Galleries

January 17th – Coming back into Brownhills on a very wet, stodgy towpath in the evening, I noted it was gone 5pm and not yet fully dark. The lights of the Watermead Estate, reflected in the still canal, were beautiful and atmospheric.

It has stopped raining. It’s been so bad in the past few days, the blessed absence of rain is something to be cheerful about.

January gets you like that, sometimes.

January 17th – I had an appointment at the hospital, and rode through Walsall Town Centre to get a brew beforehand as I was early. Riding up the canal Town Arm towards the hospital, I realised I was being watched.

That little cat’s face. So innocent, yet clearly such a little terror. My heart melted.

January 15th – Intrigued to note that the former Terrace restaurant on the Watling Street at Newtown, in the hinterlands of Brownhills seems finally to be undergoing renovation of some kind.

Following it’s closure 18 months ago, this once very popular venue has been plagued by vandalism, metal thieves and arson, and rumours in the spring of it being host to a new buffet restaurant seemed to come to nothing.

Taking a nose today, new fencing is going up, and the fittings seem to be being cleared out. A licensing application for alcohol dating from July is on a nearby lamp-post.

I hope something does open at this landmark building. Brownhills could do with a decent restaurant.

January 15th – One of those horrible, headache-grey wet winter days when it never really seems to get light and never stops raining. I plodded out to Chasewater, after checking the waxwings were still at Silver Court. Their numbers had increased, but the light was way too poor to get pictures.

Chasewater was empty save for a few brave souls, and the cafes had closed early. I mooched for a bit, looking for interesting wildlife, but found none, not even the large white geese which seem to have been missing now for weeks. I hope they’re OK but I guess by now they’re very old and I think they may have passed away.

I noticed with some amusement that new signs have been erected about not feeding the birds near the fort (due to pollution in the gravel there) – and something looked odd about the spacing of the ‘s’ on ‘birds’ – and then I realised someone had hastily removed an apostrophe. On all of them. Oops.

Also, is that comic sans?

The canal route I took back to Brownhills on the other hand was quite interesting. In atrocious light I saw the goosanders again, and I wonder if I’d ever be able to get a decent photo of these odd birds. The two remaining Abbey Road ducks were out and about too, as was Mrs. Muscovy, but her photos were so poor as to be unusable.

An awful day to ride, but I did see some interesting stuff which at least made braving the elements worthwhile.

January 14th – We’ve had some foreign visitors in Brownhills. They’ve come before, in other winters when it’s been cold on the continent, and they’re here again. It’s good to seem these somewhat rare, colourful fellows.

Waxwings have come to strip the trees by Silver Court of berries before – working their way west from Eastern Europe, when their traditional feeding grounds aren’t bountiful they venture further afield. 

I don’t know if they remember Brownhills somehow, or it’s just chance, but the businesses in Brownhills are getting added trade from twitchers and it’s giving the town something to talk about.

I just adore these birds. Such pretty things.

January 13th – I was hoping for more snow. I was mentally prepared for a very cold, icy commute. I awoke to little more than an icing-sugar dusting, and all the main roads clear.

I was interested to note though that other cyclists weren’t deterred. I had the snow tyres on and loved it, but the cycleways and towpaths were lined by tyre tracks, so maybe I’m getting risk-averse in my old age.

A nice journey in cold weather, but it’d be nice to have the real thing before winter ends. A bit of 2013 wouldn’t hurt, would it?

dry-valleys:

I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles, after fog hampered my efforts last week, from Barr Beacon where we move past a fascinating old quarry (1,2) to a war memorial constructed in 1933.

The fascinating Black Country geopark is something I haven’t explored & I can see have to look forward to.

Although the visibility still isn’t perfect and the area is quite badly maintained with shrubs and pylons obscuring much of the view, you can still see all sorts- I don’t actually know what much of it is, except that (9) is the Wrekin and (8) is me on top of the Wrekin in January 2016.

(7) is Birmingham from Barr Beacon at night, not taken by me, and apart from (7) and (8) all date from today.

January 12th – The renovation and conversion of Kings Hill Methodist Chapel, and sometime St. Thomas’ Church in Kings Hill, Darlaston has been protracted, but very impressive. This is no bodge job and has literally taken years.

When I passed today, the boards were off the windows, the brickwork at the rear had been finished, as had the doors and paving to the front. The stained glass front windows also seem to have been repaired.

I don’t know who’s paid for and planned this job, but it truly is very impressive and I’d be happy to live in such a beautifully converted building.