Tag: urban

March 30th – Recklessly, and without any ID, I went to Pelsall for a late breakfast at a cafe I like there. Thankfully, the border guards were asleep, and I slipped into the Principality unnoticed. 

Pelsall is a bit like Midwich. It all seems so right, but somewhere, nearby, you can feel that something is a bit wrong. Perhaps I watched too much junk sci-fi as a kid, but Pelsall is well odd. I never really feel comfortable there, although the village has a Royston-Vaseyish charm of it’s own. I love the terraces with front doors opening onto the street; the old-style hardware store where you can still buy caustic soda, tin buckets and clouts by the pound. The ancient and sadly unloved delivery bike hitched up outside the butchers is also fascinating, if a little frustrating. Only the newly erected, and frankly hideous health centre and library spoils the effect. Clearly Stevie Wonder is still on the planning committee.

They are, of course, out to get me. Why else would they build speed-calming chicanes with a bike bypass lane narrower than my pedal span?

If you visit, watch out. I think they’re on to us…

February 19th – A couple of snatched, quick photos in Walsall this evening, proving why we should always look up, especially in towns. Stood outside of the Saddlers Centre in Park Street, I was putting on my gloves, and idly studying the roof-line. Never notices the balustrade around the very top of WH Smiths, or the lion head corbel on the building next door, which has some very handsome windows.

I think it’s time to go exploring…

February 16th – I hadn’t been to Lichfield since Christmas. It was nice to visit at sunset, and feel the chill coming in, reminding me not to get too cocky and that it was still February. The sky was gorgeous, and the city skyline more so. As I walked the streets pushing my bike, I reflected on how depressed the city centre was; so many closed shops I used to love. But the place is still gorgeous, for all that.

January 25th – I wanted to get asian snacks in for my workmates as a treat. The best place near to Tyseley is Mukhtar’s, in Small Heath, so on the way to work this morning I hopped off the train one stop early. I discovered the shop didn’t take debit card payments, so dived onto Small Heath High Street to use the ATM. I was struck – as I always am here – by the imperious nature of the architecture, repurposed for mundane shops and bedsits. 

Today, Small Heath is a bustling, busy, inner city suburb, teaming with life and a very, very diverse population. But when these places were built, what was it like then? Genteel? Gentrified? Semi Rural?
Look at the wrought iron, arches and architraves. Appreciate the gables, towers and bays.

Curse the fact that few ever look up and notice.

November 26th – Returning from Tyseley, the alternation flip-flopped again; it was raining. The drizzle was reasonably light, though, and I stopped to admire the view from the bridge. Winging it, I stood the camera on the Wharfdale Lane bridge parapet, and zoomed in on the city skyline over the train yard. I’m quite surprised at the result. The image is noisy, but I think I like it. Talk about unexpected beauty…

August 14th -The rabbit population, after being recently ravaged by myxomatosis, seems to be in recovery. EverywhereI go now I see lots of the cute little fellows: this delightful lady was grazing on the bridle way in Arrow Valley Park. Right in the centre of Redditch. There are factories and a main road clanking away not more than 100 yards from here.

May 31st – A really bad commute home this evening. The train I was due to catch – the 16:08 from Telford to Brum – was running 30 minutes late. Then cancelled, which meant there wasn’t another train until 16:51. Then it reappeared on the system, and rolled up at about 16:40… to terminate short in Wolverhampton. Resigned to my fate, I changed onto the stopper train from Wolves to Walsall that stops at every anthill and lamp-post. I arrived in Walsall – this train itself late – at about 18:25. I should have been at home with my feet up by then, and I still had to cycle home.

Wolverhampton station is a barren, soulless place. Like the city itself, I’ve tried to love it, but can’t, sadly. Always seems way too harsh and way too neglected to me. It matched my mood perfectly.  

Mayy 22nd – A glorious summer day that found me in Telford. Taking the long way round, I went through the town centre, and reflected on the nature of urban design and town planning. It’s easy to see on a day like this what the designers of the concrete and glass monoliths were aiming for, with images of downtown Seattle springing to mind. But the pedestrian distances between these edifices are huge, and never straight. Hard work even in summer, walking in Telford on a dark evening is frightening, lonely and seems to go on forever.

Telford’s failure of town planning is that the buildings were allowed to dwarf the people, and car routes were more important than those for pedestrians. Too many dark corners, not enough sky. A direct descendent from Birmingham’s failure in the sixties, this one is more nuanced, and largely of the 70s and 80s. It’s about scale, place and ownership of space. 

May 16th – Today found me in Tyseley, which made a change. I don’t come down this way much, but when I do, I always love the air of bustle in these industrial, urban streets. There’s always something going on around every corner; stuff to be shifted, things being unloaded. The backtreets are alive with the buzz of small industry – sewing machines, lathes, injection moulders all add to the background susurration, along with the clank of metal, clatter of doors and hiss of compressed air. Intermingled with it all is the faded air of a once possibly genteel Victorian place, whose station still bears the hallmarks of that period, from when the nearby terraces must also date. Most people pass this place in disgust, but actually, if you spend a while and traverse its streets, it has a kind of faded charm all of its own.

April 26th – I love the backstreets of Leicester. The terraces here have a lovely, period feel and I adore the busy, community air. At 4:15 in the afternoon, sounds of music, kids playing, the smells of foods cooking. Urban life in all it’s forms. Following on from observations by Kate of Lichfield Lore and good pal [Howmuch?], today I spotted the built-in boot scrapers I had never noticed before. I just love the grace of the old corner shop, too. This was housing built to provide homes for the working class, by the industrial oligarchs. Oddly, I think they did quite a fine job.