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January 31st – It was a day of ups and downs. I had to get to the dentist, which is never pleasant, but the morning was decent, and the long awaited arrival of a new computer was good news. The weather turned about lunchtime, and cleared a little around 6pm. It’s really hard at the moment to find decent photographic subjects in a wet, grey or dark landscape. I find myself really craving spring right now.

I went down to Stonnall, and experimented with long exposures without a great deal of success. The long-distance shot from the quarry gates was interesting enough – although out of focus – to feature here. I did like the ones down onto Main Street, but others I took of the Chester Road were useless.

Some days are just to dark to do anything with.

January 30th – The return was equally wet and grey – but did have the added excitement of wet, sleety snow. The sluices are still shut at Chasewater, and everything is still sodden and muddy. The photography was awful. I was glad to get home.

It was nice to see Morris in the snow though, even if it was very short lived…

January 30th – I was out at work early, and left early afternoon. I had stuff to do in Burntwood, and cycled through a very, very wet Chasewater to get there. The day was grey, colourless and even when not really raining, a mist hung drenchingly heavy in the air. Riding wasn’t too bad, though, and on my way I stopped at the ATM at Sankey’s Corner. I noted Scamp, the Burntwood Mining Memorial, which I like more and more each time I see it. I like this one particularly because it was a local project, by a local artist, and it clearly doesn’t seek to glorify or gloss over the past.

Meanwhile, over the road, Burntwood Library. It’s a great facility, built new in the 1980s, and known locally for years as ‘The two tits’. I’ve always liked the place…

January 29th – Micro asphalt is a pain in the arse. There are several installations of it in Walsall that I know to. The system is simple; a thin layer of resin-based coating is applied to a poor road surface, levelling the dips and sealing cracks. Unlike conventional tarmac, this is a chemical adhesive process. It’s way cheaper than resurfacing fully, and purportedly much more effective than tar and chipping.

Sadly within Walsall, in places it doesn’t seen to have gone too well.

Manufacturers claim a life of 20 years for an application, but this stretch in Green Lane, Shelfield is only a couple of years old, and is already forming potholes and ruts like a ploughed field. 

It’s actually easier to see the effect on a wet night, as the water pools in the ridges and dips. Riding over this is afoul and makes steering unpredictable.

This road is now worse to ride than before the new surface was applied. Nice work, Walsall. Nice work…

January 28th – I narrowly missed the heavy rain on both commutes, on a miserable day of stress and meetings bracketed by railway stations. I was out early, and back late, but there was a familiar lightness creeping into the sky. I just wish it’d stop raining for a few days.

It’s not too much to ask, is it?

January 27th – I was stood on platform 5 waiting for a train at New Street Station. I looked up at the odd, tube-like access bridge hastily added as a second access system here in the early 1990s, in the wake of the Kings Cross Fire; because New Street was classed as a subterranean station, it had to have separate access. So cranes added this monstrosity, now out of use. 

Looking up in my early morning fug, I noted the arrangement of walkways, barriers, rails and safety harness mounting points spanning the top of the structure.

The only purpose to be up there is to clear the skylight windows.

If you design something, and most of the complex steelwork is to ensure the safety of a window cleaner whose job is to clear less than 15 square meters of glass, you’ve failed as a designer.

Sadly this monstrosity looks set to survive the renovations.

January 26th – Reader Jeepboy contacted me this morning, noting that the heathland restoration work had begun on Brownhills Common and things were a bit lumpy. My curiosity piqued, I took a ride over the common west of The Parade to have a look. True enough, the conditions up there are muddy and wet – take wellies if you’re walking. But it’s interesting to see the landscape open out a bit.

Nothing much grows under the conifer plantations, which have spread widely. This threatens the historic and biodiverse heath, and the wildlife that thrives upon it – everything from red deer, who munch on the sedges and lounge in the low cover to the birds that feed from the berries and seeds of the broad-leafed trees here.

Whilst the clearance looks shocking, only selected batches of coniferous woodland are being cleared, and deciduous trees left to thrive. It’s interesting to see the landscape re-emerge here. Come some decent weather, the mud will soon dry out and conditions will improve – however, it may be some time before access from the A5 drains sufficiently… it’s the closest Brownhills has had to a lido for some time.

I know this work has been and will continue to be controversial, but I honestly think it’s for the best. It’s sad that the situation was allowed to get so out of hand that dramatic steps were necessary.

January 26th – Beware, canal towpath walkers and cyclists. As pointed out by Warren Parry on Facebook a week or so ago, the brickwork on the embankment edge of the Wyrley and Essington Canal between Catshill Junction and the Silver Street Bridge in Brownhills is falling away.

A considerable cavity is opening between the towpath and the edging brickwork, large and deep enough to take a bike wheel or foot. I guess it’s caused by a combination of the weather and general erosion.

I shall contact the Canal & River Trust tomorrow to report the problem. In the meantime, watch where you’re going!

January 25th – A horrid day. A stomach bug, too much work to do, bad weather and a migraine that kept coming back when I thought it’d finished.

The daylight was headache grey and the night wet and very dark. I spun out early evening, trying to clear my head, to no avail, but I did feel a bit better for the exercise.

This month seems to have been so long, and so very, very wet; I despair of ever seeing the town light, aired and dry again. I rode the high street, Hussey Estate and looped around Clayhanger. I barely saw a soul.

Ravens Court is particularly grim these days. So many promises, and so much talk, yet it still stands, rotting. I love Brownhills with all my heart – I really do. But today, my lack of wellbeing, the weather and the endless dark made it hateful, tense and forlorn.

January 24th – Chasewater is still in overflow. This fascinates me – there has clearly been a deliberate decision to let the lake overtop the spillway rather than open the valve and let it flow into the canal. This is interesting, as had the water gone into the canal, the canal would have overflowed into the same culvert system, which feeds the Crane Brook. I must take a look at the crane brook when I can to see how it’s affected.

The flow from the breakwater is moving along the floor of the spillway, and into the new culvert system under the Victorian outfall. I guess that’s helping to irrigate the marsh there (as if it needed it, but you never know).

Exactly the same happened this time last year. Perhaps it’s some kind of stress test. It does mean however, that the two narrowboats moored in Anglesey Basin remain quiet on the relatively still canal…