Monthly Recap September 2023

Jimi on Wednesday 27th, no longer bleeding but still healing

The totals for the month: 67 miles running (abismal), 12 pubs, 2 kebabs, 1 fish and chips, 3 short reviews. Here’s the cartoon of the month (not necessarily a monthly feature):

Jimi continues to recover, at this writing, from his dick-ectomy (perineal urethrostomy, look it up) earlier in the month. He’s a trooper and seems to have a lot of Bobo in him. He tore out some of his stitches Tuesday while I was at work and bled like a motherfucker; ‘fortunately’ I was sent home for being too sick to be of any use there and was able to apply pressure and this stopped without a return trip to the vet. He’s since recovered remarkably and, besides sleeping like the stereotypical kitty, has been nearly back to normal. Yesterday (Friday the 29th), he got the last of the sutures properly removed and was freed from his Elizabethan collar. Hooray, Jimbo!

Me and the missus were also at Death’s door most of the third and fourth weeks of the month with fever, headache, sore throat, hacking cough, and shortness of breath. Sound familiar? It helps explain this months poor running performance just as I was starting to ramp up again. It also goes some way to excusing the sudden cessation of the wall bricking started the end of last month.

Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, and Wilfred Owen would hang their heads in shame if they were confronted with the War Poetry presented in this tome to 2nd tier British footie. At least, so I imagine since the local paper has pay-walled the article about it (yes, Express & Star, this mockery is aimed at you):

For reference regarding catching up on the backlog from the Post Per Day Project, the current last post of the year in several categories are (although these are all likely to move forward, now):

Category: Date Visited, Pending Till
Pub: 22 September, 30 December (99 days delay)
Fish: 21 September, 27 December (97 days)
Kebab: 20 September, 22 December (93 days)
TrigPointing: 22 September, 29 December (98 days)

The Grain Store, Wolverhampton

Pub #2622:

They fucked me out of £5 change. Or, rather their crosseyed little bartendress did. At least I no longer hold grudges…but it may still cost them more than £5 in reconciliation, y’know?

(Trig) Bagging the Queen’s Ride

Everyone misses our Betty but I should point out that I thought I was the Queen’s Ride. Oh well, I headed to Cannon Hill to find the path along the River Rea known as the Queen’s Ride was gated and inaccessible. I couldn’t find the pole with a benchmark and the bridge, above, might have one, too, but not up on the surface.

On the way out I found a really nice little walk near the School of Dentistry. The landscaping is really nice.

Just down from there at Pershore Road, the entrance to the Park’s car park is shared by the entrance to the Wildlife Centre, above.

It has a well maintained Cut Mark, shown here.

Cannon Hill is a fantastic city park with ponds and wooded areas and an arts centre. This bridge has been on many running trips in the past but this Cut Mark bagging effort was the first time I really looked at its details.

From there, I carried on up to a kebab place in Balsall Heath picking up some other marks on the way.

This large house is obviously cut into flats and the mark is barely off the pavement so I made the quick dash over to log it:

A primary school also loomed:

This trip was during the summer schools break so while I still couldn’t enter the grounds I felt confident pushing the lens through the gate for this one:

The next one was on a magnificent building that is now the Moseley Dance School:

It was formerly the Moseley & Balsall Heath Institute. Over this door is a spinner, metalworker, and a blacksmith with Michelangelo on the left and Shakespeare to the right:

The sculptures are in really good nick all around.

And, just around the alleyway to the right of this window sits my Cut Mark for this site.

I walked from there, or nearby there, after picking up my kebab for lunch. Just as I was finishing my treat and was getting ready to jog again, St Anne’s came into view. The tower is TP13842, an intersectional point.

I completely missed the one on this house as I passed through the park, earlier, but the numbering on one side of the street is greatly offset from the other side and, realising it on the return trip I reached over the fence and logged yet another.

Recently, I found a note that the last of the machine cut marks went up in the early 90’s (my first database only had the original ones from 1962 and before). This stinks of the Baby Boomer Cut Marks, but could be one of the originals:

The house is Blue Plaqued in honour of Louisa Ryland, founder of the park:

I bypassed the Dental School walkway and went straight over to Bristol Road. I ran past this bridge and spied the mark at the lower left.

The bridge isn’t obviously necessary from the pavement but there is a running brook under it. This stream joins the River Rea down around the nature centre from earlier in this post. Doubling back for the quick shot, I had to dash having used up most of the hour for lunch already:

Yakinori, Selly Oak

The Japanese option on the fish and chips project is always welcome but the quality, of late, has been equivalent to supermarket sushi. The salmon and tuna nigiri from Yakinori was outstanding, though: melt-in-mouth tender and roughly room temperature as if it was made to order by one of the guys bearing knives behind the counter. Filling, but I would have easily eaten four more trays of this if someone else was buying.

