June 19th – At that moment, the battery in the camera died. This one has a slight design flaw in that you can accidentally turn it on to display mode without noticing as you put it away, drawing power unnoticed. Hate it when that happens.

I had to make do yet again with the phone camera, which doesn’t seem to like bright sunlight very much at all, but the beauty of Lichfield’s Friary Gardens on a bright summer afternoon is undeniable.

I love this spot, with it’s mature trees, weathered paths and great flowers and shrubs. An overlooked, tranquil jewel.

June 19th – Passing through Lichfield today on my way home, I stopped by Festival Gardens to check out the conker trees. They seem to be in fairly good nick, and aren’t showing much leaf miner activity at the moment. They are, however, showing a huge amount of fruit.

I think it’s going to be another great year for conkers. The spiny cased nuts look almost prehistoric to me at this stage.

June 18th – A little curio I’ve been passing for years in Leicester. A higeldy-pigeldy row of water stopcocks in a pavement, numbered from 3 to 16. One is unnumbered.

They start in an orderly fashion, then the seuence falls to pieces.

They are labelled in weld – that is, someone drew the numbers using a welder, so the digits stand proud, like metallic icing on a cake. Over years and years, people walking over them have polished the digits to a shine.

But what became of 1 and 2?

June 18th – Back in Leicester, and a better look at South Wigston station’s wasteland garden. Today, amongst the truly beautiful, feral flowers, I found a plaque which answers many questions.

Wonder what happened to the friends of this lonely halt? I think I’m the only friend it has these days. But the love is strong, and that’s what counts.

I’m certain there’s a story in here somewhere.

June 17th – It had been a tough day, but recent issues should improve now, and I slipped out again, this time at sunset. I just took a lazy loop of the canal out of Brownhills, over Catshill Junction and up to Chasewater. 

At Newtown, the dying sun caught the water and rush-irises, and rendered everything precious. A pleasingly serene end to a difficult, scary day.

June 17th – Thanks are due to reader Julie P., who I think was the last one to report the canal bank falling away on the bend between Catshill Junction and Pier Street, Brownhills. There are signs that six months after being initially (and repeatedly since) reported, the Canal & River Trust (C&RT) have finally sent someone out to survey the problem.

Not sure on the longevity or effectiveness of those post flags and polythene tape, though – but it’s a start, and at least they’ve acted.

Dealing with the C&RT is like trying to nail blancmange to a tree…

June 16th – I called in at South Wigston on the way back, to kill two birds with one stone. The wasteland at the station there is beautiful again – brambles, ox eye daisies, thistles and dog roses mingled with a couple of unknowns. Considering this land – sitting between the access ramp and the platform – is totally abandoned and no more than 15 square metres, it holds no end of delights all year round. Stunning.

June 16th – I had to go a long way, early in the day. I still wasn’t well, and felt dreadful, but the weather was reasonable, and the ride to Lichfield Trent Valley made a nice change. Whilst on the train, I noticed I was sharing the bike space with a state of the art, Wiler road bike – carbon fibre frame, forks wheels and bars, and high-end Ultegra gears. That’s about £3,000-worth of seemingly well-used bike. Not an ideal commuting steed, I’d wager, and the owner nowhere to be seen.

Not my thing – I’m not ready to trust a plastic bike yet – but a remarkable thing to be sure.

June 15th – The flora was also showing well, and the blackberry and dewberry brambles are flowering intensely this year – so if we get a nice few days with plenty of bees and bugs, there should be another ample crop of blackberries this autumn. The lovely, paper-white flowers are rarely studied closely, such is their proliferation, but they are most delicate, attractive things.

I was also pleased to note that following the great marsh orchid massacre – where the plants I had been lovingly watching were mown off by a C&RT grass cutting crew a week or so ago – another abundant patch seems to be growing on the slope down to the new pond at Clayhanger.

I love those orchids. I never saw anything like them here when I was younger, and cherish them as a sign of how much better the ecology generally is around here these days.

June 15th – It was only a short run around Brownhills and up to Chasewater, as I wasn’t feeling to clever and it was a dreadfully overcast, grey afternoon.

My mood was lifted though by all the young animals I saw around and about – two families of goslings at different stages of development at the Watermead; a foal grazing on a lush meadow yellow with buttercups at Brownhills Common; the Catshill swan family, still numbering seven, growing all the time.

Inbetween, too quick to capture, I saw terns, a couple of herons, rabbits, squirrels and buzzards.

I particularly liked what I assume to be the foal’s mum, who was wading through the pool in their meadow munching on the lush green shoots growing from it.

I might not have felt any better physically, but the sights I saw cheered me up no end.