Tag: IFTTT

#365daysofbiking A dying breed

December 24th – Christmas Eve at last, and a day carrying out errands. Stopping in Aldridge for coffee, I spotted this nice, little used ladies town bike.

A Pashley copy, it bears the brand ‘Pendleton’ – a hHalfords tie in with Victoria Pendleton, female cycling star, much like their Boardman brand.

These bikes were in fashion about a decade ago, but seem to have waned as folk realised that a heavy, cumbersome bike make make you look like Audrey Hepburn from afar but the sweat it caused didn’t aid the cycle chic.

This one is actually very cute and in beautiful condition. Compliments too on the proper locking strategy.

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#365daysofbiking Further abroad

December 23rd – And on, from Ashbourne to Matlock, then Bakewell. Bakewell was a different proposition – night was falling, and there were early revellers around (including one in a rather fetching sprout suit)…

In Bakewell it was Christmas: Bitingly cold, with beautiful lights and a hushed air of determined shopping. The shops themselves were gorgeous.

Several hours were spent before returning for home. A great pre-Christmas trip.

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#365daysofbiking Eccentricities

December 23rd – It’s now traditional for me to have a day out somewhere different before Christmas. Today I visited Ashbourne, a place I’ve passed through lots but rarely stopped and studied.

The architecture and frantic air of business was fantastic, but what I really liked was the small, eccentric details: St Oswald’s Church with the afterthought clock and gothic gateposts with the skull detail. The Art Nouveaux staircase in the entry to an outdoor shop.

This little, but very dense valley town is utterly gorgeous. I must return at a more relaxed time.

Oh, and the cycling content? I test rode a new bike while I was here. Wel, a couple actually but that’s another story…

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#365daysofbiking Taking a toll

December 22nd – I’ve not been riding back from Shenstone or Lichfield much this winter, and the backlands are not the familiar haunts they were, so it was a shock to me on Bullmoor Lane and Cranebrook Lane that they were flooded, breaking up or deep in mud in quite a few places.

Going was tough and wet.

When this weather breaks there’s going to need to be a lot of cleaning and investment to fix the roads.

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#365daysofbiking Into the darkness

December 22nd – I was in lichfield getting cheese and other essentials for the holiday. I started out in daylight that slid slowly into a dark, dark blue dusk.

I came back over Aldershawe and through Chesterfield which felt very festive in the dark.

That choice though, proved to be a little bit of an error, though….

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#365daysofbiking Things can only get better

December 21st – It’s not hard to notice if you’re a regular reader that I hate the darkness of winter and the closing in of the days. Well, this is the weekend where the process reverses for another season, and from tomorrow, the light will slowly but surely trickle back into my life.

Winter always feels on the run from hereon in.

Bring it on.

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#365daysofbiking A better angle

December 21st – A quick stretch up to Walsall Wood for some errands and to deliver cards. Just time for another shot of St. Johns, whose Christmas tree – donated by the local councillors every year – looks so gorgeous.

A lovely symbol of the season on the first day winding down for Christmas.

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#365daysofbiking Deceptive


December 20th – At early evening, with the right kind of light and sky, the view of Telford Station, the new footbridge and the skyline of the town look gorgeous and you can actually see what the designer of the new bridge was getting at.

The surfaces and textures are gorgeous.

Shame it’s such a disconnected, dysfunctional shambles, really.

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#365daysofbiking Archbishop of the hedgerow

December 20th – In Telford where I’d nipped for one last task before Christmas, the weather was mild and fairly dry, but it did feel Christmassy and my mood was lifted by the abundance of holly on the Hortonwood cycleways and hedgerows.

Holly is such a beautiful evergreen and the veritable archbishop of the hedgerow, it’s easy to see why the pagans loved it as a symbol of midwinter regeneration.

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#365daysofbiking Ain’t that grand

December 19th – Grand Central has always been a piss-poor, cliched name for an overblown shopping mall.

But I do wonder if America is littered with similar malls called ‘Duddeston’, ‘Northfield’ and ‘Bangham Pit’?

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