In January and February weather can descend suddenly and linger hard, leaving you locked into the grim stumble across icy streets from home to bus to work under dark skies for days and weeks. So when a morning dawns bright and fair, and you happen to have a meeting forty minutes easy walk away, it seems a shame not to take advantage.
On the main road, above the warmth and moisture of the passing, the leaf buds are already swelling on the lime trees. They're mostly a wonderful, mature set, though here and there a dangerous tree has given way to a replacement sapling behind fences and warnings. They're busy with birds; one of our rufty-tufty urban blackbirds is singing at an intimidating volume, Jackdaws are bickering and bullying and something smaller is skittering around, unidentifiable sillouettes against the sky, feathers fluffed against winter.
A sharp turn by the bus-stop takes me down the path by the culvert. We're low by the river, and the open culverts that scratch across the estate stop us from flooding every time it rains; they're also green corridoors for foxes, birds, frogs and more. I'm looking out for bud-burst but none is showing so far. The buds are big on the ash trees, though, and tinged with green. The culvert runs by our new city farm, then becomes a stream as it passes the park. A quick nip across the road, and on the other side of the stream, dramatic allotments with willow sculptures. An early gardener is trimming a willow dinosaur. An artist has been along the stream and left a painted sign, social commentary on the cost of housing in the area, hammered into the grey-brown winter grassy bank on the far side, where it will be harder to remove. The birdsong peaks in the wet area where wet-loving trees (willow, alder) have been planted to drain up the routine floods.
Towards the next main road, rubbish and dog-shit starts to gather. An eviscerated charity box is a reminder why this isn't a path for after dark. A classy lady with two small expensive dogs looks at me askance. I step out into the bright opposite a pub that was once a lovely venue but which long since went into terminal decline and eventually re-opened as a tattered Islamic Centre, complete with motivational signs and perpetual disorganised building work. I skirt up past the Council works, and head up hill, past a graduated tint of prosperity. Battered frontages sprouting cheerful winter weeds give way to tidy double-glazing, smart paving and recently bought shrubs in tidy pots, give way again to gardens choked with portaloos and builders rubble, give way again to walls, drives, gravel, and beautiful mature ornamental trees that have been well chosen for their location.
The next road I cross marks the edge of the suburbs, and from here the houses expand, and the gardens become individual and expressive. The main genres are all represented, but amplified by long-term residence. The front garden that is mostly weeds has been gifted intentionality by a wry sculpture and a wildlife-friendly demeanour. The one that is mostly parking has been optimised for that, with tracks for wheels and low hard-nut plants to soak up the run-off. A recently done-up house is still sporting its designer wreath, and such a floristic mass of seasonal shrubs in flower in pots that I suspect an actual florist may be involved. Tidy climbers arch over doors; smart conifers sentry the front windows; walls are lined by hedges of privet, lilac, winter jasmine and more. The air of care is palpable. But I can already hear the rush and murmur of the approaching ring road, which slices across the top of this road, the rush and sound and light of it is like approaching a sea front, and the effect on the gardens is similar; shrubs become lower and more hard-wearing, there is more paving and hardstanding, houses are more fortress-like and inturning.
The ring-road, edged with grass and trees, is never quiet. It rushes on through the night like a prayer-wheel for the city, in an endless spin of van, lorry, car, taxi, car, motorbike, bus, car, car, car car. Kites and crows squabble and mob along it; animals live in the wild verges and die under its wheels. Here the factory kept an underpass open for shift workers and it still links the houses to the commercial zone beyond, neutral paint schemes spattered with hopeful graffiti, bicycle and pedestrian routes gritted and cared-for; the underpass to prosperity.
On the other side of the bypass, we emerge instantly into the environs of the car plant, a shiny, high prestige environment. The Factory is fancy. Broad verges planted with mid-sized, high quality trees, cherries and maples and more. Immaculate car-parks divided by screens of espaliered hornbeam and beech. Electric charge bays, smart gravelled edges, directive signs and everything designed for reliability, efficiency and high throughput.
