December 8th – Brownhills isn’t beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but it can be rather striking, particularly at night. I’ve always been fascinated by the view from the Pier Street Bridge of the canal at night. There’s something about the combination of lights and water that’s rather wonderful. The whole area of the bridge is quite enchanting in the darkness. It’s proof that even the most unprepossessing area can be strikingly beautiful when you least expect it.
December 7th – I keep seeing complaints on social media about the state of Walsall’s Christmas tree this year. Since the tree has faced a bit of an uncertain future in recent years, I’m surprised we’ve got one at all; and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to check it out. I don’t think it’s too shabby at all, to be honest. Sat in front of The Crossing at St Pauls – the church cum shopping centre by the bus station – it seems to fit well in what is possibly the only public square in Walsall that works architecturally. Seems decent enough to me…
December 5th – It was cold today, and I felt it. Winter has me in it’s grip now, and the mornings are bright, icy and clear; the evenings dark, damp and very, very chilly. Today, as I came home through Walsall Wood, I passed the Drunken Duck pub, one of the oldest in the village. Various renamed The Hawthorn and Tipplers, this house has been a stable fixture of Walsall Wood Life for over a century, and still seems popular. With the warm-looking lights on this cold winter night, it’s hard to resist parking up the bike and popping in…
December 2nd – As I cycled down the bank and onto Apex Road, I noticed the council depot was silent. The roads had clearly already been gritted today, and there didn’t seem to be anyone about. The depot here is where all the gritting operations now take place from, and there’s a huge shelter here full of road salt. Walsall are generally very good at gritting the roads, and getting pebble dashed on the way home from work is now a nightly risk. The amount of machinery stored here to process and spread the deicer is startling, and makes you realise just what a huge operation this seemingly simple task actually is.
December 2nd – I was still knackered from the past few days, and couldn’t raise the wherewithal to get out until after dark. When I did, by jove, was it parky. There was a thickening ground frost, but it was still and the bike went quickly. I spun out to the common and headed down the old railway line in the darkness. On the way, I startled a group of red deer does who were stomping and snorting together for warmth on the shelter of the cycle track; my light picked our the vapour of their breath as they fled down the embankment. On the old cement works bridge, it was silent, and over the factory yards and forgotten corners of Apex Road and the industrial estates nearby it was also eerily quiet. Looping back through Clayhanger, the night was dark, but the lights where on at the chapel and it looked great over the fields. After what seems like the longest autumn ever, it’s now cold, clear, crystal winter. This is more like it…
November 30th – When you have to be home for something important., that’s when fate trips you up. I was dashing home. I left work at 3:50pm, and the trains I would have caught from Tyseley or Acocks Green were all cancelled due to London Midland’s ongoing staff crisis. Catching a train at Spring Road, I managed to get to New Street in time to catch the Walsall train. When that turned up ten minutes late, it was only two carriages. With other service cancellations, there was no way I’d get on, and the crush I witnessed on the platform was nasty and dangerous. I opted to try for a Lichfield bound service, but they were all similarly stricken or curtailed. After 30 minutes of faff at New Street, I got a train to Four Oaks, and cycled home from there. After a freezing, tired ride, I arrived home at 6:40pm – nearly three hours after I left work.
The local train service operated by London Midland is crippled by bad man-management and operational difficulties. I could have cycled the distance in a third of the time, and wished I had. I’m seriously considering dumping the trains for Birmingham journeys. The farce that is the cancellation of services due to staff losses and mismanagement is harming the reputation of the service, and resulting in huge crowds of frustrated passengers at New Street. Quite how bad this will get with the Christmas crowds is causing me a great deal of concern. Awful.
November 29th – While we’re on the subject of architectural disasters, the new Premier Inn on the waterfront development near the art gallery looks better at night – mainly because it’s grim black colour and peculiar yellow window frames are muted by the darkness. Nearly ready to open, the lights were on and made for an interesting shot or two over the canal basin. Over a decade since development here began, the basin is still overlooked by derelict and unoccupied buildings. Not a great success story, it has to be said.
November 29th – Walsall Station is an odd, ugly place. The original, stunning and imperious victorian station was demolished in the 1970s and the current concrete and steel afterthought bolted into the then new Saddlers Centre shopping mall. Partially in a tunnel, visually the external aspect is very busy and jarrs the eye. To use, it’s grey, dingy and unpleasant, full of dark spots and blind corners, which multiply and threatenn at night.
An awful place.
November 27th – A little further on, I was cutting through Oak Park when I noticed the old bowling green was flooded, and illuminated by the floodlights of the current bowls club. I couldn’t resist the chance for a photo. Immediately after I took the first shot, somebody switched all the lights off, giving me another opportunity to experiment with long exposure night photos. I’m really beginning to get the hang of this…
November 27th – I see Christmas is rolling in, then. I’ve noticed Christmas lights up in Brownhills, a rather pathetic effort in Shelfield and tonight, Walsall Wood’s Christmas Tree was lit up in St. John’s churchyard. This is an interesting thing – Walsall Council long ago stopped buying trees for the lesser, satellite towns like Brownhills and Aldridge, and encouraged places to dig their own hole. Walsall Wood, for the last few years, has had a tree paid for out of the pockets of Councillors Anthony Harris and Mike Flower, a rare and welcome act of personal largesse. I don’t know for sure, but I expect they’ve done the same again.
We may not agree politically, but this is an act of true public spiritedness for which I thank them. Cheers, chaps.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 