Tag: Green Lane

August 8th – I passed the Jockey Meadows coos in poor light and soft rain as I cycled home. They were near mostly near the gate having a project meeting and I felt sad for them in the wet, although that was utterly daft, as they don’t appear to care about, or even notice the weather.

They are doing a good job and the meadow is visible freer of scrub and tall grass now, and I guess soon the lads will move on.

Although one must always treat cattle with respect, I do love these gentle, inquisitive and sociable animals. 

June 28th – A miserable wet day, but thankfully, I mostly managed to avoid the worst of the rain. Although not great for me, it’ll be good to swell the rapidly growing fruits by the wayside.

How quickly we move to the fruiting phase of summer: Rowan berries, cherries, haws and all manner of delights are now developing steadily and beginning to ripen.

A genuine delight on a dreadful morning, but where the hell is summer slipping away to?

June 23rd – Always nice to see the bindweed in flower. Another plant ignored as a weed of the fringes and wastelands, this prolific member of the Convolvulus family has beautiful flowers if you take a closer look, and very nearly pure white too.

It’s common from mid summer until autumn, supports a whole range of bugs and Lepidoptera and is one of those plants our hedgerows would be very much duller without.

June 6th – I had a remarkable journey home, assisted by a big west wind, that blew me back in 45 minutes at an astonishing average of 16mph. I was also remarkable dry, catching only the briefest edge of a squall at Shelfield.

The remarkably local rainfall was illustrated well as I came down Green Lane, where everything was sodden, but the sky was clearing.

A remarkably luck commute – in total contrast to the morning. 
You win some, you lose some…

May 2nd – Many of us know the pain of an irritating sibling.

I spotted the charming grey cat near the Tannery flats in Birchills, Walsall. He was inspecting the flower border and very alert to me. Then what I assume to be his brother appeared.

They greeted each other with a nose boop, then grey fellow continued to stare me out, stalk me and generally let me know I was under intense scrutiny – while the brother rubbed his head on him, attempted to wash his tail, and generally didn’t take stuff seriously at all.

Eventually, Mr. Grey walked off in disgust.

A fine pair of cats. Someone loves these two very much.

January 24th – An errand in Brownhills meant that I actually ended up travelling to work in the light for once, which was novel and welcome after so much darkness. 

I hadn’t expected the quite hard frost that was a feature of the morning, and travelling through Jockey Meadows and High Heath the frozen fields, sun and lack of breeze combined to generate wonderfully soft mist.

A great start to the day and a lovely journey. So nice to be in the light again.

January 13th – To my further disappointment, when I left work, there was no snow left to speak of, and it was almost warm, but very wet, although not raining. I don’t mind admitting I really love cycling in dramatically cold conditions, and I felt a tiny bit cheated.

But as I rode back down Green Lane and over the Black Cock Bridge, they sky was clearing and a full, mist-shrouded moon hung there. It was impossible not to feel cheered by it.

October 13th – Have you had a new bathroom fitted lately? Does your house now look splendid and fresh? Great.

Sadly, if you paid a chancer to remover the rubbish, it’s now in Green Lane, on the Walsall Wood/Shelfield border in a field gateway, because you were too cheap to pay fro proper waste disposal, or they were.

Since the partial closure of Green Lane for sewage repair works last week, the lane has been blighted with such flytipping.

If you paid someone to dump this stuff, you could be prosecuted on the same basis as the flytipper., because under the law giving waste to an unlicensed carrier incurs the same penalty as fly tipping.

The other possibility is you dumped it yourself. In which case you’re beneath contempt.

There’s a lot of packaging in there. Hope none of it has your address on it.

July 20th – I’m fascinated at the moment by continuing work going on at the sewage pumping station at Green Lane in Walsall Wood. Ever since last Easter, there has been work being carried out here sporadically; from tankers pumping manholes out to new pumps going in and old ones being removed.

I know there’s quite a bit of plant below ground here, presumably to pump the sewage up the hill to the sewage works, not 400 yards away towards Clayhanger. 

I noted this evening yet another pump awaiting installation in the little roadside compound. I have no idea what the problem is, but it’s fascinating watching the comings and goings to fix it.

So many ‘invisible’ services support modern life, it can be a surprise to see how intensively they’re maintained.