WME Flickr Focus - May 2020

Greetings once more as I report in during week ten and a bit of lockdown. Although the restrictions are gradually starting to ease, the country is continuing to prepare itself for whatever the 'new normal' will look like on the other side of the pandemic. Amidst all the uncertainty, the West Midlands Exploration photostream keeps plodding away with its monthly round of updates...

• Hot off the blocks in May was WME Walsall which favoured a lock-by-lock investigation of the Walsall Canal up towards Birchills Junction. Numbers 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 all made the grade this time around and are joined by a picture of the Pretty Bricks, a backstreet boozer seen prior to Black Country Ales ownership .
• Matching Walsall in terms of new additions was Exploration Extra which grappled gamely with a couple of Hinckley buses before pocketing some Nottingham nuggets (the City Ground football stadium and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem). We can also sprinkle in a Monty moment courtesy of Belan Locks near Welshpool and a pinch of Yorkshire, namely Northallerton's station sign.
• Next up we have that tried and tested combination of Sandwell and Dudley. WME Dudley contributed a Black Country Living Museum pitwheel and a mournful look at the Struggling Man pub site, built over with housing opposite Buffery Park. WME Sandwell meanwhile dropped in on the ruins of Sandwell Priory before accounting once more for the Ivy Bush pub at West Smethwick.
• By its usual standards WME Wolverhampton had a low-key few weeks but still found time to acknowledge Warstones Library, the Rocket Pools pub and Bushbury Hill Primary School. Perhaps the most intriguing arrival though is Hills Bridge, a fragment of the former Bentley Canal that now stands in splendid isolation among the grounds of Tata's steel factory.
• May's stragglers are WME Worcestershire (a Shrub Hill platform view and Bromsgrove Rugby Club), WME Birmingham (Ward End Park) and WME Coventry (the Festival at Fenside). With a final shout out to Cannock Park on WME Staffordshire, I'll bid you farewell and get working on some stuff to bring you in June - cheers!