I have arrived.
On the main road, above the warmth and moisture of the passing, the leaf buds are already swelling on the lime trees. They're mostly a wonderful, mature set, though here and there a dangerous tree has given way to a replacement sapling behind fences and warnings. They're busy with birds; one of our rufty-tufty urban blackbirds is singing at an intimidating volume, Jackdaws are bickering and bullying and something smaller is skittering around, unidentifiable sillouettes against the sky, feathers fluffed against winter.
A sharp turn by the bus-stop takes me down the path by the culvert. We're low by the river, and the open culverts that scratch across the estate stop us from flooding every time it rains; they're also green corridoors for foxes, birds, frogs and more. I'm looking out for bud-burst but none is showing so far. The buds are big on the ash trees, though, and tinged with green. The culvert runs by our new city farm, then becomes a stream as it passes the park. A quick nip across the road, and on the other side of the stream, dramatic allotments with willow sculptures. An early gardener is trimming a willow dinosaur. An artist has been along the stream and left a painted sign, social commentary on the cost of housing in the area, hammered into the grey-brown winter grassy bank on the far side, where it will be harder to remove. The birdsong peaks in the wet area where wet-loving trees (willow, alder) have been planted to drain up the routine floods.
Towards the next main road, rubbish and dog-shit starts to gather. An eviscerated charity box is a reminder why this isn't a path for after dark. A classy lady with two small expensive dogs looks at me askance. I step out into the bright opposite a pub that was once a lovely venue but which long since went into terminal decline and eventually re-opened as a tattered Islamic Centre, complete with motivational signs and perpetual disorganised building work. I skirt up past the Council works, and head up hill, past a graduated tint of prosperity. Battered frontages sprouting cheerful winter weeds give way to tidy double-glazing, smart paving and recently bought shrubs in tidy pots, give way again to gardens choked with portaloos and builders rubble, give way again to walls, drives, gravel, and beautiful mature ornamental trees that have been well chosen for their location.
The next road I cross marks the edge of the suburbs, and from here the houses expand, and the gardens become individual and expressive. The main genres are all represented, but amplified by long-term residence. The front garden that is mostly weeds has been gifted intentionality by a wry sculpture and a wildlife-friendly demeanour. The one that is mostly parking has been optimised for that, with tracks for wheels and low hard-nut plants to soak up the run-off. A recently done-up house is still sporting its designer wreath, and such a floristic mass of seasonal shrubs in flower in pots that I suspect an actual florist may be involved. Tidy climbers arch over doors; smart conifers sentry the front windows; walls are lined by hedges of privet, lilac, winter jasmine and more. The air of care is palpable. But I can already hear the rush and murmur of the approaching ring road, which slices across the top of this road, the rush and sound and light of it is like approaching a sea front, and the effect on the gardens is similar; shrubs become lower and more hard-wearing, there is more paving and hardstanding, houses are more fortress-like and inturning.
The ring-road, edged with grass and trees, is never quiet. It rushes on through the night like a prayer-wheel for the city, in an endless spin of van, lorry, car, taxi, car, motorbike, bus, car, car, car car. Kites and crows squabble and mob along it; animals live in the wild verges and die under its wheels. Here the factory kept an underpass open for shift workers and it still links the houses to the commercial zone beyond, neutral paint schemes spattered with hopeful graffiti, bicycle and pedestrian routes gritted and cared-for; the underpass to prosperity.
On the other side of the bypass, we emerge instantly into the environs of the car plant, a shiny, high prestige environment. The Factory is fancy. Broad verges planted with mid-sized, high quality trees, cherries and maples and more. Immaculate car-parks divided by screens of espaliered hornbeam and beech. Electric charge bays, smart gravelled edges, directive signs and everything designed for reliability, efficiency and high throughput.
I have arrived.
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