September 12th – Conkers, by the shedload. The tree in Festival Gardens, Lichfield is laden with them again, despite being ravaged by leaf miner. Last year, due to the season, they were small, but this year, a better size. They’re thick on the ground in their shiny, brown glory.

Like all men, I’m programmed to pick up conkers whenever I see them. They are beautiful, like jewels in leathery, nutty perfection.

September 12th – I needed to pop into Lichfield, so I rushed there from work, then took a leisurely spin back. Festival Gardens are really nice at this time of year, and I wasn’t disappointed. The trees are now perceptibly turning, but still green. I love the willows here, and the purple flowers and bulrushes on the Trunkfield Brook were nice. 

The odd subway here has always fascinated me. From the way its lined with corrugated steel, I think it’s very old. Don’t think I’e ever seen one like this before.

September 11th – Less charming than the sunflower, but fascinating to me, just under a bridge in Pleck, I pull up to a halt to allow a rat to get out of my way. Brown, and in good nick, it loops around the path before diving into a drain hole in the bridge underwall. If you watch closely, it briefly pokes it’s nose back out of the hole.

Rats are a fact of life with canal cycling, and there are lots in urban areas. Previously, I’ve seen them swimming here. Humans have a symbiotic relationship with rats, and we’ve co-existed for millennia.

I don’t find them repulsive, I find them fascinating. Their adaptability and nimbleness are fascinating.

Worth watching full screen. Click on the little square box on the vide toolbar.

September 11th – I only went and forgot the camera again. This week can’t end quickly enough. Something is not functioning at all well.

On the way to work, in central Walsall the traffic felt risky, so I hopped on the canal and rode to Darlaston that way. On the way, I bumped into this family of swans.

This bunch are very attentive to humans – I suspect they get fed regularly. They were almost harassing me for food. The adults seem smaller than the Catshill brood, and there’s only three cygnets, but they’re lovely, healthy birds, and seem to have been ringed.

As soon as they realised I wasn’t going to produce bread, they went back to foraging in the weed and quickly drifted away. Cupboard love.

September 10 – Riding home along Green Lane between Shelfield and Walsall Wood. Just on the Walsall Wood side of the Mob Lane junction, I’m overtaken badly by 3 mopeds, or small motorbikes.

The first has three – yes three – hemetless neds sharing an unregistered machine, the rear one actually smoking. Bringing up the rear, two lads with helmets, but one on a bike with the registration deliberately blanked out.

To make matters worse, at the Black Cock Bridge they turned off and rode up the canal towpath.

I do hope they fell in the cut.

September 10th – I’m not on form this week, not even slightly. Yesterday I got in and complained the wind had been against me both to and from work, and it was pointed out to me that there was next to no wind. Today, I forgot my camera and had to use the phone. I hate that. Oh dear.

I stopped on the way to work to answer a call. Pulling over in Rushall, I realised how autumnal it looked. This is a lovely Indian summer, but I note the leaves starting to fall, and colours slowly changing.

As autumns go, this is up there with the best so far. I just need to get things a bit more together…

September 9th – As I rode home along the canal through Walsall Wood, I came upon a Mexican standoff. A small, black and white kitten one side of the canal, staring out a Heron on the other who was meeting the stare eye-to-eye.

They’d probably both still be there, but a clumsy cyclist with tea on his mind broke the moment.

September 9th – This is bothering me. On the border between Darlaston and Walsall at Bentley Bridge, there’s a field of meadow-scrub next to the nascent River Tame. There has been planning permission granted here for a warehouse and new driveways and drainage which have never been built – instead, the land is being used ostensibly as storage, but is more akin to a flytip.

Building materials, old pallets and scrap, including a couple of portable site toilets are strewn around, and the water that must run off this site into the Tame is more than likely contaminated by the waste here.

I have mentioned this to Walsall Council, who assured me something was being done, although I’m not sure they understood the location or where I was referring to.

This can’t be allowable, surely?

September 8th – I hit Birmingham again mid afternoon. I was drained, and feeling a bit groggy, but couldn’t waste the good weather. I rode out of town on the canal to Spaghetti Junction, then eastwards to Castle Vale and hopped on the Plantsbrook/New Hall Valley cycleway. It was gorgeous, and well worth what seemed like a Herculean effort. 

The Himalayan balsam is thick by the brook for almost the entire cycleway, making the air smell of hot tin, but for all the damage it causes, it is rather beautiful.

When I got to Sutton, I was beaten, and hopped on the train to Shenstone. IBS can be a pain sometimes.