#365daysofbiking Lifted:
November 8th – Heading to work on a damp, drizzly morning, autumn was still doing it’s best to lift me out of my doldrums. Still down, feeling the pressure at work and not over the end of summer, my commute was hard and tiring.
However, Green Lane looked gorgeous and improved my mood no end.
#365daysofbiking Darker now:
November 4th – My heart is broken. A great online friend has gone and left us all bereft.
These streets and views of Walsall Wood belonged to Janey, and now she’s gone.
Sleep well my friend. You have left Walsall Wood a darker place.
#365daysofbiking Where the night is lighter:
November 3rd -Returning to Brownhills, where the night is lighter, a classic shot from Anchor Bridge of the canal and Lindon Road, a night-time vista I’ll always enjoy.
The camera acquainted itself well, and I don’t find the result to be at all bad.
I know I keep saying this, but it’s true: Brownhills can be a remarkably beautiful place. Even at night.
#365daysofbiking The dark side:
November 2nd – Returning that evening, drained after a heavy, stressful week, I hit the canal.
Riding the canal towpaths after dark requires a couple of things – nerves of steel and a good front light.
The nerves are necessary to spot the familiar hazards of the towpath in unfamiliar lighting conditions – ducks, geese, foxes, cats etc, as well as deep potholes, bumps, wooden trail edge boards and paver edges. It’s also challenging to predict sudden curves in the path you navigate automatically in daylight.
I can also be a bit… lonely.
But I love the mental challenge and peace of it.
#365daysofbiking Night falls:
October 29th – Travelling back home in the first of the end of British Summer Time commutes is always hard: I wasn’t late, but it was dark, and cold. I got passed by two gritters. Progress was slow.
Winter is upon me.
This means rejigging the photography a bit, as it’s had to find subjects in darkness, so the activity tends to shift to morning, or during errands or trips in the daytime.
Oh well, it’s here. Let’s do this.
#365daysofbiking A real shock:
October 27th – Nipping out again in the evening to see a mate, I hadn’t;’t wrapped up well enough.
Blimey, that was a shock to the system – winter is here now!
365daysofbiking Buttered up:
October 5th – I said a good few weeks ago now that butter and eggs, or toadflax is one of the harbingers of summer’s end: When it comes into flower, you know the season is at an end.
Still going strong in early October, it’s one of the few things still in flower, resolutely brightening the canal towpaths, edgelands and hedgerows.
A beautiful, but sad flower.
#365daysofbiking Sucked under:
October 2nd – The Suck is brutal this year. The dark evening commutes are hard and the driving is bad. But today was unexpected, unforecast drizzle all the way, and with no waterproof trousers, I was soaked and miserable.
This is the hard bit of winter. Dark, wet and cold, it’s going to get a lot worse before it begins to improve.
Every year this gets more and more daunting.
#365daysofbiking Maturing:
October 2nd – Spotted on the canal in the during the morning commute, both the Walsall Wood swan family and the Walsall group. All in rude health and maturing to adulthood.
Woody the single cygnet at Walsall Wood this year is clearly thriving and he was happily browsing the weed with his parents never far way, his white plumage really coming on now.
More advanced, and loafing at the back of the factories on Pleck Road, the large Walsall family were having a communal chill out and preen session.
It never ceases to amaze me the positions swans are comfortable to get their legs into…
#365daysofbiking Chips with that?
September 10th – I notice the Canal and River Trust have contractors out at the moment cutting back canalside tree and shrub overgrowth, which is a job that’s been ongoing locally most of the summer.
Here at Walsall Wood they’ve been quite ruthless in removing the lower beaches of trees and scrub over what is a very wide canal, so the growth would not have impeded the passage of boat traffic.
It has, however, removed cover for kingfishers, waterfowl and the mamals that live and hunt alone the bank. Periodically, piles of wood chips will be good for bugs I suppose.
Concerning, but I suppose it’s necessary.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 