Tag: Rushall

January 21st – It’s not kicked off to be a good week. I’ve had a ton of work dropped on me, and the railway system seems to be in a permanent state of entropy at the moment.

I left work in Telford late, having tried all day to solve an ostensibly simple problem, without success. Riding back from Walsall, it was wet, but drier and warmer that the previous morning. 

Tired and ground down, I remember little of the journey home, as often happens, but I did find this image on the camera I don’t remember taking whilst stopped on red at Rushall Square. 

I’ve had enough of the dark and wet days. I need to move into the light.

December 12th – Coming home late, it was raining quite hard. It was warm, though, and well wrapped in my waterproofs I enjoyed the sights, sounds and sensory onslaught of the traffic on the rain. At Rushall, I stopped to photograph the Christmas tree. It looks better in the photo than it looks in reality – this one seems a little tatty, if I’m honest. 

In the late hour, the junction at Rushall Square was quiet, and glistening in the rain. Sadly, I couldn’t keep the lens clear and just had to go for it.

Hopefully, the weather will clear for the weekend. 

April 18th – The evening sunlight was gorgeous tonight. Late home from work, I’d been blown to the station in the morning by the most incredible tailwind, hammering 40+ miles per hour down Shire Oak Hill and making Shenstone a whole 5 minutes quicker than usual. My return from Walsall in the evening was similarly assisted, but to a lesser degree as the wind had subsided somewhat.

It was a beautiful ride, even if it deal feel a little chillier than the last few days.

March 30th – Off to work early, and a return via Slowloaf in Mellish Road. Rushall Parish Chuch – that of St. Michael the Archangel – is fittingly made from local limestone, and is a handsome, Francophile church with an imposing, tall broach spire. It has a long history, although this incarnation is Victorian. History hereabouts of the village, the hall and environs go back to the Domesday book. All of which are somewhat impressive.

Reflecting on this, whatever aberrant demon possessed the architect of the modern hall, bizarrely erected in the churchyard really needs to be expunged. Sadly, the exorcism wasn’t undertaken quickly enough and similar architectural defecations occurred at many Lichfield Diocese churches in the 80s and 90s; Brownhills, Pelsall, Walsall Wood, Canwell. 

They make me think distinctly unholy thoughts.

January 25th – This is one that’s been annoying me all week, but haven’t managed to catch well on video until Friday night at Rushall Square junction. As well as seeing moppets driving around peering out of a small aperture in an otherwise frosted up windscreen, the failure to clean snow from your roof is lazy and dangerous. Three times this week I’ve been overtaken by people – all three in Little Aston, as it happened – who, with the burst of speed – cleared snow of their roofs into me or my path. At 20MPH it’s not funny.

It’s also against the law. When it snows again, be a treasure and wipe the snow from your roof, eh?

December 10th – sadly, I only have this pair of images for today. I took a fair few in the morning, but isn’t realise the camera was set wrong, and they came out really badly. Oops.

On my way home from work, I let the wind blow me from Walsall. It was cold, but not unpleasant, and the air was slightly hazy. Stopping at the lights in Rushall, at what used to be the village square, I thought how festive it looked. This area is always very bright at night – a combination of street and traffic lights, shop windows and signage, but with the extra light of the christmas decorations, it did, actually, feel a bit like Christmas. Ah well, only a few days of work left to go…

August 30th – I noticed this poster a few days ago, and it’s been bothering me ever since. I think it’s one of the worst advertising banners I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming that the company concerned, the builders Cameron, are trying to tell me that if I buy one of their new build houses in Rushall, I can save tens of thousands of pounds. What they’re actually telling me is I can’t save anything. I think it’s bloody awful, am I alone in this? Is it only me that is annoyed about stuff of this nature?

June 4th – The disappointments of the day were compensated for handsomely by the herons on the canal. Even the darkest bits of the industrial Black Country – and I hit the Tame Valley Canal, which has some very grim bits indeed – was host to these fine fishers. Oddly twitchy, it was difficult to get any pictures, but this fine fellow obliged in Rushall. Death on two legs to it’s hapless prey, I must have seen ten or more of these dishevelled, rickety looking birds. Also prolific were the common terns, whose missile-like fishing skills have to be seen to be believed.