Images

January 19th – My health doesn’t seem to be improving. After getting over the worst of the fever of last weekend, I’m left with a rattly chest, a cough and a head cold.

It feels like it’s never going to go. My average speed is down to a miserable 10-10.5mph. I feel unfit and lost. And the weather? It’s lousy. It’s been like it since before Christmas, and right now I could do with sun, some warmer temperatures and some spring flowers. And the ability to do 15mph without feeling like I’m about to collapse.

‘Tain’t too much to ask, is it?

Meanwhile, in a chilly Darlaston, a view I’d not noticed before – with no leaves on the trees, looking over that splendid, dignified war memorial, the whole range of Darlaston architectural history: The Post Office, Rectory Avenue, The Columbarium, St Lawrence’s Church. What a fine set of buildings on that skyline…

January 16th – A shot I was keen to try with the TZ 100 has been the M6 Toll bridge at Anglesey wharf. I don’t think it was dark enough. It was certainly struggling with the balance between sky and the sodium-lit under bridge.

It’s not a bad image, but bizarrely, I think the TZ90 did it way better.

January 16th A second day off sick. My congestion was better, and my strength a little greater but I have a cough and a chest thing that tightens like a bear-hug on my chest when I undertake even lightly arduous tasks.

I can honestly say this is the illest I’ve felt, possibly since the food poisoning in 2011. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

Again, slipping out at dusk, I pushed for Chasewater. It hurt. It was bitterly cold, or at least, seemed it. But I still have a camera to test and new images to find in a limited range for now.

Hammerwich looked good, in the gloom.

January 15th – One thing did impress, though: The new housing estate on the old market site in Silver Street is coming on apace.

I’m so glad to see this – it’s been so barren, so open here for an awful long time. To see life here at night will be wonderful, and hopefully, the nearby High Street will see more trade.

For once, I’m not pessimistic about the future of my town. We might, just might, break even.

January 14th – I experimented in an area where Panasonic have always been streets ahead – very long exposure. The interface for this on those cameras is so much nicer than the Canon, but there is one caveat: if you have the device set to silent – meaning it uses electronic shiutter – the mode is castrated. That confused me last week and I couldn’t work it out until I read the manual.

The toll road was quite busy as I shivered and stomped in the cold.

I’m really not well.

January 11th – Unusually, I came through the pedestrian centre of Darlaston today, and noted that the old Caldmore Accord Housing Association offices were now empty: this must surely have been a pub once, but I can’t find it on any old pub sites, so I’m a bit puzzled. The courtyard is lovely, and the Mindful Gifts shop next door is an Aladdin’s Cave.

I hope a use can be found for this lovely building.

January 9th – In Kings Hill, after many years of dereliction, I note someone has been working on the former Scott Arms pub. Like it’s namesake in Kingstanding, the once popular house had fallen out of favour and closed some time ago, becoming nothing more than a blot on a changing urban landscape.

This pub used to be rammed lunchtimes when there were big factories nearby – Servis and Exidoor to name but two; but in these days of workplace alcohol bans and with the workshops now housing, there was no business to keep this pub going.

I’d wager it’s future is probably flats, or as a house of multiple occupation, looking at the way the upstairs windows have been fitted. Whatever it is, I doubt the Scott Arms will ever serve ale again.

January 3rd – Returning to Brownhills, there was a lovely, low sun at lunchtime so I visited the row of trees that make for such great autumn pictures during the leaf fall.

It’s fair to say they look totally different undressed, but no less beautiful.

Every time I see these, I can’t help but remember the when I was a kid, I remember these saplings being planted. 

Oh, how that makes me feel old…

January 2nd – I’ll start this with a note about time, and the passing thereof; long time readers will know I started this journal on 1st April 2011after being egged on to do 30daysofbiking by ace cyclist and top Dutchperson Renee Van Baar. Sadly, I was very ill with food poisoning the following New Year,  so never rode a bike on 31st December 2011, and 1st January 2012. But I carried on, and I never missed a day since. Every day from 2nd January 2012 I have got on a bike and ridden somewhere. From 100 mile plus rides in one day, to trundles to the shop, I have recorded my daily life as a cyclist, in all it’s ups and downs. That’s 6 years, or 2192 successive days (including 2 leap years), and about 55,000 miles.

I love keeping this journal, I love writing it, and finding the photos.

I welcome feedback. If you have something to say – that I should stop, continue or do something differently, please get in touch by commenting or mailing me – BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com.

I’ve done this to show that it’s possible to be normal, and on a bike. That a podgy, middle aged man who’s not a lycra fiend can ride to work, shops, for fun, to explore, keep healthy, be happy, enthusiastic, jaded, sad or depressed, and continue rolling down the road.

In the six years, I’ve had at least 10 different cameras to use, maybe more, actually. Some I’ve adored, some I hated. The Canon GX 7 Mark II I’m using at the moment is like Jekyl and Hyde. It was really good in the night shots of the last couple of journeys, but tonight’s attempt – a simple shot of Morris – it seemed to fudge a bit.

On the camera, the jury is still out.

I’ll need to ride and use it a bit more to find out…