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September 16th – The lanes and key-bys of the area (and probably the country) are currently suffering a rash of dumping. The rules have changed, and scrap yards will no longer accept fridges and freezers, so tatters are stripping the metal from them and dumping the remnants anywhere they can.

This discarded shell of a fridge is in Green Lane, Walsall Wood.

I still see discarded appliances left outside houses for the scrap men to take. Don’t do it, because this is where the shit ends up – as far as I’m concerned, anyone who leaves waste out like that is condoning flytipping and should be prosecuted as a flytipper.

September 11th – It was raining as I cycled home from Walsall, but for once, I didn’t mind. The wind was behind me, the air felt warm and the bike was moving easily. The events of the day were taking their toll and to my shame, I dismounted and pushed up the Black Cock Bridge. On the adjacent pedestrian bridge I liked the combination of rain, sodium light and metalwork.

The day was long, mentally I’d had a close call, but a weight was off my mind, and the promise of another day lightened my heart.

There’s tomorrow. There will always be a tomorrow.

September 11th – A very peculiar day. I had something important to do in the morning, and was expecting to be out of action for the rest of the day. As it happened, the morning didn’t take quite the toll I expected it to and I went to work. Staying late, I came back home as darkness fell. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I’m really taking a serious dislike to the ‘new’ New Street Station. The platform access is now at the one end, and the space down there is restricted and made claustrophobic by the ever-changing hoardings. Passenger information screens are not positioned in useful points anymore, and the cramped lifts, already scuffed and grubby decor in the upper concourse all stink of compromise and bodge.

This is not a transport hub undergoing a Lepidoptera style emergence from the cocoon of renovation, but a desperate attempt to polish a turd that should have been flushed years ago. 

September 9th – Answers on a postcard, please. Looking up on the platform at New Street Station today, I noticed this little anemometer, wind vane and what looks like a humidity sensor. Normal climatic monitoring kit, you’d imagine. Except this is undercover, and at least 25 meters from the open air. 

No idea why anyone would do this. Maybe they’re measuring turbulence caused by the train movements?

September 4th – It’s not often realised, but Walsall has a specific place to park motorbikes. It’s at the bottom of Tower Street, down past the entrance to the Gala Baths, right outside the Civc Centre.

Note that on the other side of the flowerbed, there’s a handy bicycle park. Both have nice rails to lock up your steed.

If you’re a local news aggregator in possession of a funky moped, you can use either, it’s been legally tested.

This has been a public information post.

August 30th – Cycling down the bridleway from Wall Lane to the Birmingham Road at Harehust Hill, near Wall, I noticed the remnants of the wheat harvest. This spilled grain is natural, and happens at every harvest time. Trailers lurch and spill, grain falls from machinery in transit and the wind blows it into gutters and potholes. This is what my grandfather called ‘Gleanings’, and spoke of the old right the poor had to collect it for their own use. He also called the noisy, shrieking guineafowl that were often kept as yard birds in the area ‘gleanies’, as they were often fed on the gleanings.

It’s quite rare to see guineafowl these days.

August 28th – This is an odd thing. This sluice is built into the canal bank, overlooking the Big House in Clayhanger, and was once (and presumably, still is) a drain point for the canal, with the mechanism blocked out of use. I reckoned it must be redundant, as if opened, it would appear to drain onto the garden beneath it. However, in the last few weeks, someone has been and inspected it, removed the plate covering the mechanics, and greased the gears. Perhaps it’s still functional, and doesn’t drain to the open but to some kind of culvert.

Anybody know for sure?