July 18th – I like this a lot. On Catshill Junction Bridge, just on the Walsall Wood side, there is a very healthy teasle plant growing from the brickwork.

It’s now tall, and in bloom. It looks fantastic, and slightly alien, as these plants always do.

A migrant from the wild sowing of nearby Clayhanger Common, we never would have seen these kind of plants here in my childhood. A wonderful, life-affirming thing.