Galleries

May 23rd – You guys are going to get so fed up of my summer pictures, but frankly, I don’t care. It’s gorgeous out there, and despite my hay fever, I’m loving every minute. Returning from Tyseley yesterday evening, the back lanes of Stonnall and little Aston were warm and full of summer. Birds flitted in and out of the hedgerows, rabbits dwelled on verges and in the shade of hedges. Fair weather cyclists were out in force. This is the season I live for, and it’s finally here. Get out and enjoy it, it’s gorgeous out there.

May 22nd – Summer is really on her throne now, I think. Returning home that evening, I came from Blake Street through a green, hazy wonderland. The oilseed rape is still bright yellow, the hedges and copses dusted with white blooms of cow parsley and hawthorn blossom. The air is heavy with pollen, bee buzz and insects. Near lower Stonnall, the first hay crop has been cut. It’s left to dry in the fields, then turned and dried some more before baling. It’s been a long time coming but this is just wonderful.

Mayy 22nd – A glorious summer day that found me in Telford. Taking the long way round, I went through the town centre, and reflected on the nature of urban design and town planning. It’s easy to see on a day like this what the designers of the concrete and glass monoliths were aiming for, with images of downtown Seattle springing to mind. But the pedestrian distances between these edifices are huge, and never straight. Hard work even in summer, walking in Telford on a dark evening is frightening, lonely and seems to go on forever.

Telford’s failure of town planning is that the buildings were allowed to dwarf the people, and car routes were more important than those for pedestrians. Too many dark corners, not enough sky. A direct descendent from Birmingham’s failure in the sixties, this one is more nuanced, and largely of the 70s and 80s. It’s about scale, place and ownership of space. 

May 21st – Today, I was mostly in Tyseley again, which meant a short hop on the Snow Hill line. I jumped on the train at Moor Street Station – a beautifully restored building, more of a film set than commuter hub. Like it’s sister Chiltern Railways station, Marylebone, it’s a bright, airy, wonderful place to catch a train from. 

A rare delight in the UK rail system.

May 20th – The greening is now in earnest. All over Cannock Chase and the Shugborough Estate, nature is doing it’s damnedest to get our attention. From Brindley Heath to Severn Springs, Milford to Haywood everything is a fluorescent, vibrant, verdant shade of growth. To be in England: can there be anywhere finer right now?

By the way: Cycling over the Shugborough Estate at 8pm, when all the tourists have gone is the way to see it. Hardly a soul, and very, very peaceful.

May 20th – I escaped late afternoon, and headed over Chasewater to Cannock Chase. It was a pleasant, warm afternoon and evening, and the Chase and countryside around it was pretty deserted. Whilst the swans I was watching don’t appear to have had success (although both birds are still hanging around the nest, which seems odd) couples elsewhere seem to be doing well. I noticed a pair nesting on one of the ‘orphan’ pools in Chasewater’s northern lakebed. Secluded by reeds and young willows, they have a very well protected nest, and had the sun not been shining on them, I’d never have noticed. Meanwhile, on the canal at Rugeley, this pair of proud (and surprisingly tolerant) parents allowed me to photograph their seven healthy cygnets.

May 19th – Junction 9 of the M6, and Wood Green, the area around it, is horrible. Heavy traffic, poor air quality, grime and an utterly inhuman, dystopian architecture all contribute to make this place awful. There is humanity here, and great buildings, in the backstreets. But in the immediate vicinity of the junction, there is little to credit this place, despite the fact that it hosts the River Tame, A major railway and a motorway side by side.  The crowning glory of the inhuman design is the pedestrian underpass – dark, with 90 degree bends. Grey, filthy surfaces and forbidding outlooks that are dark and foreboding.

I hate this place with a passion.

May 19th – A little bit of computer strife led me to PC World, near Junction 9 at Wednesbury, a place I loathe visiting with a passion. I needed an new hard drive, and they had what I wanted. I reserved the drive online, and went to pick it up late afternoon. Strolling up to the desk with my note, there was some confusion and I found that the order had actually gone to the Currys on the other side of the road, which apparently happens a lot. Having collected my goods, and being shocked at there being a near-identikit macro PC World inside the Currys store, to the one 400 yards away, I headed over to Decathlon, a sports and outdoor superstore, to see what they had. I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: Decathlon, a French company, have the best bike rack I’ve ever used. We need more of these. They suit road bikes (like mine) and mountain; hold the bike securely, offer excellent security and don’t mark your paintwork or bend your wheels.

Sadly, the stuff inside was mostly tat…