Tag: sun

October 29th – A run up over the old Ironstone Road, Prospect Village and Rainbow Hill, crossing Birches Valley, Penkridge Bank and down Abrahams Valley was in order, particularly as British Summer Time had ended and darkness would fall an hour earlier.

The forest is beautiful at the moment, and with the weather getting cold, all but the trail centre at Birches Valley were pretty quiet. The ride was a blast but the sudden cold was a shock.

It’s coming on winter and I’m back in love with Cannock Chase again.

October 27th – Yet the day had it’s best in store for me. Labouring up past Aldershaw feeling tired, I returned via Chesterfield, Wall Butts, Hilton and Stonnall in a truly glorious, remarkable golden hour of beautiful orange light and glowing autumn colour.

It’s amazing how one afternoon can completely transform your mood and lift you from the gloom you’ve been in.

October 27th – I managed to finish work in the early afternoon and got myself and my bike to Lichfield for a lovely autumn sunny afternoon.

The old city and the sisters of the Vale looked gorgeous with the low sun and long shadows, as did Festival Gardens, the war memorial and Minster Pool.

Lichfield can be awfully up itself sometimes, but it’s a very beautiful place and it would be impossible not to love it – and a content afternoon mooching for gifts in the junk shops and charity emporia was a great way to unwind.

Some great weather at last!

October 16th – An very strange weather day. We were expecting severe storms in the afternoon, and in the morning, to a gradually increasing wing, the sky and light turned pink. Not just a light, gentle pink, but a deep, strong pink that suffused everything and made one think the end was coming.

It actually turned out to be pollution and sand dust in the upper atmosphere caused by the oncoming, dying hurricane, but the effect was bfar better than any eclipse I’ve ever seen. 

For an hour or so on an otherwise unremarkable October morning, the world went a little bit strange for us all.

September 11th – Inescapable now, action is slowly but surely draping it’s cloak over the shoulders of later summer.

I notice the leaves are turning (maybe a little early), and tinges of red, gold and brown are catching hedgerows and woodlands. It’s now sunset way before 8pm, and we’re heading towards the darkness at an alarming rate.

But the beauty is there in the sunshine particularly, and my annual dread is beginning to ease a little…

September 10th – A miserable, wet and grey day with high winds kept me hemmed in until late afternoon, when despite being caught by a couple of heavy squalls, the skies cleared and the sun came out for a while.

I contented myself with a loop of Brownhills and Chasewater and explored some things I’d been meaning to check out for a while, and it wasn’t a bad, but chilly and damp ride.

Some of the views – when the sun caught the spray and the rain sparkled in the light – were gorgeous.

It seems the Indian summer I was hoper for is not to be this year.

August 26th – A day that should have been terrible by rights, but worked out wonderfully in the end.

Not many photos, as I was too busy riding!

I needed a part for the bike which has developed an annoying creak. So I booked a click and collect for an extortionately priced replacement part at a national cycle chain in Sutton for collection same day. I set off and when I got to the shop, it was all a big error, and they hadn’t got the part, couldn’t refund me and couldn’t understand why I was in the least bit annoyed.

Desperate to end the mechanical whinging, I did some of my own and headed to Birmingham to score a part somewhere else. This robbed me of the ride I had planned. At 5pm, having the parts, a coffee and some stodgy comfort food, I peered at the departure boards at new Street for inspiration – if I was to get a country ride in, I had to select carefully. 

Nuneaton won.

Arriving at Nuneaton 30 minutes later, I headed for Higham, Stoke Golding and Sutton Cheney through gorgeous sun-dappled countryside, pushing for Market Bosworth along a lovely road I’d cycled 10 years previously. It was gorgeous. I headed back home through Congerstone, Builstone, Twycross and down the long, cross-country green lane of Salt Street into a terrific sunset. No Man’s Heath, Clifton, Harlaston, Hademore, Whittington and Wall made up the return. 

It was a beautiful, English evening ride. Warm, little wind and beautiful scenery. 65 miles.

The firethorn (Pyrocanthus) is beautiful along the Birmingham canals, and the newly thatched cottage in Market Bosworth with the two foxes – how on earth did the thatcher get such expression into bundles of reeds? Stunning.

July 17th – Later the same day, in Darlaston. A summer place.

This, my friends, is the heart of the Black Country: thought by people who don’t know it to be ugly, defiled, polluted and unlovely. 

It’s actually mostly the absolute opposite and that’s why it has such a large part of my heart and soul.

This is my place.

July 16th – The dying light intensified it’s drama as I headed back wearily to Brownhills. The Parade is always a treat but with so many mature deciduous trees there now, a low sun is a real treat.

It’s not hard to see the beauty in this place. You just need to be receptive to it and find the right light.