April 10th – My respect and thanks are due to Walsall Council, who in very short time indeed have assessed the weather decay of parts of Green Lane between Walsalll Wood and Shelfield, and resurfaced completely a couple of stretches.
The bit here, resurfaced during the day whilst I was at work, was bloody awful on a bike. It’s way better now.
Thank you.
February 19th – This one has been puzzling me for a while.
In Shelfield, theres a backstreet pub called The Four Crosses. Most nights on my way home from work I pass it, it’s lights glowing warmly in the darkness. It’s a good pub, and always was, with fans across the borough.
In recent years, this pub shut for a while, and then, after a brief planning dispute, reopened, with the rest of the pub being converted into flats or bedsits. The outer walls of the building were reclad, and it lives on.
Except for one thing. There is no sign. Nothing to tell the unfamiliar passer-by this is a pub.
It has been like this for 12 months now. It can’t be good for business.
It worries me.
January 31st – Oh my days, or nights rather. We never get a normal moon anymore. All we get are ‘super moons’, or for some reason our already lovely satellite is pronounced unique by the media at any given time around on it’s 28 day appearance cycle.
I have to admit, this time it was impressive; a blue moon true enough – it’s second fullness in the month, but it was large and bright and shone out in the sky of an urban Walsall, guiding me as I cycled home.
It was beautiful, but then, it always has been. It is special every time, because it’s distant and mystical and humans went there once. And sometimes, on cold nights in late January, the thought that if humans can go all that way and return is very reassuring. If we can do that amazing feat, perhaps we can do anything, and life is not so bad after all.
I was not the only soul the moon was clearly guiding on; as I crossed the Black Cock bridge in Walsall Wood, I startled a small, brisk, nervous cat who was clearly up to important cat things, and had no wish to share them with a human on a strange mechanical contraption.
November 27th – A snatched, quick photo taken just after dawn in Jockey Meadows, between Shelfield and Walsall Wood. A pair of grey partridges, fluffed up in the cold, and sheltering from the wind in a tracker tire-rut.
It’s been years since I noticed partridges up here. Good to see them on a Monday morning.
November 10th – A long day, but passing Jockey Meadows in the morning showed me how lovely even the edgelands of the area can be; wedged in between Walsall Wood and Shelfield, the site of scientific special interest that is the Meadows can be scrubby and untidy, and not quite one thing nor the other, but today it was gorgeous in the colours of autumn, with leaves falling gently in Green Lane and long winter shadows.
Just what you need to set you up for a day at work…
September 28th – Terribly grainy, long distance ride cam footage of something nice about darkness commutes: Urban foxes.
Follow this short film and you’ll join me cruising around the bend by Coppice Woods on Green Lane between Walsall Wood and Sheffield. Out of the darkness to the right darts a large, fit male fox, who jumps the ditch into the wood.
Fantastic to see, and his antics will brighten many a dark commute over winter.
It’s not all dark. I just wish the footage was better. You may need to click the full screen button to see it best.
September 22nd – It was a long day. From Cradley, I had to drive to Derbyshire and back, and by the time I rode home at unset, I was tired and irritable and not feeling well. It seemed I had it with a cold.
Riding down Green Lane from Walsall, the sunlight caught the turning leaves and made them precious. Not too far from home, sunlight after a grim day, and the promise of good food, a brew and the comfort of family.
The lane and light called me on.
August 16th – Riding to work down Green Lane, Shelfield on a bright sunny morning, and something gently reminded me of my grandfather.
The harvest at Grange Farm has been ongoing, and the road had been treated to a generous sprinkling of spilled cereal kernels – probably wheat. This grain, spilled by machinery and trailers as they lurch from field to barn is a feature of rural and peri-rural areas at this time of year, and is what the old man called ‘gleanings’.
Locally, ordinary folk were allowed to collect the seed lost on the roads and lanes for their own use. Few would use it for food, but many fed it to pets and livestock. Grandad said that you traditionally fed pets you kept for pleasure, not profit on the gleanings, fancy birds like guineafowl.
Guineafowl were locally called Gleanies from this practice.
I well remember the farm opposite where the old man lived until a ripe old age having guineafowl, which are noisy, shrieking birds. ‘Gleanies am off again, the buggers!’ he’d curse every morning.
On a side note, watch out for the gleanings as they’re slippery and soapy, and steal wheels and grip, particularly when wet.
A warm memory on a warm, late summer morning.
August 8th – I passed the Jockey Meadows coos in poor light and soft rain as I cycled home. They were near mostly near the gate having a project meeting and I felt sad for them in the wet, although that was utterly daft, as they don’t appear to care about, or even notice the weather.
They are doing a good job and the meadow is visible freer of scrub and tall grass now, and I guess soon the lads will move on.
Although one must always treat cattle with respect, I do love these gentle, inquisitive and sociable animals.
June 19th – Spotted in appallingly bad light way off near the back of the bean field at Jockey Meadows, I noted this small herd of red dear, three females and two of this year’s fawns. I was pleased to see them as I haven’t seen deer up here recently.
They were skittish, and probably displaced by the recent arrival of the cows. But they looked healthy and content and it’s good to see the little ones thriving.
Still can’t get over the fact that I see these magnificent beasts on my way to and from work. How lucky we are to have this on our doorsteps.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 