Tag: Walsall Wood

April 16th – Jockey Meadows between Sheffield and Walsall Wood are also greening well – and early – this year. As I rode past on a warm but breezy evening in pleasant sunshine, I noticed that way over by the marsh, red deer were grazing – which must be a sign that the sedges and moss they like to eat best must be growing again.

Jockey Meadows are always beautiful, and unexpectedly so, wedged in between two urban areas – as a notified Site of Special Scientific Interest they’re well worth a visit – but take some wellies!

April 13th – Spotted in passing, this black and white little cat was sheltering from a chilly breeze in the lee of a large plant pot on the canal bank at Walsall Wood. Try as I might, I couldn’t attract his attention: he was either studiously ignoring me, or watching the birds…

April 3rd – This is a crime warning.

The canal towpaths and waterside footpaths are, as is usual at this time of year, inhabited by attackers, muggers and aggressive beggars. Hormonally aggressive, the Canada geese and swans really aren’t messing around at the moment and will go after anything – walkers, cyclists, dogs.

This pair at Walsall Wood have been hanging about all week, and I now carry tidbits for the male to stop him pecking my ankles as I pass.

I’ll be glad when mating is over and they go back to their usual grumpy but relatively nervous state. 

April 1st – It doesn’t feel like spring right now – another pair of wind-blasted, periodically damp commutes; but in the hedgerows, verges and field-margins nature is stirring. The pussy willows are flowering well, the blackthorn is smattered with blossom and there are the bright green shoots of a new growing season beginning to show.

I have the feeling that if I hold on, spring will kick in very shortly…

Which is just as well, as today is the 4th birthday of this journal. On April 1st, 2011, fellow cyclist and full time Dutch Cycling Girl Renee Van Baar persuaded me to do #30daysofbiking for the April social media project. The rest is history.

I have ridden a bike without fail every day for four years, all but for two lost days to illness over New Year 2011/12. I have now cycled well over 1,000 days continuously, and logged a picture or short film from every day.

I couldn’t give up now. This is ingrained in me, as part of my daily riding habit. Tens of thousands of miles in everything from bright sunshine to heavy snow, I’ve chronicled my life on two wheels. The drive to keep the journal keeps me connected with my environment and still makes me look at things afresh, and sometimes, gets my arse into gear when I otherwise wouldn’t.

I will continue this as long as I’m able, but if it gets embarrassing or unseemly, just tell me to stop. Relying on you lot there, so I am…

Thanks for riding with me. I’ve had a great time so far, and I’m looking forward to a great summer. You lot up for it?

March 31st – A dreadful day to commute, although you’d never tell from the photos. It was very, very windy all day, with strong gusts that felt very threatening. I cycled to and from work in sun, overcast grey, rain and hail. The weather didn’t stay the same for five minutes. Talk about four seasons in one day.

Still, the young heron by the canal at Clayhanger was an unexpected treat. Hopefully, the wind will die down tomorrow and the weather may settle a little.

March 16th – The old Effluent Disposal/Leigh Environmental/Sarp/Veolia site in Walsall Wood, itself formerly the Walsall Wood Colliery remains empty, but secure. This once controversial plant, where huge quantities of industrial waste were poured into a former mineshaft deep under Walsall Wood, was often the seen of protest and trouble, then when dumping stopped here, it was laboratories and main offices. The plant flipped between a few companies over the years, and the last one – Veolia – moved to larger, new build premises a few years ago in Cannock.

The site is very secure, with caretakers living on site, and seems to be just quietly decaying.

There was talk of a food company buying these premises and moving production here, but I think they must have realised the former use probably wasn’t conducive to good customer feeling, and the place is still like a set from Day of the Triffids.

I would imagine this plant will be quite hard to sell.

February16th – I passed St. Johns Church, in Walsall Wood, early afternoon, and a bright flash caught my eye as I passed. Doubling back, I saw the sign was a QR code.

For goodness sakes.

I’m not a fan of QR codes; by the time you’ve downloaded an app, fiddled around scanning the code and waited for it to decode, you could just go to the site from a printed, simple web address.

Predictably, this piece of obfuscating technological flapdoodle leads to this website, so there’s no need to scan it yourselves…

March 15th – To compound a bad ride, I had to go up to Walsall Wood, and my beer magnet was at full power. Excellent, you might think. Fourteen reds in a loose group, on the field margin along the canal that borders Grange Farm, Walsall Wood. Largest group I’d seen for a while, and there were some impressive specimens.

Just one snag: there was a thin scrub-copse and barbed wire fence stopping me getting through the trees to get good photos. Immensely frustrating.

Aaargh!

March 9th – Early, Jockey Meadows. Still grey and dormant, with no hints of spring yet. The last place to wake up in these parts, it has its own desolate beauty in winter. 

The cows that were here last summer are long gone, but their work – the removal of some of the most invasive species, and trimming back the long grass – remains.

It’ll be interesting to see the difference they’ve made when the meadow comes to life in a few weeks.