It's a miracle!!!

Well it's finally happened the new ANPR cameras on the Broadway are working (I think) At least there was a little red light that came on as I approached the camera this morning, but to really test them I would need to drive too fast and risk one of those wonderful speeding fines and three points on my licence - don't think I will risk it but I will let you know if I actually see them work.

Useless Signs and damned expensive

Well folks the signs on the Broadway are still not working - at the end of June the council intimated they would be working early next month which means July. We are now 21 days into July and still no sign of the £15,000 each signs working - I wonder if the ones in Aldridge are working - I must have a ride over there to see.

Oh What a beautiful morning

Well it's Monday, the sun is shining and I have been awake now for almost four hours having been awakened by the dawn chorus. I really do think this is a great time of the day - there is hardly any noise, traffic has been fairly light but is getting a little heavier and most folk in our street are probably still in bed. The only thing to spoil the day is that I have to go to work shortly but I will try to hang on until the weekend when I break up for a week's holiday. I am not going anywhere but may do a couple of day trips to Borth and Skegness as we have friends living in Borth and I really like Skeggy.
Any way I was thinking again about when we were kids and how lots of houses in our street had red doorsteps and window ledges which had to be polished with that wonderful red polish from a company called Mansion. They always looked good to me but didn't they make a mess of your dusters?, and weren't we always frightened to walk on the step the day it had been polished for fear of leaving a mark. You don't see many red steps these days but then I doubt if you can get the polish unless of course the betterware man does it.

Betterware Man

We had a Betterware catalogue drop through our door the other day and it reminded me of when we were kids and the Betterware man used to come round door to door with his little brown suitcase full of interesting bits and bobs. I remember one of them giving me a small tin of lavender polish when I was about 8 or 9 but I am not really sure looking back what they thought I would do with it.
When the guy comes back to collect perhaps I might ask him if he has any samples and see if I still get a little tin of polish.

Still no sign

Well the signs on the Broadway are still not working although it appears that everything is in place for them to work. Another post has been erected on each side of the road with what looks like the ANPR camera on top but at the moment there is no little red light on them to indicate we have power.
I do hope that the extra post and the new camera have not been charged for on top of the already high cost of these signs. I would hope, but I won't hold my breath that the contract had some sort of penalty clause in it or a stipulation that the amount paid was for a set up that would be up and running.
I have no doubt I will return to this topic in the not too distant future.

Sickness at Walsall Council.

I have been reading about sickness levels at Walsall Council and as usual there is a very bad picture painted which would suggest that the average council employee has 12 days a year off sick.
What really annoys me as a former council employee is that no mention is ever made of those employees who never have a day off sick. In one office I worked in there were four of us who hadn't had a day off sick in six years and yet every year we were tarred with the brush of having and average of x number of days off a year.
How about someone giving some credit to those employees for whom this is the case - I am sure there will be a number of folk and I suspect they are as upset by the inference as I used to be.

Wonder signs!!

Well the signs on the Broadway are still not working and today I have driven along there and two new posts have sprouted up with what appears to be the cameras that were on top of the signs on top of the new posts.
I am glad I don't live on that stretch of road as none of the 'street furniture' is exactly nice to look at. Will keep you updated.

Pink Elephant!

I see the burghers of West Bromwich are having another meeting to decide the fate of that monstrous pink elephant 'The Public'. I have never thought it would work and as a West Bromwich lad originally I would have thought the money could have been better spent on a swimming pool - I couldn't believe the gala baths had gone when I drove through there a few weeks ago.

New items

I have added some other blogs which I have come across and have been looking at recently which have a connection to our locality and may interest anyone reading this blog.

A little poem

It's been a while since I wrote any poetry but felt a little inspired to give it a try - not sure its up to much but at least the ends of the lines rhyme.

What a lovely day it was 'til someone lit a fire,
I had to close my windows, it really raised my ire!
The smoke was black and acrid it really made me cough,
I felt like going round their house and knocking something off!
I rang the local fire brigade but they refused to come,
It made me want to go round there and kick them up the bum.
But wait, it's started raining, oh what a flipping shame,
I've notice though the fires gone out and the sun's come out again.

Lovely new road - but......

Well not quite a new road but certainly a new surface which is very smooth, I am talking about Heath Road in Darlaston which has recently been resurfaced. Prior to the work it was an absolute bone shaker of a road to travel along but now it is superb except for one thing (well possibly two if you count the flooding that still occurs) why oh why haven't they resurfaced the crossroads at the traffic lights as this must be at least as bad as any other stretch of this road was. Any body out there know or is this just another of the council's money saving activities?

Super gift

Thought I would have a change from having a moan at Walsall Council, although the signs on the Broadway are still not working.
I recently celebrated a birthday and one of my gifts was a book called the 'Lost Railways of Birmingham and the West Midlands' which I have thoroughly enjoyed reading. I particularly liked the chapter that covers Snow Hill to Wolverhampton (Low Level) as I used to live fairly close to this line and spend many happy hours train spotting from a large rock that stuck out of the embankment.
On one occassion we saw what must have been the pride of our collection when King George V came past us and the other classic was the blue pullman train. Of course we were spotting in the latter days of steam but there were also diesel multiple units running this line which we always called yam yams as they sounded their hooters when entering the tunnel at Hill Top and this was what the hooters sounded like to us kids.
The other thing we used to do a lot was go in the tunnel and hope we could get from one end to the other without a train coming - nowadays we would have to dodge the trams and we would be able to see what we were doing because there are lights in this tunnel.
Great Days when the pace of life seemed to amble along rather than the headlong rush into oblivion that seems to happen these days.
Hope anyone reading enjoys this little bit of nostalgia - I know I did!!