Tag: Pier Street

#365daysofbiking Changing places

August 30th – I headed into Brownhills to pick up a takeaway on the way home.

Riding up Pier Street from the canal, I realised how changed this area was. With the new housing on the former market site, this now feels way less desolate at night and actually looks quite warm and cosy.

The design of these homes is pleasant and care was clearly taken with line and materials to extend the line of the street.

I like this very much – and more people living in the centre of town can only be good for the place.

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#365daysofbiking Playing pontoon

July 31st – Returning home via the canal at Silver Street, I noticed that the Pier Street Bridge had pontoons and scaffold beneath – it seems to be being repainted, which I’m pleased to see.

It was painted in 2014 and a lot of the paint flaked off, but I had thought with current austerity measures there would not be the money to sort it out. I’m glad to note I was wrong.

I hope they return the support arches to their original white – they looked much more impressive in the original colour scheme.

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#365daysofbiking Thistle do

July 10th – Also wind seeding, but yet to go over are the many variety of thistle scattered about the verges, edgelands and hedgerows of the area at the moment.

One day I must look up what all these splendid and distinct variants of this beautiful plant are.

These ones found near the canal at Pier Street in Brownhills have tiny, light purple almost lavender blue flowers, whereas other type have larger, more purple blooms.

I get the feeling that thistles are far more complex than I imagine. Must look them up.

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#365daysofbiking Driving rain

April 27th – An absolutely awful day’s weather made riding a duty, not a pleasure. I held back and held back, hoping for the heavy winds and driving rain to abate – but they didn’t. I slipped out to the takeaway late.

Compounding the misery of rain in a fierce headwind, I realised I left the camera at home. But I discovered something I wasn’t really aware of: The phone does surprisingly good night shots.

A somnambulant and dripping wet Pier Street looks almost comforting and bright; but it it really was unpleasant.

Here\s hoping for better weather to come.

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January 6th – Meeting this fellow in Pier Street was a shock. Of course, I’m assuming it was a fellow, but this large puss  had a very male disdain for my very existence and was clearly wishing I’d go away.

In the winter months it’s a joy to meet a cat out and about rather than curled up in the warmth and this one, despite the face, obliged me by tolerating it’s picture being taken.

I do hope we meet again on friendlier terms.

November 24th – Taking a shortcut up Pier Street, I noticed that the boiler in the OAP club was running, and the plume of water vapour generated was drifting into the night illuminated by the sodium floodlight above.

At long exposure, it looked ghostly, but probably looked better in the shorter shot. 

I watched it for a while, the patterns and colour were oddly mesmerising.

September 30th – A wet, miserable grey day when little went right and I really didn’t feel the love at all. I really needed to be out and get some air, but work was demanding and the conditions not conducive. I’m really missing that Indian summer I was hoping for.

In the early evening gloom with night descending, I popped out on some errands, and spun around Brownhills. In steady rain on the Pier Street bridge, I remembered how beautiful this place is in the darkness of even a wet, grey, loveless evening.

August 5th – Looping back, still with a heavy heart, I stopped on the Pier Street bridge and noticed that more exploratory groundworks had been taking place on the old market site off Silver Street, clearly in preparation for new housing given permission there.

I’m all for that and hope work starts soon – anything that makes this area look less open and bleak is welcome to me.

That thought, at least, made me somewhat brighter.

June 22nd – Two poor pictures, but ones I just had to share, as they’re of birds I don’t see very often locally: Jays. There was a pair of these intelligent, resourceful corvids bickering over something and chasing each other from tree to tree. I assume one had interloped on the other’s patch, but whatever was happening, there was a lot of squawking, warning chiming and wing flapping.

These are beautiful, colourful birds and they were battling in the trees near the Pier Street Bridge by Clayhanger Common in Brownhills.

A rare delight and I’m sad I didn’t get better pictures.

December 22nd – Up very early to head to Bakewell, I kn ew I’d be worn out on my return, so I went for a spin in the early hours before I left.

Heading through a dark, pre-dawn Brownhills that was quiet and untroubled, I didn’t see a soul and felt like a somnambulant, cycling ghost.

At Silver Street, even the boats were in darkness and the waterfowl weren’t up yet. I surveyed the scene with a full day ahead and reflected on the quiet, so far unawakened would around me.