Tag: Darlaston

#365daysofbiking Mystical:

October 31st – Passing Victoria Park on Station Road, Darlaston on a beautiful day on the cusp between autumn and winter I’m reminded how lovely this place really is. 

I’ll never tire of that view of the Mystic Bridge and the leaves turning.

Summer may be long since gone but there is still plenty of beauty around.

#365daysofbiking Parked:

October 30th – My peaceful retreat Kings Hill Park is looking gorgeous in it’s autumn palette right now and I’m really enjoying it.

Sadly, the flowers haven’t been so good this year, and I fear cost cutting at Walsall Council may have been to blame, but none of that detracts from the essential beauty of this peaceful, beautiful urban oasis, where I often stop, separate myself from the workaday stress and have a brew and a think.

This place will always be mine, whatever the season.

#365daysofbiking A goldmine:

October 30th – A shoutout here for a little shop in Darlaston I love – Mindful Gifts. It’s a charity shop, but not as we know it Jim: It’s a veritable treasure trove of music, books, ephemera and great miscellany at really low prices. 

Mindful Gifts is run in aid of folk with dementia and it a really wonderful charity -and there’s always a buzz around the shop. Find out more here.

Do pay a visit if you’re in Darlaston.

#365daysofbiking Frustration:

October 25th – There was a beautiful sunset as I left work. I saw it through the frosted skylights at work; they’d got a lovely pink colour which signified something interesting was happening.

The trouble is with where I work, there aren’t many decent spots to get the sunset from.

Getting on a turn of speed, I managed to make old favourite the Kings Hill cellphone mast, still trading data with the ether against a glorious sky, and over the ruins of James Bridge Copper Works at Alumwell.

It’s always annoying to see a good sunset yet not be somewhere with a decent view of it…

#365daysofbiking Falling in love:

October 24th – It’s hard not to love the Black Country right now. The canals are beautiful, the leaves are turning and there’s a slightly soft quality to the light which is truly gorgeous.

I’m hating the dark nights and mornings as usual, but when you catch the daylight it really is rather lovely.

#365daysofbiking Dusk:

October 23rd – The return of the dark is a welcome chance to experiment with night photography once more.

These shots of the churches of Wednesbury – the twin sisters – from Kings Hill Park were a hurried experiment with the Cannon G1X which is a camera I’m learning to love.

These are way too grainy, and I obviously need to up my game. But I love the clarity and colour.

More practice required.

#365daysofbiking Inconceivable:

October 23rd – Darlaston on a sunny day. Heart of the north Black Country, architecture, memory, history and nature.

How could you not adore this place?

It feels like my second home.

As I gradually reboot from feeling lost, places like this help me feel it’s worth the while again.

#365daysofbiking Optimal:

October 19th – The Japanese parasols are still bursting out a fresh crop every morning outside work on the industrial estate grass verge. They need to do this as these tiny, delicate fungi peak for a couple of hours but decay to nothing within 24.

It was lovely to see that in the October sun, I’d just caught these ones at their most perfect.

A lovely start to the day.

#365daysofbiking Galling:

October 17th – I’ve been casually interested into the decomposition of the robin’s pincushion gall I found in the summer in Darlaston.

This once beautiful red and green hairy, spiny gall – created by a tiny wasp laying it’s DNA corrupting eggs in the rose leaf buds of it’s host – is now decaying fast and I’m interested to see how this ball of plant matter wastes away, and if it shows any evidence of the adult gall wasps escaping to freedom.

I’ll never stop being fascinated by these things.