October 28th – The dire storms predicted and anticipated never reached the Midlands, although they caused fatalities and damage down in London. This led to many trains being cancelled, and knock-on effects being felt across the rail network. Moor Street Station, usually brilliantly run by Chiltern Trains, slipped up. When I turned up to catch my train, the whole passenger information system – including the displays on the platforms – was showing a message of total cancellations, with no local services listed. I was just about to turn tail and head down to Tyseley by bike, when a Stourbridge train rolled in. It turned out, local trains were running fairly normally, and the delays were only on London bound services.

Why on earth you’d choose not to point that out on the main information screens I have no idea – I bet more local passengers pass this way in a week than London ones. 

I guess this is what happens when a London-centric company gets to run faraway stations: only the London view matters.

October 27th – I’m not one for religiously washing bikes, preferring the patina of grime that shows a bike is well used, and also makes it less attractive to thieves. However, the mud gathered on my bike over the past couple of days is loaded with pine needles and grit. These, over time, will get into moving parts and for a sticky, resinous paste that will accelerate wear and attack paint and metal. As soon as the weather clears it’ll be out with the Muc Off spray and a hosepipe. 

October 27th – The fungus, on the whole, is great this year, but the fly agaric remain elusive. My usual best spots for finding this most fairytale of toadstools – up on the canal behind the Terrace at Newtown, on the common opposite Birch Coppice and at Chasewater just by the bypass have all shown poor examples this season. These few decent ones were spotted on the canal bank at Anglesey Basin.

The puffballs – a fine crop – were all growing near Fly Pool on the North Heath at Chasewater. In a few weeks that green gunk inside will be dry, powdery spores, and the fungus will pop open on contact and scatter them on the wind.

The mystery large toadstool was on the canal embankment near Lichfield Road. I have no idea what it was, but it was very large and alive with bugs. 

October 26th – A sad day for me, the closing of summertime, and the descent into early darkness. The background susurration of gloom I now feel will not lift until the shortest day in December. Once things start to open out again after December’s nadir, I will feel better.

It was a day that didn’t work out; I left late and had to go to the cycle workshop at Birches Valley, up on the Chase. In my hurry, I decided against all apparent sense to take a shortcut over Cuckoo Bank. It was a disaster. The tracks were boggy and hard going, and once up there, the paths didn’t go where I thought they did. Were I exploring and not actually trying to get anywhere, this would have been great, but I emerged a good 45 minutes later at Wimblebury, way too late to get to my destination.

Instead, I headed up over Rainbow hill, down to Moor’s Gorse and back via Upper Cliff and Lodge Bank. The wind on the way back was merciless. I was glad to get home.

There was light in the darkness though, one last hanger-on from late summer; a single, beautiful foxglove growing in the otherwise dead forest floor at Parson’s Slade. Delicate, perfect and quite alone, I doubt it’s purple flowers will ever see a bee, but they did cheer me up.

It was a great summer, for me. I’m ready for the winter now, I guess. Bring it on.

October 25th – Although it was lightly raining, it was warm, and with the wind behind me I took the back way back to Brownhills, down the Lichfield Road and up over Springhill at Barracks Lane. 

I had a play with long exposure shots at Sandhills, and was quite pleased with the result, but puzzled too, when I looked at the images on the computer. In both, a wavy, oscillating thin trace of light is present above the main vehicle trails, which are very straight. I thought about these thin, curling traces for almost an hour, then I worked them out. 

They’re the light trail created by the reflection of street lights off the car windscreen, hence the curve and double back as the car enters the dominance of another lighting column. It’s quite mathematical, and I think it could be modelled with fairly basic locus mathematics.

I could be wrong, though…

October 25th – I didn’t come home until darkness had fallen, and coming up the Chester Road I felt like trying my night riding skills out in Shire Oak Park. I felt like it, then I remembered the stiles I had to get my bike over. And it was raining. It would be muddy. Perhaps not.

I think my night riding skills are probably still a bit rusty for that just yet. Maybe in a week or two…

October 24th – At the other end of the day, I came back at 6pm, and noticed it was already coming on dark. I stopped briefly at Shire Oak to sort my lights out properly, and reflected on the fact that next week, after the clocks go back, I’ll be doing this in the dark. I’d better start remembering my tripod…

I hate this time of year with a passion.

October 24th – In Tyseley, I left the station in the mid-morning, with a bright autumn sun cheering me up and making me feel positive rolling the past few days of rain, mud and wind. I stopped on the bridge in Wharfdale Road to look back up the line towards the city. I’ll nvere tire of that view over the rooftops of Small Heath and Bordesley. 

The pall of smoke was from a steam locomotive under test at the rRailway Museum. I couldn’t see it from where I was, but I could hear it and it’s lovely steam whistle.

October 23rd – Strategic mistake. I left Leicester early, and hopped on the first train out of Birmingham I could. I ended up cycling from Shenstone against a fearsome, grinding headwind. Although the lanes are taking on the beauty of autumn at last, this was a hard ride and I didn’t really appreciate the dry, sunny ride at the time.

So far, this has been a week of very grim commuting.