February 2nd – As I got back to the Innovation Centre at 5:25, I caught sight of the lights reflecting on the boating lake, and just had to take a picture. It was then I realised it was only just coming on to dusk. In January, we clawed back about an hour from the darkness, and all the time the rate of change is increasing.
Spring will soon be here.
February 1st – I nipped into Aldridge for a change and some fresh air, at lunchtime before the weather broke again. It was very windy indeed, and cycling against it was hard; but I knew it would, at least, blow me home.
Sometimes the very art of cycling is to head off into the wind.
I took a look at Aldridge Manor House – once the home of Walsall Youth Services, and still location of a great youth club. This well-loved building and the services it hosts are hanging in limbo; Walsall Council spotted the monetary value of this listed building, and having little other family silver to sell, the million or so it may receive for a sordid development opportunity proved too much for burghers to resist.
Interestingly, closure dates have been continually exceeded and postponed as the Council seems unable to find a suitable location in which to host the displaced youth club, and buyers seem to be in no particular hurry.
I’ve got a piss-up I’d like organised. I figure a brewery might be a really good place to hold it. I don’t think I’ll ask the council to organise it – all evidence suggests they’re incapable of such a task.
January 29th – The rain finally caught me as I left Walsall. The wind had changed, too, and I found myself mashing into driving drizzle and a distinctly cold headwind. Is this the beginning of a cold spell, I wonder?
As usual on rainy days, every good photo was into the wind and therefore impossible. But I did notice the lights of the service station in Shelfield, which always look attractive, but I never stop to photograph it.
It loos so welcoming – I fuss that’s the idea. It’s one of the way markers of my commute – when I see it, I know I’m halfway home.
January 27th – Telford. Unusually, off to Priorslee to pick up some paperwork before heading back across town.
I love the desolate symmetry of this cycleway bridge over the motorway. It twangs gently as you cycle over it.
Of such things, tiny pleasures are made.
22nd January – In Birmingham, I was intrigued by this venerable old Claud Butler well locked up outside Moor Street station. When this was new it would have been a very expensive bike indeed – the brand was considered the Rolls Royce of bikes back when I was a lad, but not so much now. This seems fairly true to the original, too; down tube shifters, tight angled quill stem, lugged steel 501 frame and cotterless cranks.
This is clearly a favourite ride for someone, and looks like a well loved and well ridden steed. It’s also a remnant of a great cycling tradition.
January 21st – Here’s a thing. Continuing my somnambulant, bleary-eyed journey to Brownhills, I passed through Walsall Wood to pick up a takeaway. As I approached the canal bridge in Walsall Wood, I noticed we have a new Screwfix opening soon.
Screwfix sell tools, building stuff, hardware and the like. Since Focus went, we’ve not really had anywhere to get a good selection of tools and fixings locally, so this is good news.
I welcome this new store and wish it every success.
January 21st – It’s not kicked off to be a good week. I’ve had a ton of work dropped on me, and the railway system seems to be in a permanent state of entropy at the moment.
I left work in Telford late, having tried all day to solve an ostensibly simple problem, without success. Riding back from Walsall, it was wet, but drier and warmer that the previous morning.
Tired and ground down, I remember little of the journey home, as often happens, but I did find this image on the camera I don’t remember taking whilst stopped on red at Rushall Square.
I’ve had enough of the dark and wet days. I need to move into the light.
January 19th – Sometimes, a solution to a problem is so simple that you wonder why it’s not in common use. At the bike jumble the day before, I got two of these water bottles (known as ‘bidons’ to pretentious roadie arses everywhere) which have a dome cap that loosely clips over the nozzle and remains attached by a band around the collar of the bottle.
The purpose is simple; it stops mud thrown up by the front wheel from contaminating the bit you drink from. This is a common problem with mountain and cross bikes as you can see, and I’m not convinced drinking from a mud-contaminated bottle didn’t give me the dreadful bout of campylobacter I suffered over new year 2011/2.
In conditions like we’re enduring at the moment, this is a godsend, and ensures I’m not throwing away half bottles of drink due to the fear of the dirty nozzle.
These bottles are marketed by cycle accessory brand BBB and I got two for a pocket-pleasing fiver.
Bargain!
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