Longbridge and Rednal Trig Excursion

Longbridge is a shithole, but it didn’t seem to always be such. For instance, these houses adjacent to the train station, large semis with huge gardens — and one of which sported a Cut Benchmark I was looking for — were razed around 2011.

Fortunately this block of houses was replaced with an architectural abomination encouraging people to drive to a rail station rather than take a bus or go to a rail station closer to their houses:

Up at Bristol Road South, I had my first successful catch on a wall, worn but recognisable.

There’s a bolt on the Everlast gym which I don’t think I’ll ever be able to log completely:

It was originally the Danilo Cinema, opened on 28th January 1939 seating just shy of 1500. The final screening before conversion to bingo hall was Barbarella which is interesting since Brum is the birthplace of Duran Duran.

Heading into Rednal, another Cut Mark sits on the tower of the IDS Electrical building:

I should have asked while there, but I suspect from the architectural features — especially the front which appears ready for big, red trucks to roll out of — that this was formerly a Fire Brigade branch (I would further guess that, if true, then it was probably Branch 29).

There is some broken screed just below the CM which, if extended, would end this mark forever:

The Coppice, Rednal, Birmingham

Pub #2621:

I didn’t expect such a civilised house based on the external appearance of the Coppice, but it was very nice indeed. It was at noon, midweek early August, and only myself and two others haunted the joint but the landlady turned up the England match in the Women’s World Cup for one of the gents and the other spent time sorting a massive pile of coins (apparently a successful evening gambling preceded). I restrained my impulse to sit at the piano.

Hawthorns to the House Trigging

This is my second failed attempt at the Pillar in the golf course, which lies about 100m beyond the wall, above. This time, it was a Sunday around 8:15 am but still too late as the greens were crawling with maintenance dudes.

Continuing down the hill from there, I am pretty sure my next mark in the wall is obscured behind all that shrubbery. I opted to turn around here but the cemetery across the road was stunning:

Back up the Birmingham Road across from where Park Lane meets it, I picked off a decent cut mark in an old building:

Then, is was mostly a straight dash down to the High Street and homeward except I new of one intermediate stop to do…

I’ve looked this structure up before but this was my best excuse to prowl around it. It is listed as Arch Lodge on my database (there’s a Rivet on its benchmark) and was one of the gates to Sandwell Hall, a stately pile demolished in 1928, long before the motorway over the house and bisecting this roundabout was even conceived.

This side of the roundabout interior is something like a park and fairly clean largely due to the hazardous crossing. I spotted a fox and several wrens during my short stay.

There were a couple of misses from there and then I hung up the database to focus on building up a sweat before reaching the far end of the street market at St Mike and the Angels Catholic Church.

This was probably the door to the vicar’s lodge, but hiding away behing a rain drain pipe (I almost typed ‘Pope’) is the last Cut Mark of the day.

The Village Green for Fish and Chips, Stockland Green

Visited a while back for beer, I also ticked off another fish and chips venue at the Village Green. Cavernous and empty at lunchtime on Friday despite everything on this plate being outstanding. And, it’s the only pub for about a mile so you’d imagine better custom…you can’t keep a house like this open on good takeaway food alone.

The Electric Cinema, Birmingham

Pub #2620:

While not a pub, as such, the Electric Cinema is a truly fantastic drinking establishment. Sure, we paid an £8 entertainment cover (for Oppenheimer on 35mm…it’s alright, you should see it), but the bar itself was reasonable. The bar is reasonable and the cinema is fantastic.

Opened in 1909, it was the first cinema in Brum and is the oldest in the country still operating as such. My new favourite place.

Missing, missed, and remote Olbury/WestBrom loop

It was a Saturday run late July and I had info that Triangulation Point 18125 was destroyed. I looked for the block and can confirm that I didn’t see it. But, looking for another, the Royal Naval Association floated into sight:

At the bridge after the lock, I looked all over the south parapet and realised, after leaving, that I was supposed to be looking at the south facing parapet — oh, well. I continued on with no better luck. Buildings were missing, walls replaced without the promised marks. I focused on the route to the pub of the day then headed toward Oldbury after refreshment.

Just beyond a tempting 2nd pub sits a school house behind, of course, a gate. but the mark there is still good and protected by this cage and neglect.

From the pet shop, I was heading home via central West Brom and, as I approached the tram tracks I checked and saw that the bridges should have markings. The pedestrian bridge off Lyng Lane did: