Septemebr 24th – I came home after a late finish at work full of cold. Still struck low with the weekend’s bug, the going was hard. The dusk fell during the commute, and I became painfully aware that we’re now in the few weeks where drivers seem to be re-learning to drive in the dark. I don’t understand the psychology at all, but up until about the end of November, driving standards at dusk will be very poor. Left hooks, getting pulled out on, overtaking into oncoming traffic. All tonight. I had bright lights and a generally decent road position. There must be a reason for this, I see it every autumn.

Be careful out there, folks. You never know what’s lurking at a bad junction or beyond the oncoming headlights.

September 24th – my love affair with Darlaston is decades old and shows no signs of abating. I adore the place, from the grimy industrial backstreets, to the quiet loveliness of Victoria Park. Here, half a century ago, trains thundered through this cutting serving the freight needs of the Black Country, but now, landscaped into a lovely open space, it makes for a nice traffic free ride away from some of the worst traffic of the town centre. In spring, this spot is lined with snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils. 

I always liked that footbridge, too; it’s an inspired touch.

September 23rd – The Birchils lock flight in Walsall is currently closed and mostly drained for maintenance. It’s interesting to see the pounds drained, and how much junk accumulates in them. Also the simple technology of damming the water to allow work to take place. Some flow still accrues due to overspill, and I was impressed with how clear and clean that was, and I noted how it had cut down to the clay liner – the ‘puddling’ – that keeps the canal water from soaking into the earth.

I don’t know how long the work will go on for, but it’s nice to see the locks being maintained.

September 23rd – The fungi is really starting to show now. No fly agaric yet, which is my favourite of all, but I did spot this beautiful golden bracket in Victoria Park, Darlaston today. Growing on an old tree stump, it was bleeding some kind of resin and very very vivid. It appears to be some variety of polypore, but I have no idea what, and the internet and my books haven’t been helpful. The other ones are common puffballs, growing on the canal bank at Pleck. When ripe, they’ll burst and release powdery spores that drift on the wind. 

In all the flora and fauna, the mycology is the most alien and beautiful to me.

September 22nd – I cycled down the spot path in near darkness, and total solitude. As the path opened out near the bend, I realised how eerie this was, and decided to take a picture. I then found I wasn’t alone at all. Just as this long exposure ended, a large male fox wandered out of the scrub on the left, turned to look at me for the briefest of moments, then walked off over the meadow to the canal.

Clearly, even in the quiet dusk of a Clayhanger Common Sunday night, there is important fox business to be done, if only the humans would mind their own bloody business…

September 22nd – It’s not been a great weekend, really. I seem to have contracted a cold, which left me feeling hungover on Saturday and just plain horrid today. It was with a sinus-generated migraine that I finally got it together and headed out at dusk. I found the dark soothing, and it made the visual disturbance less apparent. It was very still, and the sunset was gorgeous. Any other weekend I’d have been over the hills and far away, but today, my energy was sapped just doing a small loop on the canal around Clayhanger.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

September 21st – I’ve seen this before in other villages, but I’d not noticed it in Wall. I went back today to record the phone box library – a free book crossing project in a disused K6 telephone box. It’s a great idea. Not sure if they have any longevity, but a lovely thing to do.

Some of the books were pretty good, too.

September 21st – For the second time in a week, I’m on the phone camera, as although I this time remembered to bring out my camera, it turned out I’d left it switched on and it’s battery was as flat as a pancake. This was sad, as the afternoon was again great. The freshly ploughed and harrowed soil at Home Farm smelled great, and made an interesting contrast with the other fields nearby. I see my favourite tree is starting to turn, too. The little beach, at the north end of Chasewater Dam was deserted for the first time in weeks. If yesterday felt like spring, these where the ochres and attitudes of autumn. There’s no escape.

September 20th – While taking tea in the morning with my friend, our conversation turned to this journal and the nature of repeat observation, and how you can pass the same place time after time and still spot something new. Happenstance struck in Wall village later in the day, as I stopped to fiddle with my bike in a spot I’d paused hundreds of times before. I have been crossing this point since I was 11 or 12, yet never once have I noticed the walnut tree thriving here. The boughs are loaded with fruit, still maturing in green husks. At first, they looked like limes, and I dismissed that as an impossibility. I thought maybe almonds, then found the remnants of last year’s crop in the grass. 

This is the first walnut tree I’ve ever come across. I have seen this one many, many times, but never registered what it was. It seems in rude health, apart from some kind of parasitic attack in some of the leaves which reminded me of oak Knopper galls.

Now, where’s my recipe for pickled walnuts?

September 20th – Meeting a good friend and respected local historian for morning tea in Lichfield, and time flew by. I took lunch in the city, did a little shopping and returned home through Wall on what seemed like an almost spring-like afternoon. The sun was warm on my back, the birds sang and freshly ploughed and planted fields were emald green with new growth. The peculiarly angular church looked lovely against the blue sky, and had I had more time, I’d have popped in for a look at the Roman remains.

A great day.