Tag: home

January 10th – Over to Burntwood to get some shopping in, I went via the canal and Chasewater. Just at Home Farm, where Brawn’s Wood used to be, I noted a new gap in the hedgerow, stomped down. It didn’t look man-made, and there’s no beneficial human shortcut I can see here; but earlier in the week I noted deer footprints coming off Clayhanger Common near Catshill Junction Bridge and I thing they’re probably coming this way now and on to the fields at Springhill and Sandhills.

Further on, on this clear, hard and windy day, Hammerwich and beyond to Lichfield Cathedral were very visible and made interesting zoom photos. 

How I adore that view, and this stretch of canal.

August 15th – Crops this year have been poor, apparently. Beans and soft fruit didn’t do well from what I can tell. Roadside honesty stalls have been thin on the ground. But how can you resist a prize courgette for 40p?

Stonnall, and yes, I know, but with gourds to gorge on like this, who’s quibbling?

And yes, it was delicious.

August 8th – I came to the top of Shire Oak Hill in light rain, and stopped at the quarry entrance to look at my beloved view to Lichfield. Rain was sweeping in along the Trent Valley, and the hills to the west were obscured by low rain clouds.

It had been another tough week,and I was glad to crest the hill and be nearly home. I love my job, but sometimes it’s tough to keep everything going.

But knowing home was downhill from here, the promise of good company, the family and a decent mug of tea was strong, and cheering. 

Home is where the teapot is.

As it happened, the rain never really reached here. 

March 25th – The commute to work had been wet and quite, quite horrid, but the wind was more or less favourable. The roads were greasy, the traffic was mad. It wasn’t a hugely enjoyable journey.

Later in the morning, I felt rather ill, and was resigning myself to getting a lift home if I didn’t feel better. Thankfully, sweet tea, a lie down and some food sorted me out, but on leaving work during a break in the rain, I just floored it and sped home as fast as I could. I just wanted to be back, safe and sound in the dry and warm.

I noticed in Green Lane near Jockey Meadows the mist was rising off the marsh, and everywhere was sodden again. This is one of the very few places in life I find intimidating in it’s desolation. I felt it this evening. I have no idea why it makes me feel like this. 

I took a photo, then pressed on homewards.

March 18th – Empty for months now, the former Rushall Mews care home for the elderly was built and operated throughout most of it’s life by the local authority, Walsall Council. It was a well loved, modern facility built in the 1980s, and was a fine thing indeed. Sadly, it has been a victim of the cold wind blowing through local government, and it has been closed, like most such council provision.

Councillors and ‘change managers’ waffle on with weasel words and forked tongues about ‘increasing choice’ and other such worn-out cliches, but the closure of lifelines like this and other units like Narrow Lane in Pleck and Short Street in Brownhills, coupled with the loss of daycentres, is purely a money saving exercise. Like the rest, this good quality building – still more than fit for purpose – will be bulldozed for private housing.

The service users and the cost of their care didn’t create the problems, but most don’t vote, so they’re an easy target. Meanwhile, the politicians and money men who did cause the problem walk away unscathed.

It took decades to get facilities like this for our aged and vulnerable. It has taken but a few short years to wipe them out. The social care system is hard to assemble, but tragically easy to take apart.

I pass this empty place often, and the site of it fills me with sadness.

September 21st – For the second time in a week, I’m on the phone camera, as although I this time remembered to bring out my camera, it turned out I’d left it switched on and it’s battery was as flat as a pancake. This was sad, as the afternoon was again great. The freshly ploughed and harrowed soil at Home Farm smelled great, and made an interesting contrast with the other fields nearby. I see my favourite tree is starting to turn, too. The little beach, at the north end of Chasewater Dam was deserted for the first time in weeks. If yesterday felt like spring, these where the ochres and attitudes of autumn. There’s no escape.

May 24th – After a spin around Stonnall and Shenstone in a rather grim wind, the sunset was nice. Sweeping past hedgerows glowing with cow parsley, bluebells and fields full of oilseed rape, the sky set it all off beautifully. A lovely end to a day of awful weather.
At Sandhills, the polythene covered field has had the plastic removed, and each sheet was nurturing four rows of seedlings beneath. I don’t know what they are, they look a bit like peas. It’ll be fun to watch and see what grows.

September 15th – On this site in Short Street, Brownhills, stood St. James old people’s home, a modern facility built in the 1970s to serve the town. Local authority owned, it was well loved. Since the huge cuts in social care, the desire to offload the expensive care of the vulnerable has led to outsourcing. All such residential homes were closed in Walsall, some care transferred to the private sector and some to a new building run by Housing 21 at Anchor Bridge, called Knaves Court. The creation of Knaves Court is a wonderful thing, but had St. James been kept, we would have been able to care for more vulnerable folk, not less as is now the case. All such homes that were closed were demolished very quickly, presumably to prevent a reversal of policy.

The land once busy, now lies derelict and unloved.

A little known scandal. 

September 14th – Home from work and off to Lichfield to do some shopping on a gorgeous, but windy afternoon. Heading up the canal to Chasetown, the tops of the hedges have been cut and my favourite tree is once again visible at Home Farm. I judge the passing of the seasons by that tree, it’s like a marker to me. Still with leaves, soon, they’ll be gone for another year. Looking over the farm, a buzzard wheeled high on the thermals and the harvested fields caught a patch of light. Not a bad view from Brownhills, is it?

September 1st – At home farm, I smelt the fresh earth before I saw it; I’d now that scent anywhere. The farmer has wasted now time, and ploughing and harrowing was in full swing. Presumably, there’s another crop to go in here now – maybe potatoes or a vegetable of some sort. The golden hues of late summer will soon all be fresh and brown like this, part of time’s passage. Lovely, but sad at the same time.