September 7th – The weather is fine and warm at the moment, with little wind. Commenting this week has been a joy, and nowhere better to enjoy it than Kings Hill Park in Darlaston.
I took a detour just to see it – from the wonderful view of the twin sisters of Wednesbury to the lovely sculpture and tree-shaded, sun dappled walkways it’s a lovely calm oasis on the border of two great Black Country towns – Darlaston and Wednesbury.
Sad it’s not better known, really.
August 9th – Reader Susan Forster has challenged me to take a photo of wildlife every day for seven days.
The opportunities for animals are limited, obviously, but I’ll give it a go and start with the humble urban sparrow, one of my favourite birds. Sociable, gregarious and actually quite lovely if you look closely, these overlooked birds are a large part of our landscape, yet barely acknowledged as they’re so common.
This group were fussing around the steps of Bentley Bridge, preening, pecking for bugs and generally hanging out.
August 2nd – Another summer soldier that looks superb in rain is the dog rose. Still flowering well and looking gorgeous, like the willow herb they line the paths, tracks, verges and edgelands of town and country, and I think few people really notice them.
Which is sad, because as these in Darlaston show – growing outside a disused factory – they really are beautiful.
So many unsung heroes amongst the wayside flowers.
July 27th – A foul commute in steady rain and a headwind, with the greasy roads I’d experienced a couple of days ago. There was really nothing at all to commend cycling this morning.
And then I passed the ripening rowan berries, bright orange and glistening with raindrops, and the morning didn’t seem as grim anymore.
I love how nature does that.
July 20th – People seem to think I’m negative about buddleia, but I’m not really. It’s a beautiful purple shrub that lights up late summer wonderfully, and it’s not known as the butterfly bush for nothing – the Lepidoptera love the huge flowerhead composed of tiny, individual blooms.
My problem with this plant – if it’s a problem at all – is that for me, it’s a harbinger of urban decay. It’s so successful in urban environments that it’ll grow well in a patch of soot in vertical brickwork. At this time of year, throughout the urban expanses of the UK you can see buddleia sprouting and flowering from derelict buildings, bridges and rail lines. Seemingly one of the first signs that nobody cares for a place anymore is that it starts flowering in purple at high summer.
You can’t blame the plant for that…
July 19th – Oh, hi pals. Where have you been? Not seen you for a while.
Near Bentley Bridge, just near the nest where they hatched their single cygnet, the swan family were moving purposefully towards Darlastoin.
Their single offspring – very attentively looked after – is growing large, and doing well by the looks of things.
They stopped briefly to see if I had food, then scooted on, little one in the classic ‘resting foot’ position, leathery limb tucked high on the back for rest.
A lovely sight.
June 23rd – On the canal at Darlaston, a flower I’m assuming is some kind of wild rose, although the flower itself looks a bit like a large blackberry bloom.
The flowers are wonderfully delicate and the centres a gorgeous shade of yellow.
Any ideas, anyone?
June 20th – One for the occasional series on the silliness of advertising billboards.
I find myself paying more attention to roadside ads when cycling, as they take me longer to pass than if driving and some, after a few weeks, really begin to irritate. This one is a particularly fine example of the Photoshop failure art form – this example is on the Walsall Road in Darlaston.
This is an advert for the BMW Mini Cooper. Nothing wrong with that (unless you can remember how much character the original had…) but this ad exists in several forms for different length billboards. Notice the bike in the background? In all but it’s longest format, the lamppost is slightly behind the car, and you can only see the rear of the bike, a steel 1980s racing bike.
In common with most 80s bikes, it has a self-added prop stand, mounted off the rear wheel nut, and an aluminium circular spoke guard between the gears and wheel on the back axle.
Quite what’s passing through the wheel at ground level I have no idea.
Now look at the front wheel. It has the ghost of the propstand mount, rotated around 105 degrees. The aluminium spoke guard is on the front too. The end of the front fork is straight, with no dropout.
The forks and position of the wheel suggest the top tube (between handlebar quill and saddle) is unfeasibly huge.
The front of the bike is not real. It’s been created in photoshop, by someone unfamiliar with bikes, purely to fill space when the ad was stretched.
What a load of old tut. This has been rubbing me up the wrong way for a week now.
June 7th – Yellow is the colour of the canals at the moment, as the flag irises and water lilies are out and forming a beautiful accompaniment to the greenery around the banks and towpaths.
Even after these last few years I still can’t get used to seeing such flowers on canals – the ones I grew up with were so filthy and dirty.
Not all change is for the worst…
June 1st – A grey morning crossing the still inexplicably closed Bentley Mill Way viewed from the aqueduct on the Walsall/Darlaston border. The roads has, over many months been lowered beneath the bridge to allow taller vehicles, and new signals added. In such a wet area, I hope the drainage pumps are capable and reliable, otherwise we could be in for fun.
The road has been complete for about a month now, and remained closed as some brickwork was pointed on the bridge, but now seems closed with no activity ongoing. Considering this whole show was due to open ‘Autumn 2015′, it’s all a bit of a puzzle.
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