October 16th – It seemed a little previous, considering it’s two weeks to Halloween, but as I waited at the lights at the Pleck Road/Bridgman Street junction in Walsall on my way home I spied this real pumpkin on the parcel shelf of the car in front. Nicely carved, too; beats a nodding dog.
It certainly made me smile.
October 15th – I hadn’t been down Station Street in Darlaston – at least the James Bridge end of it – for a while. What greeted me today was quite a surprise, to say the least.
Walsall has developed some odd traffic calming and management systems in the last few weeks; traffic engineers have gone mad with the Shellgrip at Rushall, and two streets in The Butts have become one way. Here, the stub end of Station Street – a short cut through to Heath Road – has been blocked to two way traffic at the Heath Road junction.
This seems bizarre in itself, but they have left a cycling lane open for us two-wheelers, although it’s possibly the most peculiar such arrangement I’ve ever seen.
It’s like an ability-testing obstacle course. I bet whoever laid this out hasn’t ridden a bike for years.
October 2nd – I parked the bike and popped into the gents at Moor Street Station for a pee.
It didn’t apply to me. I wasn’t wearing a dress.
September 21st – I’ve seen this before in other villages, but I’d not noticed it in Wall. I went back today to record the phone box library – a free book crossing project in a disused K6 telephone box. It’s a great idea. Not sure if they have any longevity, but a lovely thing to do.
Some of the books were pretty good, too.
September 15th – My nosiness will one day be my undoing. For months now I’ve been curious about a drain cover I noticed at the top of the rough steps up to the old railway walk, just on the canal by Pelsall Road, Brownhills. It’s puzzled me because, well, there are no services up there, and no drains – certainly no electrics or telephony. But the access cover is new, and probably put there by whoever constructed the steps (and I never did find out who was responsible for those). Today, my curiosity bettered me and I flipped the plastic lid open – there’s a empty, corrugated tube veering to the side. A pebble dropped goes a fair way.
I popped the lid back, and went on my way, none the wiser…
September 10th – This just in from the ‘You’re having a bloody laugh’ department. A I noted last week, security at the bike parking facilities in the ‘new’ New Street Station is notoriously bad. Daily, the tally of thefts and vandalism increases. Notwork Fail, in their wisdom, stonewall any criticism or constructive comment.
Today, I noted they’ve been pro-active. They have pasted up a life-size photo of a copper on the hoarding behind the racks.
This has to be a joke. Fellow cyclists, Network Rail are taking the piss.
(Sorry about the poor quality close-up, taking photos at New Street is frowned upon)
September 10th – I was in darkest, suburban Acocks Green, waiting for a slow moving car to come the other way. I felt someone watching me. Then we made eye contact.
Cycling judgement cat finds my bike fit is atrocious, my road position is abysmal and my bike is filthy. I must do better.
September 6th – The sadness of things. Spotted on CLayhanger Common. A lost football, trapped in a bramble thicket. Too large to reach over, to prickly to brave climbing in. Play suspended…
August 19th – Thanks to friend of the blog Rosa Maria Burnell, I can reveal that Brownhills has developed a second pop-up bench. Again, secondhand, it’s appeared at the junction between Silver Street and the Miner Island. It’s not a picturesque spot, but Rose reports it was being well-used.
I have nothing against such street furniture, but I’m curious as to who’s erecting them, from where, and why.
August 17th – In the way that sometimes things just happen in Brownhills without notice, rhyme or reason, a bench has appeared at the top of Pier Street in Brownhills. There is no logic to the positioning, and indeed, it’s quite awkward. Nobody would want to sit here, facing the side of a shop.
The bench is tatty and has clearly been transplanted from elsewhere. But where? And why? By whom? What on earth were they thinking?
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 