April 30th – So, there I’d done gone and promised to bring ny ill mate the best of summer, and it rains, and blows, and hails on a very blustery, intemperate Saturday. Just where do you find the beauty?
You slip out as the worst is passed, and get your feet gloriously wet in the local bluebell wood, and remember what it is to be alive in the outdoors, with the smell of wet earth, pollen and rising sap.
Just wish the light wasn’t so poor.
April 25th – Awful commuting weather. On the way to work in the morning, I faced a grim wind and sharp, heavy shows. It was cold and I was missing waterproof trousers, so arrived at work damp and miserable. Similarly, on the way home I was caught in heavy rain, but this time there was a severe headwind. And between the squalls? Flashes of bright sunshine and dark, threatening skies.
April has proven a real challenge this year.
April 15th – I had a late meeting in Birmingham, and the weather was grey and wet. Unusually, though, this didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the city, which never looks good on a grey day. Finishing my task, I went for a mooch around the city centre and spotted this brutalist gem hiding in plain sight in New Street.
Architecturally, it seems a mix of brutalism and a kind of stilted, controlled art deco. I have a feeling it’s more modern than it’s appearance belies.
Does anyone know anything about it or who the architect was? It’s quietly stunning.
March 30th – I stopped to take a look at the new pond at Clayhanger, which to my surprise, still looks very wintery. It was far too wet to go down to the water or ride round, and from my vantage point I couldn’t see if the swans were nesting on the island this year.
There were signs of spring, however, in the track adjacent which was of course the line of the mineral railway that served Walsall Wood Colliery. The hedgerows and scrubs forming a woodland tunnel were looking fresh with a smattering of emerald green, fresh growth for the season ahead.
It’s hard to imagine that this time three years ago in 2013, there was still thick snow on the ground – in places several feet deep – that would last for a week or more.
March 29th – It never rains but it pours. After a period of quite grim ill health, things became a bit more complicated over Easter, and I’m beginning to wonder if life will ever return to normal. But of course, it will – it always does.
So it was into a wet, post-rain landscape that I slipped out into at dusk after a chaotic, frenetic day. Nothing was working, I was in some discomfort and I was exhausted. I was heading for Chasewater, and had looped up through Catshill Junction along saturated towpaths. In fading light, cold and with wet legs I decided to cut the expedition off at Chase Road and head back for Brownhills.
Some days you’re glad just to make it through in one piece.
March 2nd – That old British adage ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes’ was never truer than today. I’d nipped out of work into Moxley on an errand, and the heavens opened – not with rain, as it had been periodically most of the morning, but huge, huge snowflakes.
I wanted to enjoy it. Riding was impossible as it was blinding. It was also rather wet. I took refuge in a cafe, ordered a brew and something to eat, and sat by the window until it cleared, just watching the snow fall.
Within 90 minutes or so, there was no trace it had even snowed. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world. There’s something very loose, transitory and impermanent about the weather of late. Not sure I like it much.
February 15th – Spotted by the bridge in Victoria Park, Darlaston: the sadness of things. This huge teddy must have been very much loved once. Sodden with rain and looking dejected, he’s been moving around the park for a week or two. He looked particularly miserable today, he wasn’t even in the sun where he could dry out.
Few things are more melancholy than an abandoned toy.
January 17th – We had snow. Not much, maybe half an inch, and it was very, very wet. It was enough though, to be beautiful, and so I headed out into it as soon as I could. The light was pretty poor though, and the photography didn’t work out so well, but it was a nice experience apart from the endless mud.
Still, it’s better than the endless rain, and seeing the gorse flowers in the snow was lovely.
January 13th – And there you go, it can’t even manage 24 hours dry at the moment. Another soaking on the way home – and it was cold too, with the temperature hovering just above zero degrees.
I stopped to adjust my scarf at Maybrook Road and took two quick shots. They look wet, cold and desolate and that’s just how it was.
January 12th – A better day health and mood-wise, but not in terms of the weather. I had to go to Droitwich, and got wet on the way. On my return, it was sunny in Worcestershire and Birmingham; as I got to Walsall near 3pm, the sky blackened and dusk seemed to fall early.
The sky was incredible, seen here at Station Street in Walsall, just as the rain started.. The following downpour? Not so much.
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