Tag: Lichfield Road

June 14th – The roadside verges and hedgerows are an unusually rich delight at the moment. With the late spring and damp weather, they’re really lush and green right now, with beautiful wildflowers peppered through them. I can’t name the flowers here but both exist in abundance along the A461 Lichfield Road at Sandhills. If you can, take an hour or two out this weekend to go exploring the country lanes around here, which are a delight right now. It’s not until you study them closely, you realise the wild and enchanting beauty they contain.

June 14th – Headed out to Lichfield late afternoon, and battled the wind, fully loaded, on the way back. Returning down the Lichfield Road, I noticed the cones were out at Springhill for the construction of a new island junction for Springhill Cemetery, currently under construction to the right of the picture beyond the houses.

This has been delayed quite some time now, and has been locally controversial. it’ll be interesting to see how the development progresses.

May 4th – The rabbit population is healthy and growing locally right now. After myxomatosis swept through again a couple of years ago, the population has swelled in it’s wake. This young bunny – a tiny fellow – was sitting taking the air on the canal bank near Lichfield Road. He had little fear of me, and only made a run for it when I got within 10 yards of him. Hope he develops a bit more fear soon, otherwise I fear he’ll end up as lunch for Reynard.

April 18th – The evening sunlight was gorgeous tonight. Late home from work, I’d been blown to the station in the morning by the most incredible tailwind, hammering 40+ miles per hour down Shire Oak Hill and making Shenstone a whole 5 minutes quicker than usual. My return from Walsall in the evening was similarly assisted, but to a lesser degree as the wind had subsided somewhat.

It was a beautiful ride, even if it deal feel a little chillier than the last few days.

June 13th – I’d been in Tyseley for a meeting, then hopped back up the Cross City Line to make an appointment in Lichfield. Cycling back, the weather, which had been pretty agreeable, turned quite grim and it started to rain. The countryside looked so green, and the views were unexpectedly cinematic with a sudden rain-haze softening outlines and changing the sky to darker and darker shades. Luckily, I got home before the heavens really opened. 

Can we please have a bit of summer? Just for a bit? 

May 1st – There are some things that Walsall Council does really well, and one of those things is generally their grass cutting and greenspace management. However, something has gone horribly wrong. I was heartbroken this morning to see that the top grass cutting operative delegated the task of mowing the verges in Shelfield along the A461 Lichfield Road has mown off all the daffodils. As many gardeners will know, after flowering, daffs absorb nutrients back out of the foliage to develop the bloom within the bulb for next year. Cutting off the tops will prevent that happening, and next year’s plants will grow blind – without blooms. Cheers, mate, I really owe you one. Not.

Those flowers are usually beautiful, and a welcome splash of spring colour in a drab urban landscape. Now, they’ve been wrecked for next year. What an idiot.

April 18th – A river ran down the A461 Lichfield Road at Sandhills after a moderate shower. Out of all the storm gullies on the Walsall bound side of the hill, only 2 were flowing freely, all the others were blocked with silt. It seems that Tarmac – the contractors looking after the roads for Walsall Council – don’t like to bother cleaning drains. I’m 100% sure that the jobs are passed on, but in four years, I’ve never got a gully cleaned out. I give up, to be honest. Most of the storm drains on Shire Oak’s main roads are blocked.

November 8th – Oddly, a few minutes later, I found myself stood in the rain and dark, experimenting with long exposure shots of the A461 Lichfield Road. I’m not really happy with any of the results, but some are interesting. It’s actually very difficult to catch the essence of traffic at night, and I’m thinking hard about ways to do it.

October 28th – In contrast, doubling back over Springhill and Shire Oak down into Walsall Wood, I stopped to admire the lights southwest towards Walsall. Somehow, I didn’t quite capture what I wanted here, but this view is iconic to me, and maybe a camera can’t do it justice. I’ve admired the lights stretching out before me here on many an occasion, and find it engaging and captivating, yet I think it’s a view not many ever notice.