February 6th – A great, frosty and beautiful dawn which although out in, I didn’t manage to capture as I was running late and couldn’t stop. By sometime, though, the weather had turned – raining and windy, it was a horrid ride home.
I stopped on the Anchor Bridge for a breather and to adjust my clothes. It was a truly horrible journey and I felt wet, cold and uncomfortable.
It’s not often the working day is bracketed by such wildly differing commutes. But I’m glad that one’s over, for sure.
January 31st – The grim weather continues. Having slipped out for a customer meeting in the afternoon, I came back from Birmingham in the early evening to find the train going to Shenstone full: rather than wait in New Street, I caught the Four Oaks one instead. This meant an extra couple of miles to ride home and a serious hill on the way, but I just wanted to be back there.
In steady rain, I alighted at the station, and stopped to take a picture from the over bridge.Even in the rain, it’s a beautifully photogenic station at night.
If the drizzle and greyness could finish up soon, that’d be great, thanks…
January 28th – A day with curious light and dark. It was alternately fairly bright then rained heavily. I set out mid-afternoon on an errand in Lichfield and got caught by the rain, and also a hail-squall which was interesting if somewhat unpleasant.
Avoiding the traffic, I headed through Hammerwich, and looked back to Brownhills. The roads were muddy goop, and the riding could have been better but the skies were wonderfully dramatic.
January 19th – Another late return, another dearth of decent photographic inspiration. January is always hard, but without daylight it’s a nightmare.
I rolled back into Brownhills at gone 10pm, and stopped near Knaves Court for a photo looking back up the hill. It didn’t work out like I planned. But I was tired and needed food, drink and a hug. This will have to do.
Some days, you wake up, leave the house, crawl across the open landscape under fire, then return, utterly spent. This was one of those.
Christmas seems like an age away now.
January 17th – Coming back into Brownhills on a very wet, stodgy towpath in the evening, I noted it was gone 5pm and not yet fully dark. The lights of the Watermead Estate, reflected in the still canal, were beautiful and atmospheric.
It has stopped raining. It’s been so bad in the past few days, the blessed absence of rain is something to be cheerful about.
January gets you like that, sometimes.
January 15th – One of those horrible, headache-grey wet winter days when it never really seems to get light and never stops raining. I plodded out to Chasewater, after checking the waxwings were still at Silver Court. Their numbers had increased, but the light was way too poor to get pictures.
Chasewater was empty save for a few brave souls, and the cafes had closed early. I mooched for a bit, looking for interesting wildlife, but found none, not even the large white geese which seem to have been missing now for weeks. I hope they’re OK but I guess by now they’re very old and I think they may have passed away.
I noticed with some amusement that new signs have been erected about not feeding the birds near the fort (due to pollution in the gravel there) – and something looked odd about the spacing of the ‘s’ on ‘birds’ – and then I realised someone had hastily removed an apostrophe. On all of them. Oops.
Also, is that comic sans?
The canal route I took back to Brownhills on the other hand was quite interesting. In atrocious light I saw the goosanders again, and I wonder if I’d ever be able to get a decent photo of these odd birds. The two remaining Abbey Road ducks were out and about too, as was Mrs. Muscovy, but her photos were so poor as to be unusable.
An awful day to ride, but I did see some interesting stuff which at least made braving the elements worthwhile.
January 6th – A damp morning errand took me across the Black Country to Great Bridge, and in the small border of a household garden near the town centre, these gorgeous flowers, spotted with rain.
It’s quite hard to find natural, optimistic colour at this time of year, but I’m so glad I did. I’ve been missing the simple joy of flowers for too long.
A real tonic.
January 4th – it has been a temperate commute in the morning, spoiled only by ten minutes of rain, but it felt reasonable for first day back, but in the evening my return was a shock. Not dressed for sub-zero temperatures, and on a bike without ice tyres, I gingerly picked my way through lanes and backstreets chilly and nervous.
That’s the trouble with having time off; you need to sharpen your commuting game on your return, because you get out of the habit.
December 15th – My life, at the moment.
Telford, late. Heavy rain, waiting for a train that was, at least, not crowded and on time. A real late night feelings moment – I particularly liked the effect of the platform lights in the rain.
Only four days to go now.
December 13th – Returning late again from Birmingham, this time to Shenstone, back to my beloved rural station. The weather was damp, but warm again and the riding was easy, which is just as well as I was exhausted.
This is the busiest pre-Christmas I’ve had in a long, long time: normally about now I’m winding down and getting stuff ready for the new year. This year I’m doing none of that yet.
I’ll be so glad when I finish work.
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