Tag: Ghost

#365daysofbiking A ghost of a chance

Thursday April 1st 2021 – Riding home late afternoon, I spotted this amusing tribute to science by local street artist Ghost on a canalside wall in Pleck, Walsall. It’s beautifully executed, and marks a trend of the pandemic often inspiring street art. I think if covid has done anything positive, it seems to have engaged street art and counterculture in a way that current affairs have generally failed to do for two decades.

But that’s a bit of a side issue. This post was suck in draft from April until Christmas because I was so undecided what to do with this journal. As I noted in my last post, I was tired, and ill. And not able to raise the energy to continue it at the time with the passion it needed. So I entered three quarters of a year of writers and creative block.

The reason for April 1st being significant is that on this day in 2011, I started this journal as part of the worldwide #30daysofbiking project, prodded into taking part by fellow utility cyclist and top Dutchperson Rene Van Baar on Twitter. 30Days was a commitment to ride every day of April. It still happens, and one thing that’s always amused me is that the organisers over in the US, upon hearing that I just carried the project on for years, showed nothing but indifference. I never quite worked that out.

I didn’t quite do a decade continuously though, over new year the following Christmas I missed two days due to a really nasty bout of food poisoning – but other than that, I rode every single day for a decade, and documented every day with a photo post (or occasionally, a bit of video). I’m proud of that. There are a lot of words in the archive. A lot of images; a lot of my life, and this area as well as others I visited along the way.

My first post was matter of fact, and terse. It took me a month to develop my style. You can read it here.

Since then there have been 6,955 entries, and somewhere around 11,000 media items – mostly images, but around 70 videos and even the odd bit of audio.

So with all that behind me, where am I going now?

…Nowhere, that’s where.

I’m just going to post when I have something to share. So it’s be less frequent, but I will be aided by a riding companion whom many of you will already be familiar with, who deserves a voice and to be heard too.

This means hopefully there will be less filler, and more passion. I think you’ll prefer it in the long run, And it’ll be easier for me to keep up.

One thing that has changed in recent years is street photography has got really hard. Nobody used to bat an eye if they saw you with a camera. These days, you get noticed. Curtains twitch. People ask what you’re doing. You half expect to be on the local neighbourhood watch group as a suspicious individual. So the new format will be probably more picturesque stuff I think.

I find that a bit sad but it’s the way the world is at the moment.

So, are you coming with me? Let’s ride into the blue together… Hopefully it’ll stop raining soon.

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October 28th – There was another trip out though – with only moderate success. I wanted to photograph the Chasewater Railway halloween ghost train at Chasewater Heaths – this event for kids takes place every year and is great fun, and very challenging to photograph. This was the only usable picture, but it turned out well, I think.

This halloween spectacular – they turn the lights out, actors dress as ghouls and ghosts, and ghost tales are told on the train – is really popular and always fully booked.

Trying to capture the essence of it, like the event itself – is a bit of a tradition now.

April 7th – A surprisingly hard ride up to Pye Green, over the Chase and back over Shugborough. The wind was wolfish, and changed direction mid-ride, attacking on the way, and the return. Hugely enjoyable, though.

It was a ride of oddities and unusual scenes. The ghost doll and Bassett hound weathervane were spotted within meters of each other in Norton, while the rabbits dined happily on the grass of the Shugborough Estate. A young lad fed swans corn from a narrowboat, and the the Chase itself was as cinematic as ever.

I feel autumn at my shoulder already, and the lords and ladies berries are showing well – their vivid colour warning of their strong toxicity.

On the way back, in the evening cool not far from Longdon, I was surprised to come upon a badger, crossing the road; before I could get the camera, it scooted out of sight, and a mate tentatively stuck it’s head of of the hedge. I wanted 15 minutes or more, camera poised and perfectly still for them to re-emerge, then I gave up. Just as I zipped up the camera bag, both animals sauntered back over the road, as cool as you like.

They knew, they obviously knew. Buggers.

June 2nd – Can the concept of ghost signs be applied to commercial vehicles, do you think?

For those that don’t know, ghost signs are the defunct, redundant or barely legible remains of signs on buildings advertising long gone places of companies, and spotting them is quite a thing in some circles. I’ve been passing this red box van in Shelfield for months and wondering.

The legend on it once said ‘Another bun run from: Riverside Bakery – Tel Middlesbro’ 247181 – Tel N’Castle0191 271 4874′ – but it’s since been removed, and only the non-faded shadow of the text remains.

Interestingly (or perhaps not) the bakery seemed to make the news for all the wrong reasons in 2006, but I think it still might exist.

The trivialities I notice when cycling really do trouble me sometimes…