Tag: Waslall

#365daysofbiking Berry well red

September 4th – Also in the bright berry department, this bright red example grows in similar urban situations as the firethorn, but has much more spread, larger berries in smaller clumps more evenly spaced.

I was surprised to find that it’s actually a type of cotoneaster – plant that I’m used to having tiny leaves and berries.

It’s certainly very beautiful and the birds are already clearly digging in…

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April 22nd – A rare break in the clouds saw the sun shine as I came up from the canal at Bentley Bridge on my way back from an errand at lunchtime. To left and right here, out of shot are massive scrapyards, yet running like a green vein through the centre, the canal; peaceful, tranquil, verdant.

I love the Black Country and this scene typifies the way it’s canals exist as magical green natural corridors through great sprawls of urban life.

Wonderful.

April 14th – Cat season is again upon us. As the weather warms and the days lengthen, the formerly hitherto invisible cat population emerge into the light, loafing, strolling and watching the world go by.

This beautiful animal was watching me in Scarborough Road, Walsall, in the morning, in a street surveyed by six or seven feline overseers.

I love to see them. A real sign of summer on the way.

March 23rd – The towpath resurfacing between Walsall town centre and Bentley Mill Way continues, as I noted earlier in the week, tarmac is being laid on top of compacted ballast. It’s a nice enough surface, but I’m still bemused by the pointlessness of it all.

Today I passed as they work crew were filling a butty with hot asphalt, ready to spread and roll. The ease with which it tipped from the excavator bucket and the steam that billowed suggested it was very hot indeed – and it made me wonder how it was heated – in the yard or from the place it was produced? I suppose the limestone grit it’s made from has quite a high specific heat capacity, so it must hold heat awhile.

One thing I always love about hot tarmac is the smell. It’s one of the really strong smells I recall for some reason from my childhood, and one sniff of it and I’ back in the schoolyard.

Funny how smells do that to you.

March 7th – Meeting a friend of the train at Walsall to ride home together, the sunset was vivid and beautiful. This isn’t the most handsome of stations, trapped in the red-brick late 70s gap been brutalism and the utilitarianism of the 80s, it’s functional and a decent place to get a train or wait. 

I don’t know why, but I love this place at twilight.

March 11th – Quick photos grabbed in passing on a desperately murky evening, but there’s no mistaking the recently relocated, civically vandalised Walsall hippo. Now outside the library, publicity wonks working at the council decided it would be a bit of free and easy publicity to paint the concrete kiboko in a Walsall football strip to cash in on – sorry, celebrate – the recent success of Walsall Football Team, a sporting enterprise that in former, less successful times, was untroubled by civic attention.

The wonks this post prandial brainwave surely was – whose previous contact with paint technology is probably limited to spare rooms and nails – assure all and sundry the paint will wash off (presumably when sporting fortunes return to normal and disassociation is necessary) and that the stunt – sponsored by an unholy amalgam of tattoo parlour and home insurance company – is all in good taste.

Of course, seeing a football fan on the streets of Walsall, resplendent girth barely contained by team shirt is not unusual, and the footballing hippo is very representative, even more at home like this. But cast from cheap concrete worn porous with age, it’ll take some effort to expunge him from the red peril he finds himself in.

Of course, the duality of the civic position that graffiti is wrong has gone unnoticed, and it’s odd to see the insurance people back off the naughty step, but hey, this is Walsall.

And no, this sculpture has never been called ‘hoppy’ by anyone I’ve met, despite apparent attempts by the burghers to convince us otherwise.

Good luck to The Saddlers, though…

March 28th – It had been a gorgeous day of spring sun, had being the operative word. I had errands to run in Caldmore and Walsall town centre on my return from work, and as I left there, the heavens opened. They opened again as I left Caldmore, and yet again in Walsall. For the third time this week, I got wet, cold and miserable. But hey, I had a saddlebag full of indian snacks, at least. 

At 6:20pm, as darkness and rain were falling fast, Darwall Street, the heart of Walsall’s entertainment district, was deserted, but the wet street caught the light beautifully.

Let’s hope for a better weekend…