Walks And Thinks And Squishes

 Yesterday I went for a walk. I need excuses to get out of the house. I need to move around a lot more than I do. I need exercise for an hour or more. But I dislike walking around residential areas. They're boring. Cannot motivate myself to walk down the road, around a few corners and back again, having seen one front garden after another, one house after another, car after car after car, pavement pavement pavement. Tree wall drive car tree hedge wall car pavement garden hedge car hedge kerb car car car.

 That's why I like canals, and old factories, and underpasses, and woodlots, and hills. But those kinds of things are mostly out of walking range. So I haven't been out much. On Thursday I went to a meeting of the Friends of Highbury Park. Someone had suggested it as a potentially useful networking opportunity - where my volunteer skills might help me get information relating to my wider interests. So I went.

  It was at a place called Highbury House, which I'd never heard of, never been to, and of course I got lost on the way over. But once I found it I realised that it was in a corner of the ward that I'd never explored. All the times I'd passed near, and taken a look along a side road, I'd seen houses that were noteworthy only for their sameness, plus a huge new block of chi-chi flats, po-mo style, which of course were even less interesting. So in getting lost, and ending up in the middle of this neighbourhood by coming round from another side, I was chagrined to learn that Highbury House was not only a stately pile, but the home of Joseph Chamberlain, Birmingham's celebrated social democratic mayor in the late 1800s. He and his pals like George Cadbury gave substance to the term municipal socialism, imagined Birmingham as a garden city, and set about making it that way in suburbs like Bourneville and Quinton.

 Chamberlain lived in luxury. The entrance hall in Highbury House is two stories high, intricately carved and paneled. It's grand. Outside, the grounds stretch away to the south for half a mile or more. I'd been across the southern portion of the grounds, in what is now a banal municipal park. Grass, trees, grass, footpath, grass, trees, football field grass grass grass road. I've never bothered to go into the northern part, as it looked like more of the same.


 Turns out that between the house and the grassland are an arboretum and the remains of the estate gardens, some of which are entirely derelict, and that's what the Friends are trying to do something about. I knew none of this before the meeting, and had only a vague idea after, given that the sky was dark by the time it ended. On Friday I decided I'd have a reconnoitre, which would do double duty as a walk. I didn't get there that day, so I went yesterday, mid-afternoon, and took my camera. I decided that a few snaps might work as promotional materials for the Friends - given that they have a miniscule budget, and were casting about for ways of raising enough money to do a tree survey. I imagined putting together a portfolio of distinctive trees and using them on flyers, posters, t-shirts, and the like.

 So I walked and snapped and nosed around in the woods for about an hour and a half looking for interesting angles on trees and shrubs. My little cheapo digital camera works just fine for some of this stuff, but at 640x480 pixels, it is never going to have the tonal range one needs to capture the colors, range of shadow and details of many plants. I knew that most of the images would be less than satisfactory, but that a few would be okay. Out of 95 photos, 7 turned out well enough to manipulate further, as I have done with the one above.

  I went again this morning, in lieu of a second mug of latte. Again, about an hour and a half, from about 7:45 til sometime after 9:00, and returned with 150 photos. The dog walkers were out under a mostly clear sky with the sun coming over the trees as I got into the clearings. The grass was wet, and by the time I'd wandered halfway across my feet were squishing in my socks. Definitely more fun than being on the pavement.