BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

On a bike, riding somewhere. Every day, rain or shine.

Posts tagged ‘strange’

#365daysofbiking How do you like those apples?

May 3rd – An interesting surprise to note one tree near Clayhanger Common this year has been hit heavily by the gall wasp that causes oak apple galls.

These growths – protective structures grown from corrupted leaf buds – house gall wasp larva that will eat their way out of the gall as the season progresses. The corruption is caused by the parent wasp injecting the larva’s egg into the nascent leaf bud covered in a chemical that causes the cells to deform.

It’s one of the odder evolutionary parasitic actions I’ve ever come across and it fascinates me. And it doesn’t seem to affect the tree at all.

One of the more peculiar aspects is all the oak trees around the one affected are completely untouched. But this one is affected more heavily than any I’ve ever seen in my life. There must be several thousand oak apples.

But why just this one tree? A fascinating thing.

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#365daysofbiking – Alone again, or

April 24th – It was a pleasant evening so I hopped off the canal near Aldridge and did a loop over Lazy Hill and back into Brownhills over Shire Oak.

People keep saying things are getting busier. Sorry, I can’t see it.

This is 6:30pm on a Friday on one of the main arterial routes in the area. I had to wait ages for a car to come the other way and change the lights for me. I barely saw a soul in a seven mile ride. I saw more wild animals than people.

I have never seen days like these.

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#365daysofbiking Obtrusive

April 6th – Working from home when I can means shorter exercise rides, so I try to make them quite challenging in the short time I’m out, mindful of the busybodies who currently seem to be revelling in their mantel as self-appointed lockdown police.

I hammered a fast, offroad circuit of Brownhills, and up around the track that runs around the new pond at Clayhanger. The heavily rutted, drying out trails are quite fun and I enjoyed the sight of swans pairing off on the water below.

Lots of people who formerly wouldn’t walk are doing so now; taking advantage of their daily exercise allowance. This is making me feel quite obtrusive: Quiet routes and trails that were usually mine alone I now share with those new to them.

I’m surprised nobody has got lost on the common yet…

Adapting to all this will take a while.

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#365daysofbiking Similarly dead

April 4th – And as I came back along the canal, the situation was similar from Northywood Bridge.

The industrial area on this side of Stubbers Green is normally brisk, even on a weekend: A busy builder’s merchant, B&M not a stones throw away, people continually coming through.

Today, not a soul. Not a car about.

It’s seriously making me wonder how much stuff we do as humans out of genuine need, as opposed to what we do just to keep busy…

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#365daysofbiking Ghost town

April 4th – A trip out to buy essentials – once a casual, carefree, incidental thing – is now a mission. It involves queueing, or planning which shops to visit who might have stock of what you need.

Nothing is simple anymore. Everything is an extra effort, or requires planning or more time. Even finding a curry or getting fish and chips.

In Aldridge, mid Saturday afternoon. There was the odd, waiting, mostly empty bus. The supermarkets – Morrisons, Home Bargains, Iceland – were steady, but with social isolation measures, a queue to get in each made shopping tortuous.

And then, beyond the carparks this… sunlit ghost town.

These are the strangest days I’ve ever known, or will again.

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#365daysofbiking Fallen silent

April 3rd – A dusk ride out on a Friday at 7pm and there’s an unnatural silence descended on the area. The Shire Oak Pub should be alive, homely, lit up and buzzing with activity.

Because of the Coronavirus restrictions, it is silent, and shut.

Curtains drawn, it’s fallen silent, like the roads around it, in which I feel like an alien intruder.

These are very strange days indeed.

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#365daysofbiking In a grump

March 25th – The country in which I live is slowly shutting down in a way I never considered likely, or even possible. Little things that make my daily life normal – stopping for coffee, calling into the supermarket – nipping out to the park – are now either not going to be possible, or require a lot of planning.

I have key worker status, and for now cannot work from home. So I continue to be out and about, but always with a letter, announcing my status and reasons for being considered so, should the police stop me.

There is now a normal, defensive hostility from strangers – like this gorgeous ginger and white floof who gave me the shoulder in Walsall Wood from the opposite side of the canal.

We’re all in a grump now, I guess.

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#365daysofbiking Trouble on the wind

March 16th – Due to coronavirus, there appear to be odd times coming, and I don’t much like the look of them, I can tell you.

Returning home in the dusk the canal was still as I paused before heading to Silver Street and central Brownhills. People had been panic buying hand sanitiser, cleaning products, long life food and toilet rolls.

All because of a virus we are lost as individuals in the face of. There is not much we can do, so we panic buy for the reassurance of affirmative action.

This is not my country.

Thankfully, though, the calm of the canal and falling night was still reassuringly so.

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#365daysofbiking Surface tension and the biblical propensity

October 25th – Passing through Walsall on a wet and very blustery day, I passed Town Wharf, the canal basin that’s been in Walsall for a while now. In fact since the canals were built here, a couple of hundred years ago.

I notice we now have hastily added deep water warnings, because apparently people are mistaking the weed on the canal for grass and falling in.

There has been a sudden rash of such incidents in the last few weeks.

Once can only speculate why so many folk suddenly should try to replicate the biblical miracle of walking on water here in Walsall. Perhaps the nearby establishments that sell wine may be linked. Maybe they converted it from canal water (not too much of a transition for some of the local ales, to be fair).

It’s all most peculiar. But do mind how you go. It’s wet down there.

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#365daysofbiking Slider rule

August 27th – Oh gosh, a local celebrity. On the half-shell.

This yellow belly slider turtle has been living in the canal for years – I’ve seen a few of them in my time; there was one at Chasewater for years and several on the Black Country canals.

They are all discarded pets that are now illegal; they are normally southern US residents but survive fine in our climate, but won’t breed.

I’ve had fleeting glimpses of this one before near Clayhanger, but today, I caught it enjoying the sun at the edge of the canal.

It’s large, healthy, and apparently content. And boy, can it move fast: One whiff of danger and it retreated back to the water at top speed.

A fascinating curiosity.

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