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February 5th – The cycleways of Telford were beautiful this morning. It was snowing, lightly, but the sun was out, and snow lingered in the shadier hollows and hushed my noisy wheels. Telford’s bike tracks are legendary, but not well signposted or even mapped. Now they’ve matured, they’re often very secluded, almost hidden. I could have ridden around here for hours. Just for the quiet, the air, and the light.

A diamond in the dust.

February 3rd – Out at sunset again, and another good one. I had something to deliver up the Wood so headed up the canal. As I rounded the bend at Catshill Junction, the quality of the sky really stunned me. I followed it up along the canal looking for a good vantage point, and never really found one; there would have been some great views over Bullings Heath were they not impossible to get to due to the canal bank copse and barbed wire. As it was, I contented myself with the three bridges – Clayhanger, the Black Cock and Lathams Bridge, behind Barons Court.

You can’t beet a good winter sunset.

February 2nd – By chance, I caught a good sunset. Out late afternoon to go shopping, I cycled up  through central Brownhills and hopped on the canal near Anchor Bridge. Near Home Farm, I caught sight of what I thought was sand spread on the fields; it was actually soft, red sunshine, although it was cloudy directly overhead. As I sped to Chasewater to catch it, the light tantalised me with glimpses between houses and over the hilltop village of Hammerwich. Beautiful.

I’d almost forgotten it was soon to be the season of sunsets again. Late autumn, early spring. Every year. Love it. As I noticed earlier in the week, the seasons wheel is turning… it wasn’t dark tonight until gone 5pm.

This makes me very happy indeed.

January 31st – Evening, Birmingham. It’s about a quarter past five, and the city is sliding gracefully into darkness at the end of another working day. I was here to see the lights come on, in and around Colmore Row and the Cathedral, the grounds of which are affectionately known as ‘Pigeon Park’.

People slag Birmingham off continually. It’s beautiful, if you open your eyes. This could almost be Belgravia.

My city, my past, present and future. How I adore it.

January 30th – The sun came out today, and it felt springlike, which I didn’t mind at all. I guess I’d been mourning the passing of the snow – at night, it makes the landscape light in a way that’s almost joyful, and when the thaw comes, it’s like being plunged back into darkness. I’d felt it keenly since Sunday; the weather has been bloody grim, and to turn out on a sunny morning – even with a wind crafted on Satan’s back step – was a joy to the heart.

I’ve actually found a ramp down to the Solihull platform at Moor Street, which I thought had been closed years ago. As I made my way to it today. I looked at the road system, and the buildings around. I can remember the old Bull Ring well, the network of 60s subways and overpasses. But I can’t place any of it, which I find sad. I know Manzoni Gardens was here somewhere, but…

Brum was also showing beautifully from the overbridge at Tyseley. With decent light, I could zoom right in, and I noticed something I’d not done before; before the mosque, and the shiny modernity of the city centre, there are rows of terrace roofs and chimneys in Small Heath and Sparkbrook. I found it fascinating.

January 29th – The wind and rain drag on. The day started decent enough, but by midday, dissolved into a morass of squally showers and buffeting winds. With an eye to the wind direction, I got the train back to Walsall and let the wind blow me home, which it did wonderfully. Bullings Heath – the old name for the area around the Black Cock pub and bridge in Walsall Wood glistened in the drizzle, the light reflecting off the wet asphalt.

In a way, it was beautiful, but I wish the rain would stop for a while.

January 28th – Birmingham New Street Station is undergoing huge alterations at the moment, and is overrun buy people involved in the reconstruction. Sometimes, they almost seem to match in number the passengers; they emerge from hatches and previously unnoticed doorways, often surveying, taking measurements or gazing at ceilings. There’s clearly a lot of thought going on.

I keep noticing these tiny target symbols in odd locations about the station. About 20mm square, they have a precision cross-hair on them and a unique number , and they’re printed on reflective material. They’re vital to operations here, but I suspect few ever notice them.

They’re measurement datums. A theodolite – either placed in position by an engineer, or permanently sited in an out of the way spot – will focus on this target, and accurate geometrical measurements can be made, indicating if the target, or the wall it’s attached to, has moved, or to precisely locate some other measurement. Automatic systems will do this across multiple visible datums repeatedly, unattended, and alert engineers if there’s any change.

I suspect this is part of an automatic monitoring system as it’s above normal working, and therefore, crowd height, just to the left of the telephone kiosk roof.

Civil engineering is getting more and more sophisticated.

January 27th – The snow, thanks to heavy rain and a sudden ramp in temperature – had gone. Only the remnants of snowmen remained, melancholy mementoes of the whiteness of the week before. The consequent darkness around St. James Church shocked me in it’s foreboding.

I’d been to drop something off to a friend, and the weather was wet, warm and inclement. I cycled up the dark pathway from School Avenue, up past the cemeteries and churchyard, and the church itself was unoccupied at 5:45pm on a Sunday, which I found oddly sad. Brownhills Church is one I’ve always had difficulty with architecturally; It’s not ugly, and it’s not remarkable. Apart from an odd spire and hideous extension, it’s pretty plain, really. It’s position, however, is excellent. It’s like the centre of the town was built around it, and the warren of streets take curious right angles around the grounds.

January 26th – Had a wry laugh at this one. Noticed yesterday that the sign was still up trumpeting the new Pier Street footbridge, over the canal in central Brownhills. The bridge is a fine thing indeed, linking as it does Clayhanger and Brownhills in style, replacing a steep-stepped footbridge that was awful, frankly.

I was unaware of Walsall Council’s ‘Drive to regenerate Brownhills District Centre’ – wonder how that’s going?

Would the last business to leave the town please switch the lights off and feed the deer? Cheers.