The Sunday Ramble: Black Country aye it.

It’s only a week to go now to our carnivals. If you want somewhere to go today, the Oak House in West Bromwich has a ‘do’ on. I have other plans. I will be taking photos this afternoon, but I have to take it easy. I have  bad leg…

Too much gardening on Friday has done something to the muscle in my leg. It’s OK when I rest, except for the occasional agonising twinge. It’s actually swollen, but I’m applying liberal quantities of ibuprofen gel. I’ve got hay fever anall…

We have our own unintelligible accent and dialect in the Black Country, something some outsiders look down on. We joke about it and that helps keep us relatively sane. We are a little nihilistic in the Black Country too. You won’t find many people that know what nihilistic means though. We’re down to earth, we call a spade a spade and sometimes that down to earth attitude descends into nihilism. Art galleries tend to be for posh people. When we do go in and we see a pile of bricks, we think someone has emptied a skip. We don’t think art and start swooning over it. It’s the same with pickled animals, once you’ve seen one dead animal you’ve seen them all. We like lamb on  a plate with mint sauce, not pickled in formaldehyde and displayed in an art gallery.

The art galleries have just had millions of pounds thrown at them again. Walsall art gallery got over a million. They still won’t have a summer exhibition for local artists; we’re too common. We might actually produce art that people like.

I think the sun is trying to come out this morning. There is lots of white cloud. I don’t mind white cloud it reflects the light for photography. I don’t mind that cloud that is petrol blue either, but we do get a lot of black cloud. It could be a good day for photography. I might even be able to wear a tee shirt.

There’s a famous factory in Dudley that makes sweets and sticks of rock called Teddy Grays. They have a shop in Wednesbury that sells the sweets and ice cream. I want to pop in there today. I want some fruit sherbets to take to the carnival. There is no loo (toilets) in the park and so I can’t have drinks, not with my waterworks and so a sweet will stop me getting too thirsty… We’re very practical in the Black Country as well as being down to earth and a bit nihilistic…

The Black Country Living Museum is in Dudley too. They got some of that cash for the arts too. It’s expensive to go in there and you need all day to walk around.  I can’t walk all that far, even when I aye got a bad leg…

Beer is quite popular in the Black Country too, so there are events in pubs to celebrate the Black Country Festival. Real Ale like Banks’s is favoured over that continental stuff that looks like stale urine and tastes worse. The Vine in Darlo has a singer on in the evening of the 12th of July, after the Party in the Park. They have about 6 or 7 real ales on tap anall. They have a Sunday Club on a Sunday afternoon.  I could pop in today, I’ll be taking photos close to there. I’ll see how my leg is…

I’m getting more into Twitter now. I’m quite surprised by who follows me now. It’s handy for publicising the carnival and finding out what’s what. I’m not sure who the celebrities are that are opening the carnival this year. Not the same ones as last year, but I missed that anyway. I’ll try to be there for the opening this year. All the local historians will be meeting up too, so I’ll try to be there for  that. I’m not really a morning person, but I’ll try to get out in the morning to the Party in the Park and to Wednesbury by noon. I’ll see how my leg is…

Anyway, I must get on. I have a ‘massive’ event to photograph today in Darlo. Watch out for it, if you’re unfortunate enough to live there. If you want to share your thoughts, you can in the comments box. You can also join the throngs and follow me on Twitter.

Did I mention my bad leg?

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