Tag: machinery

July 13th – I wasn’t on my bike, but I can’t let this pass: a chance to overview the start of the demolition of the Adrian Boult Hall, part of the demolition of Birmingham Central Library and Paradise Circus.

Prehistoric looking machines are ripping, tearing and crushing masonry and concrete, shearing and cutting steel. Skilled engineers, operators and surveyors move over the site, where the modern age is almost universally high-visibility orange.

It’s interesting to see new vistas evolve, which themselves will be lost again. I’m lost the horror of the demolition now, and an grimly fascinated, like I’m watching some post mortem or investigation into some misadventurous occurrence.

February 24th – Darlaston is changing right now. In its parks – Victoria and Kings Hill – spring his here, and the first signs of a green summer are just seeping into the landscape. Daffodils, crocuses, primroses and snowdrops dapple the lawns and beds, and everything seems just a shade more alive.

I actually saw a honeybee today. It’s not yet March.

In the parks though, the peace is uneasy; a susurration of labouring diesel engines, the whine of hydraulics and the rupturing of concrete as nearby, the land the old Servis factory stood on is reclaimed for new housing. So much concrete on site to be pulverised, an army of fascinating machinery is working away at it.

Change is good. Chase is interesting. But the change for the greener lifts me the most.

February 23rd – There’s been a lot of work going on in the fields of Home Farm, at Sandhills, as seen from the canal at Catshill. Trenches have been dug along the fields a few metres apart, and pipes buried there. It’s either an irrigation or drainage system going in – it’ll be interesting to see what’s planted here. The machinery doing the job is fascinating.

August 20th – I don’t know what to make of this. Near Shenstone, it’s now time to harvest the spring-planted potatoes. I’ve never seen spuds being automatically reaped, and have often wondered how it’s done. Looking at the state of this field, not very well. If parts of this crop have been harvested, there is a large quantity of taters left in the ground. I’m hoping someone collects them by hand, or maybe they will be collected by some kind of second pass of the machine, otherwise the waste would be terrible. A conundrum.