Tag: Walsall

April 20th – And so, spring is on her throne at last and summer is booting up.

The speed at which this has happened this year – in no more that a week – has been startling and rather wonderful.

Every day new discoveries, and whilst yesterday, the blossom was just starting, this morning it was showing strongly.

How long I have waited for the light, the warmth and the wonderful burst of life. It was worth the wait.

April 10th – My respect and thanks are due to Walsall Council, who in very short time indeed have assessed the weather decay of parts of Green Lane between Walsalll Wood and Shelfield, and resurfaced completely a couple of stretches.

The bit here, resurfaced during the day  whilst I was at work, was bloody awful on a bike. It’s way better now.

Thank you.

April 10th – This looks like some pretty revolting flotsam and jetsam, but it’s actually an important and encouraging sign of spring.

These knobbly, odd looking root growths are the rhizomes of the water lilies so common here on the local canals in high summer, and this is the first stage of their… seasonal deployment.

When the season ends, water lilies decay, and the stalk and root mass they grow from sinks to the canal bottom where the excess growth rots off and the stalks over winter in the mud where the water stays warmer, fragmenting as they do so.

When the waters warm in spring, renewed cell growth in the fragmented stocks gives buoyancy once more and they rise to the surface, moving freely in the wind currents and boat wash. 

In time, new growth will sprout and they anchor, growing the familiar leaves and flowers we know so well.

It’s a wonderful, and very successful natural mechanism, and a sign of an oncoming summer…

April 10th – Always good to spot workboat Essington about on the local canals, even on a grey damp morning like today. Essington is the boat used by the mainly volunteer litter picking crews from the Canal and River Trust, who patrol stretches of local canal cleaning up the banks and water.

Today, the boat was moored in Pleck.

And after recent weather here, by heck we need it with the washed-in trash that’s everywhere at the moment.

The crew were clearly on their break – but my best wishes, and thanks go out to them for making the canals nicer for all of us. Bravo!

March 22nd – Oe gets used to seeing rats about when you’re an urban cyclist, and there tend to be a fair few prime specimens on the urban canals. What I didn’t realise until I started cycling regularly along inner city waterways is what accomplished swimmers brown rats are.

There is a colony on the far side of this bridge in Pleck, Walsall; I often see them running along the opposite bank in and out of the drain holes and scrub. But several times, I’ve scared them from the towpath, and they’ve hopped into the canal freely and swam home to the other side. Sadly, I’ve never been fast enough with the camera to record one actually swimming.

Today, I saw this large specimen by the bridge (Bottom left, top picture. Look carefully) – I startled it and it ran for the water and swam to safety. But note the line of wet paw prints, the line caused by a dragging, wet tail and the water from a shake dry. 

It came from the other bank to feed.

Rats are remarkable.

March 22nd – Still a nip in the air, but all along the canals of the Black Country, life is waking up, shaking off the taper of a long winter and getting on with nature’s imperative – and that included the waterfowl. 

I notice lots of ducks, Canada geese and swans now closely paired for mating, busily courting each other and nest building.

A lovely sign that better days are on the way…

March 6th – Passing through Walsall as dusk fell, I passed by Town Wharf. Whilst the paving and general infrastructure is looking a little tired here these days it’s looking a lot more active in recent months. Now the Wharfinger’s Cottage is occupied, and there’s more on the waterfront, it’s becoming quite a nice place to be.

There are still derelict buildings here though: to the left the old factories still cast a long physical and economic shadow.

February 28th – The run home was no better. I got caught in a prolonged snowstorm, the wind was hard against me and the traffic was mad. 

Temperatures actually got as low as -8.5 degrees C. Despite good gloves and being wrapped up in many layers, it physically hurt to be out there.

It seemed to take forever, but when I finally reached the end of the journey, I was glad to get home.

February 28th – A day with two of the harshest commutes I’ve ever known – both sub zero, both punctuated by snowstorms and ferocious winds.

On the way to work, I followed the canal somewhat unusually for me, all the way down through Moxley, and on the way noted the dagger-like icicles on Scarborough Road Bridge in Pleck, and the hardiness of the animals I saw – mainly birdlife defying Dry Marland’s IC scale, but also a sad but stoical horse tethered by the Black Country Route. At least it had plenty of hay to eat, poor thing.

Snow squalls came and went, but during them, visibility was poor. I don’t think I’ve ever known commuting on a bike this hard. The winter as it moved on from Christmas has been bloody endless. 

Enough already.