Tag: interesting architecture

#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 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 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 Marketing again

December 19th – I took a longer visit to the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham, and had a great hour two pottering around. The relaxed midweek bible allowed me to visit Centenary Square and me and my companion explored long exposure and the Birmingham Eye.

As ever, the light, the atmosphere and weather combined, and it was a great evening.

Just one question: Will they ever finish Paradise Forum?

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#365daysofbiking Not a great place to break down

December 18th – On the way to an important breakfast meeting in Brum’s Business District, 7:30am. Half way up Moor Street Queensway, one of my brake pads disintegrates in use.

I had thought the calliper had burst, but luckily, the pad just delaminated.

Nothing for it but to effect a running repair – in rubber gloves on the central reservation. In the rain.

The view was good, though.

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#365daysofbiking Welcoming


December 16th – Another wet day, and again the camera stayed most in it’s case. But returning through Walsall Wood, it was nice to see the tree and the old church looking warm and welcoming; there was clearly an event inside.

I’m not a religious man but that did make for a lovely scene on a very dark evening.

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#365daysofbiking The quiet city

December 14th – I stuff to do in Lichfield on a Saturday afternoon, so left it late to catch the gathering night.

I wasn’t disappointed.

It took me ages to work out what’s special about Lichfield City Centre after dark: It’s the lack of normal streetlights. The lights there are – on buildings, mainly – are verbally low press ion, very yellow sodium which combine with the often far more intense shop lighting to give an illusion that the streets are darker and more suffused than they are.

I notice that Ye Olde City has again been invaded by those bloody creepy, sinister nutcracker figures again. Enough to give a man nightmares.

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#365daysofbiking I want to see the bright lights tonight

December 12th – Walsall’s Christmas lights are not ostentatious these days, but Walsall always looks sort of Christmassy at night anyway.

Whether it’s Bridge Street or Leicester Street, the street lighting, vehicles, building lights and architecture combine to make something quite festive and magical.

For all the stick it gets, Walsall isn’t a bad old place.

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#365daysofbiking The villages of the evening

December 7th – Christmas is starting to ramp up now and I find myself increasingly on errands and trips to sort things out for the upcoming holiday, and so it was this evening when I had to visit Shenstone, to collect some stuff I’d ordered and check out a present in the huge, soulless garden centre there.

Shenstone and the lanes between there and home were gorgeous in the night, same as they ever were: From the welcoming dignity of the pubs to the beauty of the old workhouse. And then, the gothic horror of the church, which I’m still not used to seeing without it’s massive, stately yew.

It was nice to be in these lanes on a relatively dry night for a change. They made a pleasant contrast to the consumer hell of a garden centre that seemed to specialise in everything except … gardening.

Am I turning into The Grinch? I think I might be.

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