#365daysofbiking Either end:
November 19th – Working late in Redditch, I found myself waiting for the train homewards in a brightly lit, but sparse station, surrounded by the light of the Kingfisher Shopping Centre and bus station. It really is a most odd place at night. It barely feels like a station at all.
At the other end, leaving Blake Street and slogging up the Chester Road in unexpected rain was very hard, grim work.
I was just glad to get home tonight.
#365daysofbiking The last obstacle”
November 8th – Returning from Birmingham that evening, the weather was still grim and I stopped to take a photo of the traffic at the Shire Oak crossroads.
Shire Oak Hill is like a homecoming to me. it’s the last obstacle to sanctuary before a gentle and lovely roll downhill into Brownhills. Light or dark, good weather or bad, cresting this hill is always and absolute joy.
At night, in rain, it’s also a fascinating collage of reflection, light and hard surfaces. It fascinates me.
August 24th – At Chester Road near the Stonnall turning, just before Castlehill, change is afoot. The old quarry with the hardstanding, idle since the 50s after it’s use as a concrete block manufacturing works is now undergoing groundworks for the construction of a new care home.
There have been a number of planning applications for this site over recent times, and permission for a fairly large elderly person’s care facility was granted last year and will involve extensive modifications to the road to mitigate the driveway.
It’ll be interesting to watch this progress.
August 24th – I nipped to Stonnall on my way home, and the view from Shire Oak was a gorgeous as ever when I passed: I’ll never tire of that view of the Ladies of the Vale over the quarry and rolling countryside to Wall.
On my return to Brownhills, dusk was falling, and the new flats at Anchor Bridge glowed well as the dying sunlight caught the damp tarmac.
August 19th – Talking of the harvest, at Home Farm, Sandhills, the cornfield I’d captured the rainbow and remarkable sunset from a few weeks ago has now been harvested, and the stubble, still golden in the overcast day, is awaiting ploughing back in.
My favourite tree – my marker for the seasons, the horse Chestnut by the farmhouse – is clearly laden with conkers.
What a fantastic summer and season this has been. Just what I needed.
July 28th – There was not only a remarkable sunset, but a partial rainbow within it, so I shot out on the bike to catch it in what I thought would be the best place – from the canal overlooking Sandhilsl and Home Farm.
When I got there, I realised that I had a problem: The hedge was too high to get decent pictures. So I rode up the canal to the gap in the hedge, and crawled through. Walking the field of uncut wheat was wonderful, particularly so following the day’s showers, which made it a sensory delight.
How I adore that horse chestnut tree.
July 15th – An evening spin out after a day doing bike maintenance. It was warm and sunny and I did a lazy loop around Shenstone with the Nikon P900. It was a little too hazy but the Cathedral and Little Aston church came out well.
Sad to see so much building waste – clearly all from the same source – flytipped around Bullmoor and other local lanes. It has been reported.
Monday 9th – One of those days when you get disheartened as you took some great images but didn’t realise until late that there was a smudge on the camera lens that ruined them all…
After realising and wielding the lens pen, coming back from Lichfield late in the evening as I came up Shire Oak Hill the sunset was coming on well. This is the second time in the last few days we’ve had insteresting sun/cloud interactions, and it looked great in a gold-suffused hour.
It felt much fresher, and the building cloud is making me wonder if the weather is soon to break… but after the worst, latest spring I can ever remember, if it rains until l December now, we’ve had a terrific summer.
June 29th – A dayride from Macclesfield back home, via the Trentabank, the Roaches, Royal Cottage, Morridge, Longnor, Hurdlow, the High Peak Trail, Carsington, Holland, Hatton, ALrewas, Whitemoor Haye, Weeford and Shenstone, totalling 121 miles.
I really am back in the saddle this season, thanks to the excellent weather, and a bit of determination.
June 25th – Riding home from Shenstone it seemed like the hottest afternoon ever. Of course it wasn’t, but I was tired, the hay fever was giving me hell and energy was low.
I notice now that the haymaking is ongoing, in great weather for it, a the Footherley Brook looked as gorgeous and changeless as it must have done for decades.
I was quite impressed with the image quality of the cathedral view from Shire Oak: for a camera with limited zoom that’s not a bad image at all.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 