survived the closing in again, and this year, it barely affected me at all. Considering I was dreading it, that’s some relief.
Cresting the Black Cock Bridge, this conifer decorated beautifully with hundreds of lights demands attention. It’s so bright, so sparkly, yet not glaring like a lot of such things. It’s really, really beautiful. And it’s huge.
Such a gorgeous beacon of light in the darkness.
December 5th – The Anchor pub looks great at night, but it’s difficult to get a good angle on it. Not a pub I ever really go in much, but it always looks warm and cosy on winter nights like this.
November 26th – Getting more than my fair share of wet commutes right now. I had to nip into Brum very early, and then come back; I did so in constant drizzle. When I got to Blake Street, wet and cold, the atmosphere was of grim determination.
Wish it would dry up a bit. We don’t seem to be getting more than a couple of days clear at the moment.
November 4th – The darkness hasn’t seemed to affect me as much this year as it normally does, or indeed, as badly as I expected. It normally makes me weary, depressed and listless. Maybe because we’ve had such a fine autumn and summer, I don’t feel it this year at all.
Of course, it makes for a change to habits. The days of casually throwing a jacket into the bag are over, as are the days of fingerless gloves. Warm hats, thermals and scarves will soon be on the agenda.
Lights are clean and fully operational, and at certain times, the hi-viz is on (although one has to consider that in low sun or bright days it’s worse than dark clothing for visibility).
Here at Green lane in pitch dark, the advantage and necessity of good ligts is clear. This image taken without a flash.
That’s a Hope R4 on low, by the way.
April 9th – This… this, it’s remarkable.
I was shooting along the towpath, in the part of Spaghetti Junction where there’s a covered, cavernous tunnel over the canal. It’s dark under there; and eerie. It can be a little scary – there is no electric light there, and the only daylight is from the portals and small, irregular metre-square apertures in the roof, that let in shafts of sunlight. It’s a very odd, otherworldly spot.
I cycle through here generally without stopping. But today, a patch of yellow caught my eye in the admitted beam of light.
I stopped. I backed up. I stood, open mouthed.
Hundreds, possibly more than a thousand daffodils in small jars. Each with water in, in the circle of light. Decaying, gone over. Placed with what must have been care, it would have taken a large effort to get them and the jars to that spot. It’s not accessible. It would have perhaps taken a boat… or some climbing. But why? Was it art? Obsessiveness?
I was captivated. The pictures don’t do it justice. It’s stunning.
When I got home, I looked at the pictures. I puzzled over them. I asked twitter: twitter knew. Thanks to @nebolland, @kenofski, @brumcyclist and @cybrum who enlightened me.
It turns out it’s art. It was carried out by artist, art world enfant terrible and extraordinary publicist Bill Drummond, once of the KLF.
Read about Bill and his Birmingham project here.
You can say what you like, that had a massive impact on me. That was bloody genius. I have total respect for it.
February 2nd – As I got back to the Innovation Centre at 5:25, I caught sight of the lights reflecting on the boating lake, and just had to take a picture. It was then I realised it was only just coming on to dusk. In January, we clawed back about an hour from the darkness, and all the time the rate of change is increasing.
Spring will soon be here.
December 21st – From here, it’s going to be OK. Everything will work out, and the battle of the last few months has finally been won.
From 5:11pm this evening, the darkness has been overcome, and every day from now on the daylight will lengthen in a sinusoidal patten until midsummer.
Today was the solstice, and from this point forward, imperceptibly at first, the days will lengthen and open out. There will still be dark, cold days to come, but the madness of the closing-in days has passed. My depression that deepens with the clock change in October will now lift.
From here, Christmas, then a new year. A couple of cold dark months, then spring. The budding, the flowering, the warmth. The season’s mechanism continues, slowly, inexorably, and I am in it’s thrall.
Every year, I feel this so much more keenly. I need to feel it, to feel the good days. But oh, the blessed absence of light…
Chasewater was choppy, and grey. The fine sunset I’d hoped to catch didn’t come. But it didn’t matter. Darkness must now retreat. Begone.
November 17th – Today was a carbon copy of yesterday, but warmer, and so the mist had risen a little. By the time I got out – again, as dusk fell – the air was clearing and a very quiet darkness settled upon Brownhills. I spun around, enjoying the unusual quiet; up the canal to the old cement works, then up the old railway line to Engine Lane, and back into Brownhills via the Hussey Estate and Holland Park. It’s taken a long time this year, but tonight, I was aware of being in love with the darkness again, or at the least, in love with the things it brings. Solitude, quiet, a new aspect to familiar places.
There’s the dark town, the darkness itself, and the fear of the darkness. At some point in the last 24hours, seasonal lines recrossed and I stopped fighting it. The fear is real: it’s not the menace, or the ghostliness as found here at Coppice Lane, but the fear of never seeing the summer again. I can’t hold on to the year passed,the warm days, long grass and flowers have withered and now, it’s winter. Come Christmas, everything will open out again.
And in the meantime, evenings like this: quiet, dark and beautiful.
November 8th – I’ve noted before, that at night Stonnall is a different place. Darkness has a remarkable effect on the dormitory commuter village that I find puzzling. By day, it’s a nondescript, but pleasant place; old houses mingle with postwar new build and a few ex-council houses with neat gardens and an open, if slightly characterless atmosphere.
At night, however, I’m not sure why, but the place develops a wholly different character. The old buildings here come alive, and the new stuff just slinks into the background. You get hints, whispers of what the old village might have been like, before it was sold out to developer and speculator.
Some places seem lost, but retain their essence at certain points. Stonnall does this on dark winter evenings. I remain convinced that the spirit of some places is never lost, just hidden.
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