July 2nd – In Darlaston, a gentle precipitation; sweet-smelling, light, and coating all it touches. It’s pukh.

Pukh is a downy fluff produced by female poplar trees, not unlike the blossom fluff produced by sallows; I noticed today the Owen Street in Darlaston was coated with fuff. I’ve seen it before – Pitsford Street in the Jewellery Quarter used to be swept with clouds of the stuff in a good year, but rarely as uniform and snow-like as this.

It’ll be interesting to see if the rains washed it away.

June 30th – Looking almost frosted on the warmest day of the year, this is a cowslip seed head. It’s not quite ready yet, and is ripening in the sun beneath the trees by the Pier Street Bridge at the edge of Clayhanger Common. I have my eye on it and it’s fellow plants: as soon as they’re ready, I’ll take a few seed heads and scatter the seeds elsewhere.

You can’t have too many cowslips. Spread the love, people.

June 30th – There’s a Matt Smith fan in Darlaston – what else can explain the stencils of his face as Doctor Who stencilled around about?

This is one I only discovered by chance, just on the wall by the steps to the canal from the Willenhall Road Bridge at Darlaston Green.

It’s not Banksy, but it’s well thought out and executed.

June 29th – Intrigued and saddened to see the Four Crosses pub in Shelfield – the last pub in the area, closed a few months ago – now up for sale as a ‘residential development site’.

Planning permission was granted some time ago to build a care home behind the pub and adjoining it; the developer recently tried to get the admission criteria loosened to allow those needing care additional to senior citizens to be admitted. Combined with the pub’s closure, there was a furore in the community and false rumours it was to be a drug, alcohol, mental health or bail hostel.

I would imagine that permission has been denied, or is not looking positive, despite rewording to exclude contentious groups, and the developer has decided to cut their losses and sell.

The building was granted meaningless Asset of Community Value status and a petition raised, too. Both have proven now to be pointless. From a development that looked like it may retain the pub, it now looks likely the building might be lost altogether under more housing.

At the heart of this is a basic truth nobody seems prepared to face: you cannot force people to keep running a business they don’t want to. It’s the huge elephant in the room that sits unspoken in many debates about the future of once-great pubs like this one.

A cautionary tale hangs here, I think. I shall watch with interest.

June 29th – I’m loving the orchids this year – they seem to have been becoming steadily more profuse over the past few years. I make no apology for repeatedly featuring them, for they are remarkable flowers, and this year they face a herculean struggle to avoid the rigid, inflexible Canal & River Trust mowing schedule, which has seen many fine blooms wiped out.

They’re only here for a short few weeks. Keep your eye out for that flash of vivid purple in the grass – there are several different varieties locally. This one is near Pier Street Bridge in Brownhills.

faz0la:

I saw this friendly chap in the garden of a cottage I was renting, he often came to sit by my wife and I as we enjoyed tea and cakes in the sun. I have no interest in bird watching and I have no idea what kind of bird he is but I will admit I did enjoy photographing him and he I’m sure enjoyed our company. He was there every day and he gave me plenty of opportunity to get the hang of the zoom on my camera. He was rewarded with plenty of cake crumbs which he seemed fond of. Taken in Betws-y-Coed, Wales, United Kingdom.

June 28th – Later in the day, I had to run into Aldridge on an errand. The flowers and trees are coming along well as the season ticks away; at Clayhanger, a pear tree I’d not noticed before looks set to deliver a healthy crop, but nowhere near as prodigious as the blackberries in Walsall Wood if the bees get to it and pollinate that wonderful showing of flowers. 

Again, at Clayhanger, a mystery yellow flower I really should know, but don’t; it looks almost prehistoric. Any help gratefully accepted…