Tag: rain

December 20th – Oh man, am I unwell. Really grim cold, headaches and even my jaw hurts. Hopefully, it’ll blow itself out in a day or so.

I got out at lunchtime, again on Christmas errands – over to Weeford and Packington via Stonnall and Shenstone, then back through Whittington, Fradley and Lichfield. Setting off on a bright, cold day, it felt like winter at last. The scenery was good, the light excellent and only a headwind honed on Satan’s oilstone dampened my enthusiasm.

I do like the wind turbine at Curborough – considering how many people, including the local MP, were losing their minds over it at planning, I think it’s rather elegant.

Sadly, at Packington, the heavens opened in a series of short, sharp, heavy showers, which continued for the remainder of the afternoon. Battling home from Curborough into driving rain and a headwind was not fun.

Still, I have been asking for some proper winter weather, and that was definitely it…

Be careful what you wish for.

December 13th – Chasewater was grey, foggy and very, very wet when I rode through near dusk. In a curious nether-world at the moment, there isn’t the optimism here of the new year, and with the wakeboard guys all packed up, there’s an out-of-season, end of the pier feel to the place, which I rather like.

Of course, not much was visible today, it was all just shades of grey fading into the lake.

November 30th – Telford, early in the rain. Not quite fully light. The skeletal, brutalist 80s footbridge and covered walkway at the station is like some strange portal. Ghosts of people, further away than you think; exaggerated perspective and peculiarly yellow lighting.

An otherworldly, slightly unsettling place.

November 30th – New Street again, but early morning feelings rather than late night ones. Seven in the morning, steady rain, not yet clear of the night before.

Something about the light, machinery, wet urban surfaces, overhead wires and signals spoke quietly of urban strength, reassurance, safety, control. Alpha Tower in the distance stood as a fixing to location.

My feelings towards this place are ambivalent these days. But this morning, on the darkest and most miserable of days, something beautiful happened and it took my breath away.

It’s what Birmingham does, and I suspect has always done.

November 27th – In Telford, the skies westwards were foreboding, and eastwards more optimistic, but it was to be a terrible afternoon both in terms of work and the weather. The stark beauty of low sun and early winter cycleways was gorgeous, but the western sky wasn’t making idle threats and I would return home in a rainstorm, battling bad connections having had a terrible day.

Sometimes, the omens are not good from the start.

November 19th – At the other end of a crowded journey, the barren beauty of Walsall Station at night from Platform 1. Vaguely brutal 70s red brick architecture, vanishing points, extreme perspective, lights, hard surfaces and a little rain.

It’s that late night feelings thing again.

You can keep your Grand Central new New Street. I’d rather have this, any day of the week.

November 6th – I was crushingly tired as I trundled home with a thankfully assisting tailwind. It was wet again when I started out and I was damp and miserable. The traffic was hell, and sweeping off the ring road at Walsall, I looked westwards to an unexpectedly beautiful sky.

Cheered, I pressed on and noticed that at the Black Cock pub, their annual bonfire and fireworks display were starting, with stalls and a merry go round on the front car park. The lights looked so beautiful in the dark.

It’s been a hard few weeks. I’m tired, I’m grey and I need rest. Thank heavens it’s the weekend.

November 5th – At Telford, two mysteries, one easily solved. On my journey I often pass a budget hotel, the rear of which is visible from the cycleway. On top of a cage surrounding what looks like air conditioning and refrigeration plant, a bicycle. It hasn’t moved for a year or more, or at least, it’s been there every day I’ve passed by. I’m wondering if anybody has actually noticed it from the hotel, or if it’s just a really secure locking space?

And then, the bike shed at the place I was visiting. Normally I have a job finding a space on sunny days. Today, only the hardcore mountain biker guy has rode in. And it looks like he got a wet arse doing so.

No mystery about fair-weather cyclists…

November 5th – Off to Telford, and another wet, warm commute. That wonderful autumn has come to a very soggy, miserable end. I stood on New Street watching the people, signals and trains as the drizzle softened the light. I must have spent hundreds of hours waiting here over the years. This station is in my blood like the traffic fumes and air of the city, and although I hate the state of it, and what’s been done to it, I still love the place.

I find as I get older my relationship with urban spaces is getting more and more complicated. These are still my places, but I feel much more ambivalent about them now. I’m not sure I like it.

November 3rd – The commutes are not being good to me this week. Yesterday was foggy and damp; the journey in was OK, I suppose, but the journey home was in steady, persistent rain. I’d had to call in at the Gallagher Retail Park by Junction 9 on the way back, and when I left B&Q it was raining heavily. Nothing for it but to don waterproofs and go for it.

The traffic was mad, as it always is in the wet, dark evenings. I got soaked. But at least it was relatively warm.

I could do without this, to be honest…