Tag: shade

May 23rd – Sam, the elderly puss that puts the king in Kings Hill, Darlaston, has been enjoying the spring.

Clearly in his dotage, I rarely see Sam actually doing anything – but often dozing. I didn’t see him once during the winter, presumably he prefers the indoor warmth of his nearby home, but come the summer and he sleeps around the flats complex where he lives.

Every day I’ve passed for the last week, he’s been asleep in the dappled shade of a tree in the morning, and in the afternoon, enjoying the warmth of the sun-heated wall nearby in the evening cool.

Despite his age and total lack of teeth, he has a fine set of whiskers and a great sheen to his coat and I know that his human loves him very much.

Seeing this lad out and sleeping every spring really makes me happy.

December 19th – The weather was really warming up – indeed, it felt positively tropical on my first daylight commute for ages into Darlaston – but the hazards were still there, lurking, just waiting to steal my wheels; short patches of shaded road that get little sun on industrial estates and minor roads still hosted lumps of meltwater-lubricated solid ice that were hard to navigate and chillingly jarring when ridden over.

I’ll be glad when the ice goes.

July 17th – Later the same day, in Darlaston. A summer place.

This, my friends, is the heart of the Black Country: thought by people who don’t know it to be ugly, defiled, polluted and unlovely. 

It’s actually mostly the absolute opposite and that’s why it has such a large part of my heart and soul.

This is my place.

May 23rd – With warmer weather, during the warm hours, the urban cat population revert ro their languid, lazy norms, finding shady, peaceful spots to doze and watch the world go by – at least until it’s cooler, when they tend to be more active.

Coming through central Walsall in the afternoon, this young overseer of the neighbourhood was en repose on top of the wheeliebins in a shady front garden, and clearly enjoying the cool vantage point.

Seeing such characters emerge is one of the best things about summer…

August 30th – Something in the climate of this day was perfect for the cats of North Walsall. They lazed in the shade of cars and lamp-posts, relaxed, just watching their world go by, making sure all was in order and nothing was untoward.

It’s nice to know they were on guard, these sunshine sentries of suburbia.

August 8th – I still can’t get my head around the state of the trees currently blocking the new development’s view of Catshill Junction. This is a Walsall Housing Group project consisting of apartments, sold as ‘canalside’ dwellings – but as far as I can ascertain, most of the properties have no view of the canal itself due to the overgrown thicket in-between.

Such dense vegetation must also make those flats terribly dark. Unusually for Walsall Housing Group, they don’t seem to have any plan to deal with this and integrate their development into the immediate environment. I find this surprising and sad.

And still languishing unloved on the bank, the Catshill Junction Sculpture. 

What a mess.

October 19th – The last time I was in this spot at this time of day was Friday, when I was feeling black and down. Today, I stopped in the chill air and looked to the retreating sun.

I got out the camera, recorded the sunset over my town, the place I love, then remounted and headed off into the light.

I feel so much better today. If only I could remain in light.