Tag: Telford

April 25th – One of the sadnesses of the season is how short lived the blossom is – it’s there, and gone in a blaze of colour, then shed petals and confetti, then… nothing. A more transient example of the season’s wheel you could not find.

At the moment, the blossom is just starting to end, but passing these two intertwined trees on the cycleway to Priorslee in Telford always fascinates me as it looks like one tree with two different colours of blossom.

I love how, even when fresh, the pink one looks like bright but tattered tissue paper.

Such a lovely, but all to quickly passing, time of year…

April 23rd – Later that same day, a visit to Telford saw me hauling up the cycleway to Priorslee. A few short weeks ago this view was barren and grey. 

Once more this byway is turning into a beautiful tunnel of verdant green.

I love how spring and summer can make even the most dystopian of places beautiful.

April 17th – The Telford footbridge construction project continues, and there’s a really interesting stage started now; partially build sections of the bridge have been delivered as steelwork skeletons, namely a couple of lattice piers and the over railway deck section. What’s interesting is that they have been fixed temporarily on spare ground, and other parts are being welded and added. The assembled sections will be completed on the ground, and then lifted into place.

I’ve never seen this done before and passing through on a grey, drizzly afternoon it was certainly interesting to watch the engineers at work while I waited for the train.

This is certainly going to confuse people trying to work out the final layout…

April 11th – Over in Telford on a misty grey and damp morning, crossing the motorway on the cycleway bridge I noticed that the blackthorn blossom was in full swing.

One of the earlier tree blossoms of spring, it’s usually a pointer to better weather. Often mistaken for hawthorn, it turns hedgerows and copses white for a time, but before the leaves are fully out.

It shows it’s real beauty on a sunny day. Ah well, better luck next time.

April 6th – A frenetic, hurried visit to Telford in the afternoon showed me something about spring I forget – the optimism and resilience of nature. At the worksite of the new footbridge project, daffodils I spoke of as being lost last year under diggers and demolition have not just survived, but sprout from every patch of undisturbed ground. Bobbing cheerfully from scraped embankments, mounds of silver and defiantly decorating piles of rebar, these yellow flag bearers for better times will not be put off.

Meanwhile, steelwork is going up apace now.

Some features of spring are not just beautiful, but life-affirming.

March 26th – In Telford for a meeting, the footbridge project continues it’s bizarre stop-start behaviour, baffling to the uninitiated. Piles are bored and concreted now, sheet piling has appeared along the roadside, and a cavity there had been dug – maybe for a pier or lift-well. Steelwork has been driven into the earth and cut to varying lengths, and there a lot of noise and action. But no visible chap yet, and nothing on the Euston Way side of the station at all. 

I guess this is one of those puzzling projects that will just sudsy come together, but it’s very intriguing to watch.

March 26th – My goodness I’m having trouble keeping up with this this week, apologies – have no fear, normal service will be resumed forthwith!

Spring is coming to the hedgerows, edgelands and waysides, almost in spite of the lousy weather generally. Although we’re having some good days, mostly the weather is still grey and cold, and Winter is beginning to feel like the unwanted, hated guest that will never leave. 

Nature is doing it’s very best to push winter away – the daffodils are well on the way now, with the large beds on roadsides starting to come out, and to my surprise, ornamental prime blossom on a trading estate in Telford.

There’s brightness, as there always is. But you have to look for it. Hard.