Tag: wet

April 10th – Cycling the Netherton Tunnel is a genuine challenge. The towpath is now deteriorating badly; it’s full of wheel-snatching potholes filled with obfuscating water that conceals their depth and severity. Water continually drips on you, and occasionally pours. Although you can see daylight, it’s a long time away. And then, the relentless, unforgiving task of riding for twenty minutes or so in a 4-foot gap between a wall that curves closely over your head and a corroded, week handrail.

The relentlessness of it, the eyestrain and psychological effort of keeping alert enough to keep everything flowing is a real challenge.

But I love it every time I do it. I’d say it’s for the experienced cyclist only, and take a hat, jacket and good light. But it is fun.

March 29th – It was just an awfully uninspiring day. There were very few people about. The wildlife seemed to be hiding. Everything looked drab. In a vain search for deer I hopped onto clay hanger Common, which was saturated, like a marsh. Even the pigeons were giving it a miss.

It does look wonderfully green, though.

March 9th – This puss, who I’m fairly convinced is an elderly female, stopped me in my tracks on my way home. In the backstreets of Darlaston, she was in the road, and as I approached, just stood, looking at me. She seemed well enough, and appeared to be wanting a fuss. I gave her an ear tickle, stroked her for a while, and off she pottered.

A lovely cat with a beautiful colouring.

February 24th – Little firsts are the art of getting through winter. Little, tiny victories that mark the passage from darkness to light, and tonight, on my way home from work, it was my first normal-time commute in something approximating daylight, rather than darkness.

OK, it was wet, windy, murky, verging on the brink daylight, but it was perceptibly not dark. A little victory.

The joy of this almost totally took my mind off what an unutterably foul ride it was…

February 19th – Snatched quickly whilst stopped at the lights, on the commute home 13 hours later. The ring road in Walsall is almost deserted, and it’s raining. Everything is wet, and colours blend and blur in the night. I’m tired. My eyes are sore from fatigue. But the wind was behind me, it was pleasingly warm, and to see the beauty of the wet, urban kaleidoscope was a minor but tangible joy.

January 12th – I had stuff to do in Burntwood at lunchtime, and returned late afternoon via Chasetown High Street. It was a squally, warm but rather wet day, and not a good one to be out; but once again I was reminded of just how busy Chasetown looks even at quiet times.

Chastown is not bigger, or particularly more economically vibrant than Brownhills; but the High Street here retained most of it’s original buildings, and the ratio of business premises to to dwellings at street level is about 50:50, which always makes the place look more occupied and buzzing than it really is.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – a mix of retail, leisure and dwellings like this could well be the saviour of many dying High Streets – it makes them more welcoming by day, and after dark when the lights and reassuring presence of others makes the place seem warmer and less desolate.

Something to ponder on…

Boxing Day – Sometimes, you do something on impulse that seems a good idea, and it’s terrible. This was just such an occasion.

Snow was forecast. I enjoy snow; I love to be out in it, especially when it’s actually snowing; it saturates my senses and I feel connected to the world; I love the way it plays with the light, and the memory of place.

The snow came late afternoon, so I threw the studded snow tyres on the bike and went for it. The snow was very wet, but beautiful. The bike cam died due to not being charged. The mud on the canal was something else. Snow got on the camera lens and I had no dry cleaning materials to hand. 

Then the snow turned to heavy rain. I had no aquapac for my electronic stuff.

I got soaked. Really wet. The rain was searching, and entered every not-quite shut zip and pocket flap. I felt cold, wet and down.

It had bean beautiful I was glad to catch it. I spun over to Chasewater, and was planning to loop over around Hammerwich. But the rain was just too horrid.

On my way back, I took the line of the old railway along the bypass at Chasetown, to the rear of Anglesey Basin, and saw the deer footprints in the fresh snow. I forgot being wet and cold and followed them – the animals had come up off the bypass, and headed over the scrub to the copse at the back of the cottages, presumably laying low for shelter. Bless them.

That perked me up, but oh boy, this was a horrid ride.

November 28th – The day was mad and stressful, and the weather atrocious. I wanted to attend Gerald Reece’s history talk, but was stuck at work until late. Pouring myself liquid down the High Street at top speed to get home, I stopped for a couple of pics of Brownhills deserted late; then I got on with the rally important business of finding a takeaway still open…

The symmetry in the Ravens Court picture wasn’t intentional and has surprised me…