Tag: Lazy

#365daysofbiking Softening

April 21st – The evening exercise rides are getting a bit samey and I think I need to vary my palette a wee bit – but it’s quite hard with beauty like this not five minutes out of town.

I took a spin up to Ogley Junction from Brownhills: Just a short, lazy loop from Silver Street. The canal and fields near home farm looked spendid in the warm, softening evening sun.

Machinery is once more on the half-ploughed field, which is interesting, and the oilseed rape is now in full bloom, too.

I never, ever tire of this place. It’s so gorgeous.

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August 3rd – A tiring, heavy day at work followed by a call in south Birmingham saw me labouring up the Chester Road from Four Oaks station, headed for Burntwood for a family thing.

The sun had gone in for a bit, but the almost oppressive heat has returned. It’s as dry as old bones once more, but it’s different now; last time it was sunny, and baking – this is more of a dark, claustrophobic heat.

I still adore it though. Stood at the edge of a wheat field on the Chester Road under Castle Hill – one of the last few waiting for harvest locally – I looked up to the hamlet of Castle Gate, and over to Lazy Hill and the dramatic sky.

Only in the hottest, driest, sunniest summer for decades could my family have an outdoor get together and manage to get a dull, overcast day for it.

Such is life!

May 23rd – Sam, the elderly puss that puts the king in Kings Hill, Darlaston, has been enjoying the spring.

Clearly in his dotage, I rarely see Sam actually doing anything – but often dozing. I didn’t see him once during the winter, presumably he prefers the indoor warmth of his nearby home, but come the summer and he sleeps around the flats complex where he lives.

Every day I’ve passed for the last week, he’s been asleep in the dappled shade of a tree in the morning, and in the afternoon, enjoying the warmth of the sun-heated wall nearby in the evening cool.

Despite his age and total lack of teeth, he has a fine set of whiskers and a great sheen to his coat and I know that his human loves him very much.

Seeing this lad out and sleeping every spring really makes me happy.

April 30th – Another sign of spring in the air is the re-emergence of the urban and urbane cat population. Indolent and mainly indoors during the cold months, characters you haven’t seen for months miraculously reappear in spring, owning their neighbourhoods like they were never gone at all.

I was particularly pleased to meet this venerable old gentleman in Kings Hill, taking the air. I now know his name is Sam and he’s the companion of an elderly lady who lives nearby. Sam himself is getting on, has no teeth and is generally a stern but authoritative figure, even when asleep on the grass around the flats where he lives.

I usually spot him inactive and dozing in summer, usually in some well-chosen, sun-dappled spot where he can curl up and dream of his kittenhood, and feel the warmth ease his old bones. Very rarely do I see him as I did today, up, about and alert.

Yet again, a lovely old lad enjoys one more spring. Welcome back, Sam.

August 8th – This annoys the hell out of me. Well-to-do house in Little Aston Lane, Little Aston. One presumes that the owners have left two old video recorders on the pavement for the tatters and scrap men to collect. Lots of people do this – I often see washing machines, fridges and household items left out in this way. After all, they take your rubbish, and make a few bob… What could possibly be wrong with that?

Most scrapyards pay less for contaminated metal loads – those containing plastic and other material – or will not accept them at all. Thus, the plastic parts of these devices will be smashed off. The metal will indeed end up in some tat yard, but the plastic? Look in lay-bys, wastelands and other spots for the flytipped remains of consumer whitegoods and junk like this. 

By leaving stuff out, people are contributing to the flytipping and metal theft plague we’re currently enduring. Tatters are competing for junk to the extent that I’ve seen them pulling metalwork out of the canal, so will take anything. Leaving stuff for them just encourages more of their nuisance. It’s also illegal to give waste to a non-licensed carrier – if this stuff is traced back, you can be prosecuted as well as the carrier.

All because the owner couldn’t be arsed to use the local refuse facility.