Tag: Walsall Wood

#365daysofbiking Monumental

March 14th – Passing through the Wood on an errand. The world is clearly on the brink of something and people have been panic buying toilet rolls and other silly stuff needlessly because they fear the spread of coronavirus.

I swung over the playing field of Oak Park to admire the pithead sculpture to Walsall Wood Colliery while I was passing. It was solid. Strong. Ever present. Reassuring in a world that seemed to be losing it’s composure.

Sometimes it’s the monuments and monoliths that make you feel most secure.

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#365daysofbiking Sodden, still

March 13th – Between Walsall Wood and Clayhanger in the failing light, the towpath was sodden and the going tough, but the wet environment did catch the light rather well.

I keep grumbling about the rain, and this winter has been truly, remarkably wet. I’m at the stage now where it just doesn’t bother me anymore. If it’s raining, I don’t grumble – I have no choice. I just haul on the waterproofs and get on with it.

But I do kind of think fate now owes me a very dry, warm and sunny summer to make up for it…

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#365daysofbiking Positive junction

March 12th – You can always tell a decent traffic improvement scheme by the way nobody mentions it after it’s completed.

The improvements at Shire Oak and Streets Corner took ages to complete, and were not without pain but the improvement in the performance of both is marked, and I’ve heard few moans about these seemingly well planned and executed safety upgrades.

So I think probably the work has been appreciated.

I do know one thing for sure: Streets Corner is still oddly beautiful by night.

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#365daysofbiking Surface tension

March 11th – Returning home that evening the weather had improved some in that the rain had stopped, the sky had cleared and a reasonable sunset was happening.

I stopped to look behind me in Walsall Wood, and was captivated by the reflection fo the trees on the surface of the canal.

On days like these beauty can be found in unexpected places.

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#365daysofbiking The village green preservation society

March 3rd – I’ve honestly lost track of whether this is an early or late spring. I don’t suppose it matters, but I think it’s a bit early. The rain seems to be tailing off a bit now, and the daffodils are taking over from the crocuses which are now passing over.

Early, passing through Walsall Wood, the patch of grass next to the Red Lion, in front of St Johns Close – remarkably claimed to be a ‘village green’ some years ago to best a planning application – looked gorgeous as many patches of Walsall verge at the moment with a dense, beautiful carpet of flowers.

This is always an excellent display and never gets enough appreciation.

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#365daysofbiking The wind and the willows

February 29th – it seems odd this is the third February 29th in the history of this nearly nine year old journal, but it’s just the way the dates fall I guess.

On the canal at Walsall Wood, another subtle sign of spring – pussy willow catkins. Like the hazel ones, the male flower of the smaller willows.

Bedraggled, wind-buffeted, but in some proliferation. As I’ve noted all week, spring is coming, it’s not holding back. It just needs some decent weather to accelerate the process.

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#365daysofbiking – Better days

February 5th – My energy didn’t give out so I went full circle and attended to an errand in Walsall Wood.

I passed under the Black Cock Bridge, named after the nearby pub. A familiar if ramshackle affair, the bridge has been lifted several times due to subsidence and now exists in a sort of limbo: It’s not got much life left, yet replacement of the structure, on a notorious rat-run, would not be easy and due to the aforementioned subsidence, would probably be better and an under bridge with and aqueduct above.

I suspect eventually it will be closed to through traffic and left, like Hollanders Bridge further up in Walsall Wood.

It’s seen better days, as have I, but I hope there’s a few more to come yet for me. For the first time in weeks, I feel like there might actually be a summer eventually, and wellness might once again be mine.

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#365daysofbiking An awkward subject

January 26th – Like the village itself, Walsall Wood Church of St John is a quiet, understated gem. Originally a tiny church, extended massively by the Victorians, then again pretty brutally by the diocese of Lichfield in the 1980s, its personality has maintained surprisingly well.

It’s a lovely subject at night, has a great clock and presents a great aspect to the road. But for a couple of things.

The bloody streetlight just out of shot on the right, and the pedestrian crossing light in the foreground.

Any decent angle on the building includes one, the other or both, destroying the shot. It’s one of those frustrations that just make the character of a place.

But that’s Walsall Wood for you. Never less than quirky.

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#365daysofbiking Wood and heart


January 26th – And there it were – gone. With neither a thank you nor a goodnight, the mist upped and left, and Sunday was damp, wet but mercifully clear with an appreciable wind.

The air was clearer. I could breath again without feeling that grip on my chest from traffic fumes.

I came back from helping a pal in the early evening, and stopped for the cashpoint in the High Street. It was quiet. The takeaways were doing trade, the pubs seemed alive, but traffic was light and this still identifiable ex-mining village straddling the Walsall to Lichfield Road slumbered peacefully.

I like Walsall Wood. I always have. It’s not prepossessing, exotic or flash. But it has soul and warmth and always looks welcoming at night.

It’ll always have a bit of my heart.

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#365daysofbiking Persistence of the night

January 24th – But of course, the crippling thing about this time of year is that there’s great optimism in the morning light, when one can actually see the dying of winter.

But when the dark repossess the day on the way home, it feels like deepest winter again: Which being in January as we are, it actually is.

The persistence of the night – like here in Green Lane, Walsall Wood – is sobering, depressing, but essential. The dark may be retreating. But we’re a ways away from the death yet. We must keep pushing, keep going.

Until the persistence is no more. For another season.

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