Tag: 365daysofbiking

October 4th – This is a great Autumn for fungi – everywhere I look there seem to be great examples of different species, and stuff I haven’t seen before.

This interesting clump of button toadstools is growing on the exposed, fractured roots of the spot where a tree fell near the Tannery flats in Walsall. I think it may be some kind of honey fungus, but I’m really not sure. It’s really colourful and the photo doesn’t do it justice.

I suppose this is the tradeoff for the damp, grey autumn – great toadstools!

October 3rd – I’d forgotten my camera, I was heading home late and flustered, what an unfortunate time to witness an astonishing sunset. 

Looking from Kings Hill west to Wolverhampton, across the ether the cellphone mast silently talks endlessly to, the sky was bright crimson, rippled and utterly stunning.

And the phone didn’t capture it at all. Bugger.

Ah well, there will be other sunsets that hopefully, catch me better equipped.

October 2nd – And then, still chasing my delivery notes, another wonder I’ve not spotted before: an apple tree growing beautiful, edible looking apples just out of reach on scrub between two factory yards.

Birds are loving the fruit, which are ripe now and falling to the ground untouched. They looked beautiful against the blue sky with the turning leaves like that.

Wonder if they’re as tasty as they look? They’re quite large.

October 2nd – This has really, really surprised me. Mooching about the industrial estate where I work in Darlaston, I was looking for some paperwork that had blown up the road, and retrieving it from a hedge, spotted these beauties thriving beneath.

I see earth star fungus on Clayhanger Common in December, but wasn’t aware they grew this early. Looking like they’re clay or plastic, they are the most extraordinary fungi I’ve ever seen, and finding them is a real treat – there is a whole colony there, growing undisturbed in a roadside bed hardly anyone would ever notice.

Amusingly, Tumblr (the blog platform this journal runs on) has a system that automatically scans images posted, and detected these photos as being indecent. Sent for re-review, they were obviously passed as a false alert.

It just goes to show, some shapes recur throughout nature…

October 1st – In and around Hints church, the fungi is booming; most of these examples were spotted in God’s Acre itself, with some remarkable specimens growing undisturbed amongst the gravestones and memorials. I spent a happy half hour there, just seeing what I could find, all the time with the feeling I was being watched closely. 

Then the reason for my feeling of paranoia became clear – I was being watched by an elegant, snooty siamese cat from the edge of the graveyard!

September 30th – A wet, miserable grey day when little went right and I really didn’t feel the love at all. I really needed to be out and get some air, but work was demanding and the conditions not conducive. I’m really missing that Indian summer I was hoping for.

In the early evening gloom with night descending, I popped out on some errands, and spun around Brownhills. In steady rain on the Pier Street bridge, I remembered how beautiful this place is in the darkness of even a wet, grey, loveless evening.

September 29th – As I came back to Brownhills, a great, violet sunset. I’d be interested to know why so many sunsets lately tend towards the purple rather than the red or orange. It must be meteorological, but it really is beyond my knowledge.

I love that view over Anchor Bridge to the weest. Always reminds me I’m coming back to Brownhills.

29th September – Near Walsall, my attention was snagged on a bright, sunny morning by a small family, apparently living in an open, junk-cluttered garage just off a main street. They seem healthy, happy and don’t look malnourished. Clearly wary of humans, but mum, who was attentive and nervous of me, stood her ground and watched her kittens closely.

A rare treat. I have passed this with the location to the Cats Protection branch as I strongly suspect these cats are feral.