Tag: IFTTT

#365daysofbiking Gimme shelter

March 11th – Going to work via a call in Aldridge on a wet day, I sheltered under Northywood Bridge near Stubbers Green.

It gave me an opportunity to study the boats in the yard nearby.

I noted the one closest to me – a handsome, large craft – was loaded with junk. Perhaps someone was clearing it out.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the halloween pumpkin was to ward off evil spirits deliberately, or was just where it happened to land…

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#365daysofbiking Going green

March 10th – On a brighter evening, on a better day than the previous Sunday, I was returning home along the canal and passed the same Victorian former railway bridge I’d admired yesterday.

Unlike then, in the gloom and darkness of a bad day, today it looked green, fresh, uplifting and springlike. The narrowboat nearby gave the scene a jigsaw like quality and in that moment, the whole thing was beautiful and the problems of the world were miles away.

What a difference a day or so can make.

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#365daysofbiking Positive vibes

March 9th – It was a nicer morning, and I was pleased to find some interesting blossom on the way.

This viburnum was growing beside the cycleway at Goscote and was absolutely beautiful. I love how when you look closely, the tiny flowers that make up the whole are each really perfect.

An uplifting thing for a Monday morning.

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#365daysofbiking Wet and quiet

March 8th – I pottered back down the canal to Brownhills. Thankfully, the toads seem to have disappeared, leaving behind wet, muddy and rather unpleasant towpaths.

The old railway bridge near Pelsall Road looked imposing and solid in the gloom.

One of the very few listed structures in Brownhills, it rots gently without the railway that once crossed it – now a cycling and walking trail called the McLean Way which is being created by (mainly elderly) volunteers and is a truly wonderful, community effort.

I guess we’ll never get the railway back – but McLean Way is certainly a great replacement.

In the wet and silence of a miserable Sunday night it was a warming thought.

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#365daysofbiking The darkening hour:

March 8th – I was out late the following day, too: the weather was awful and very un-springlike.

I stopped on top of the bridge I’d crossed under the night before and looked at the view. The sky was dramatic again, and the world was quiet, save for a little traffic.

This is a great spot in summer, and a stark one in winter. In spring and autumn, it takes on an otherworldly feel, as if only existing a the interregnum of night and day.

I do wish the weather would pick up.

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#365daysofbiking Impressively tolerant

March 7th – The canal was a bad choice of route, as I realised after a short time that the toads were on the move, and the towpath was littered with amphibians taking the cold night air.

Heading to spawning waters, many would not make the perilous land journey from their normal habitats, being lost to traffic and, er… Bike wheels.

Fortunately, as far as I know, I didn’t hit any. I came back on the road, with the lights on full.

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#365daysofbiking Radio activity

March 7th – Spinning over to Pelsall on at errand at dusk, I passed under the Old Cement Works Bridge at The Slough, and noted the radio masts there, the larger of which has always been a bit more than the average cellphone mast.

There since the days of analog mobile phones, it was the first cellphone basestation in the area and has been repeatedly upgraded as technology improved. I also carries on the same structure some microwave transceivers and what looks like maybe VHF telemetry antenna. It’s a busy mast for one lurking in a car park of an average, fairly remote trading estate.

Next to it of course, the three armed mast of a Tetra node, the UK emergency services digital network.

Antenna and masts fascinate me. And they never look better than against a dusk sky.

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#365daysofbiking Let it bee


March 6th – The honeybees were very much awake, and busy, if a little ponderous. This one seemed OK with me being close, which isn’t something they tend to like later on.

These, remarkably enough, are phone photos. How far technology has come…

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#365daysofbiking Quiet riot

March 6th – The sun was shining, the day was almost warm, and at lunchtime, Kings Hill Park in Darlaston was the perfect place to chill out.

Spring flowers like crocuses and daffodils bobbed and waved in the breeze, and there was much bee buzz and birdsong… All to the accompaniment of an industrial Black Country town going about it’s Friday business.

A veritable riot, but a quiet one.

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#365daysofbiking Classical gas

March 5th – The BOC plant in Wolverhampton isn’t the most photogenic of things  but it certainly seems interesting as I grabbed this sunset from a moving train on the way home.

The huge yard with thousands of canisters and metal bottles supplies industrial gases for everything from brewing to welding. It is massive, and a bit otherworldly if I’m honest.

The sunset looked gorgeous and mat a mundane, industrial thing appear like something from a science fiction film.

You don’t get that every day!

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