BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

On a bike, riding somewhere. Every day, rain or shine.

Posts tagged ‘mist’

#365daysofbiking Misty for me

Tuesday March 2nd 2021 – I was at work, and ended up working late. It’s really curious how working from home seems to mean you often doing pretty much the same hours in work, just squashed into less days…

I was heading home weary on a chilly night with a barely perceptible mist of the kind that catches street lights and renders a ghostly hue upon familiar scenes.

As I hopped off the canal at Anchor Bridge, I noticed it through the trees, and capturing it was irresistible.

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#365daysofbiking Inverted again

Friday December 11th 2020 – We’re seeing a lot of inversions at the moment, where the air temperature relationship with the ground is the opposite to normal, resulting in a low level mist that can be really stunningly dramatic.

I was working from home and sensed an inversion happening, so shot out to Chasewater with a pal. We were not disappointed. The heath, being naturally wetland, readily throws up a mist into the cold air clamped to the ground, and it caught the dying sunlight beautifully.

It was also evident on the lake surface, but very patchily.

A beautiful evening to be out, and I’m glad I caught it.

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#365daysofbiking Atmospheric pressure

Sunday November 29th 2020 – The weather was still awful, but resolved to make a better time of it, I set out with a good friend to try and capture the mist and light as best we could.

Sometimes, on the greyest, most horrible nights magic happens, and tonight, it did just that.

Mist and electric light can make the most industrial places look stunning – those swans are on a thin ribbon of canal between a waste transfer station and a scrapyard.

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#365daysofbiking Inverted

Wednesday November 25th 2020 – I took to the canal towpath on the way home which was a bit of a mistake as it had rained a fair bit in the morning, and the way was lined with muddy puddles that made for damp legs.

But there was a treat waiting.

As I travelled, my headlight started picking up swirls of mist over the water, and by the time I was near the new pond and Clayhanger Bridge, there were appreciable clouds of vapour rising and tumbling above the water, but only in short stretches, whereas others were clear.

This phenomena is a meteorological inversion and is absolutely captivating to watch.

The bike headlight did a great job of lighting the scene up. It really was gorgeous. Best I’ve seen for a few years.

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#365daysofbiking Across the water

Saturday November 6th 2020 – A trip to Lichfield on an errand was necessary and it looked like a decent sunset so I headed to the pools – Stowe and Minster – to catch the Cathedral and misty salmon-pink views of the city.

I wasn’t disappointed.

It’s such a local cliche – those spires over the water, the reflection, the windows. But it is gorgeous and it’s never really the same twice. I love it, I really do.

Sometimes, it may not be original but you just have to do it…

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#365daysofbiking – Back to earth

April 28th – The welcome warm, dry spell ended with a crash with a very cold-feeling day and seemingly endless rain. But it is still only April.

On a sodden evening exercise ride, I rolled and splashed up the towpath – mercifully quiet – and noted the very beginnings of a surface-air inversion, with barely perceptible rolls of mist sweeping along the canal. Sadly the wind was a little to strong for it to persist.

I suppose the water was probably warmer than the air by a tad.

It is lovely though to see the green return though, even on such a grey, wet day.

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#365daysofbiking Living in another world

January 25th – Of course, I came back through Chasewater for a reason. I wanted to get Chasewater and the area surrounding in mist, when I actually had time to experiment.

As it happened the experiments pretty much all failed, but some notable successes – mainly by accident – were evident. The glass-hard Nine-Foot pool; Chasewater pier looking like something from a film set. The curing wall of LED streetlights over the distant sweep of the deserted M6 Toll. The eerie otherworldliness of the Black Path with its sodium and skeletal trees.

It did indeed seem like another world, but in that one my photographic talents sadly remained as erratic and hit and miss as in this one.

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#365daysofbiking Bending the light

January 25th – The mist still hadn’t lifted, and in fact it seemed to be becoming more dense.

I’d been over to Burntwood for an errand, and came back via Chasewater after dark, getting some shopping in on the way. As I rattled down the bumpy north shore path where it runs between the Rugby Club and Chasetown Bypass, concerned for the fragility of my purchases, I noticed the curving ‘wall of light’ effect of the streetlights on the fog, bending away from me like I was repelling it.

It was one of those moments when an unexpected, mundane scene caught a unique light and became precious.

Like Clayhanger did  a few days before. Low cloud does have its benefits, I guess.

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#365daysofbiking Diffuse

January 23rd – The murk continued through the next day, too, and it was beginning to get on my chest. Cycling in it, with it’s grim cocktail of traffic fumes, damp, road spray and smog is not inspiring.

However, I had to nip up to Coppice Side on the way home to see a pal. As I crossed the old Jolly Collier bridge, the urban lights and mist combined to make something special.

The diffuse glow of the gas discharge lamps suddenly made a very ordinary place extraordinary, and I was captivated.

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#365daysofbiking Mist but not missed


January 22nd – This is a very strange winter we’re having. I hope spring and summer prove more traditional. It’s not really been very cold, but it’s been horrendously wet. I’m so used to rain now that it barely surprises or bothers me, and I think I’m developing a love of it, like some weird meteorological Stockholm syndrome.

At the moment, the warm damp is masquerading as a heavy, cloying mist-drizzle that’s settled here for the best part of a week, really. It’s grimy and horrible to ride in, and is also keeping the fumes and smell down from the local landfills and industry, making the whole atmosphere feel dirty and polluted.

Leaving Bloxwich station I passed a couple of the town’s many backstreet boozers: The venerable Romping Cat, as classic a Black Country pub as one could find, and the more boisterous Spotted Cow, which despite a chequered history, hangs on as a popular local’s pub.

In the murky, nasty mist they looked beautifully warm and welcoming. I could have slipped in there and then for a pint.

But this wasn’t 1995, and that isn’t the current version of me. So I admired these watering holes from the street, remembered fondly long gone days with workmates and their many, many post-work pints, then rode home.

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