March 6th – Spotted in great Bridge, in an alleyway just off the high street, these two likely characters, although only a handful of yards apart, studiously ignoring each other.
I love how now the weather is warming up, the flaneurs of the summer are starting to awaken from their cosy spots indoors, yawn, stretch and take the outside air now that the sap is rising.
When the cats are out, you know summer isn’t far away.
March 2nd – Been passing this sign for ages now. Only today did I stop to read the small print.
Really? That’s a very bold claim. How did that even come about?
They do look extraordinarily tall. An odd curiosity.
February 8th – A poor photo, but this could have been expensive. In the bike shed at Telford, a brand new, barely used Boardman bike. Like the Carrera a few days ago, a Halfords own-brand bike, and like Carrera, pretty good quality for the money.
Sadly, the owner isn’t familiar with this kind of cycle rack – his front wheel is in the channel correctly, but his rear beside it. Hooked over the channel at the back end of the rack, waiting to get bent or snapped, the bike’s rear gear mechanism.
I gently lifted it out, and later in the day, found the owner and explained to them how close they were to a costly repair – works bike sheds are far from gently places at knocking off time!
February 3rd – Also on the square, the tell-tale sign of a secondhand steed.
This road bike – a Carrera (Halfords own band) low end job – has been clearly bought by someone who’s a wee bit too big for it. The saddle is so high as to make the geometry look unsettlingly wrong, and the steerer – the fork tube the stem and handlebars mount from has been extended by a ‘suicide’ riser. This is a device to increase the height of the bars relying on clamps to keep it secure.
Often the clamps slip or come loose, hence the nickname.
Finally, the flat bars are far from original.
People, buy a bike that fits, even secondhand. It’s a lot safer and comfier in the long run.
January 23rd – Heading into Birmingham on a dull, misty and early morning, I hit a queue of traffic along Blake Street which was unusual, Rounding the bend, I saw an articulated lorry with the top of it’s trailer crudely torn off – the effect of driving it under the low bridge now behind it.
The vehicle but have been going at a fair speed as the entire of the trailer’s roof was destroyed, and the HGV near clear of the railway over bridge.
There really is no excuse for this, and it’s fortunate nobody was injured. Any driver has to know the height of their rig and where the acceptable routes are. Trying to think of anything to mitigate this guy’s position I came up blank.
Perhaps the bridge should have been wearing more hi-vis…
This king of the road’s idiocy mate for a touch and go, very uncomfortable commute for me and anyone else who was on the Cross City Line. What’s so maddening is this is a fairly regular occurrence here.
How hard is it to read a warning sign?
January 15th – One of those horrible, headache-grey wet winter days when it never really seems to get light and never stops raining. I plodded out to Chasewater, after checking the waxwings were still at Silver Court. Their numbers had increased, but the light was way too poor to get pictures.
Chasewater was empty save for a few brave souls, and the cafes had closed early. I mooched for a bit, looking for interesting wildlife, but found none, not even the large white geese which seem to have been missing now for weeks. I hope they’re OK but I guess by now they’re very old and I think they may have passed away.
I noticed with some amusement that new signs have been erected about not feeding the birds near the fort (due to pollution in the gravel there) – and something looked odd about the spacing of the ‘s’ on ‘birds’ – and then I realised someone had hastily removed an apostrophe. On all of them. Oops.
Also, is that comic sans?
The canal route I took back to Brownhills on the other hand was quite interesting. In atrocious light I saw the goosanders again, and I wonder if I’d ever be able to get a decent photo of these odd birds. The two remaining Abbey Road ducks were out and about too, as was Mrs. Muscovy, but her photos were so poor as to be unusable.
An awful day to ride, but I did see some interesting stuff which at least made braving the elements worthwhile.
January 14th – On the lookout for a little duck, maybe, or anything small and squeaky in the dusk, canal side cat at the appropriately named Catshill Junction was watching, and waiting, and distinctly irritated by my attention.
That’s a lovely puss, though.
January 10th – Sadly, my commuting life right now isn’t terribly varied. I’m seeing a lot of dark urbanity, stations, later and earlier. Apologies. Finding variance in a busy January when you don’t see much daylight is always hard.
Passing through Birmingham New Streetin the evening, I found myself at the same platform as the steel horse sculpture that forms the first in a chain of 12 along the line side to Wolverhampton.
Erected in 1987 and designed by Kevin Atherton, the Iron Horse project put similar horses in different motion positions alongside an urban railway line, to appear as if the train you were on was losing a race with a horse. Some jump, some buck, canter or trot. They are warm, lifelike, and softly amusing.
They have fared well and not dated, and are one of the great curiosities of Birmingham and the Black Country.
December 27th – Passing through Leomansley in Lichfield, in a hurry, I did a double take, and had to stop to record the Lichfeldian cervine genetic engineering project’s latest results.
I also learned from the ever informative, cardigan bedraped LichfieldLore that this is the home of the wonderful and witty A-Snalian thing. If you look closely, I’m being watched over the wall.
I’m told this is the second set of deer and penguins, the first being lost in the storm on Friday. That must mean there are others now roaming free.
Be afraid, kids, be very afraid.
December 25th – Mrs. Muscovy was still in her favourite spot when I passed by. Still solitary and apparently contemplating. Escaped from the nearby smallholding, still resisting recapture, this funny fowl is inscrutable and something of a local canard celebrity.
I wished her a Merry Christmas, and after nearly a year on the run, bid the Newtown One another year of singular freedom.
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