April 24th – A short exercise ride, still working from home, mostly. Despite the strangeness in everyday human society, the natural world continues as normal.
Nice to see the moorhens pairing off to mate. Such humble, unassuming little birds.
I keep saying it, but it’s the normal, beautiful events of spring that are keeping me going day to day at the moment.
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April 23rd – Something odd is happening. Well, lots of odd things really with the current pandemic that has seen changes that just six months ago would have been unthinkable.
But what’s interesting me is small, almost unnoticed shifts in national opinion.
The outpouring of wholly justified love and respect for the NHS is one such case in point. Rewinding that six months, I bet lots of folk in love with it now would have been at best ambivalent towards out state healthcare system back then..
Years of attrition from some political quarters had let to our National Health Service – something that’s saved my life on three occasions and I have always been a staunch advocate for – being treated as a Cinderella, and something to be improved or that was inadequate, or failing.
In a heartbeat, that’s all changed. Pro-NHS sentiment and memes are spilling off social media into real life. The UK is once again, painfully aware of the value of what we have and what we need to protect.
Here at the old Duckhams Bridge near Stubbers Green, an anonymous hand is echoing a love we all now share.
At a stroke, some political positions have become untenable overnight.
If nothing else about this awful time is positive, this new found regard for those who work to care for us and the service they work within may well be.
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April 23rd – It’s appropriate for St. George’s day I guess that apple blossom is now out. For all th frilliness and glamour of the ornamental cherries, you really can’t beat traditional apple blossom. Pink and white, it’s a gorgeous spectacle, and very British.
It smells rather nice too.
It’s in hedgerows all over, but this lovely specimen is on the canal between Clayhanger Bridge and the Black Cock.
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April 22nd – With this working from home malarkey (I still cannot get used to it) I’ve not been seeing some familiar places this spring, much if at all.
Jockey Meadows is one such place.
Usually one of the last places to show signs of spring, when I took my exercise ride today it was beautifully green, almost verdant. A real feast for the senses with bird and wildlife clearly happy and getting on with life in a way we can’t.
Hello old friend. Happy spring!
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April 21st – The evening exercise rides are getting a bit samey and I think I need to vary my palette a wee bit – but it’s quite hard with beauty like this not five minutes out of town.
I took a spin up to Ogley Junction from Brownhills: Just a short, lazy loop from Silver Street. The canal and fields near home farm looked spendid in the warm, softening evening sun.
Machinery is once more on the half-ploughed field, which is interesting, and the oilseed rape is now in full bloom, too.
I never, ever tire of this place. It’s so gorgeous.
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April 20th – I see on the canal near Walsall Wood that the sallow trees are coming into blossom. These spiny female catkins will soon start spewing huge amounts of fluff.
Sallow or goat willow is a member of the wider willow family, and grows profusely hereabouts. After the initial pretty male catkins have passed – pussy willows – then come the female catkins that you can see here. Once these peculiar green flowers pollinate, they generate wind-borne seeds in a few weeks: these evolve in the form of a large cloud of fluff that for a few days will coat the canal, towpaths, woodland paths, verges and road margins.
Sallows are not the only willow to do this peculiar thing, but they are certainly the largest group to do it hereabouts.
Bizarre, but fun…
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April 19th – The ride took me down Hobs Hole in Aldridge, over Wood Lane and Lower Stonnall, and around by Stonnall Church. It was a beautiful afternoon, and nature did it’s best to entertain me and lift my mood, which wasn’t all that great with an attack of IBS.
Nature succeeded. And there was barely a soul around.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I hate the lockdown, although I understand how necessary it is. But I’m loving these quiet lanes.
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#365daysofbiking Ducks deluxe:
April 19th – Another first for the year on a short afternoon ride out to test the bike and legs. I’d had a go at sorting a creak in the bottom bracket, but it was still grumbling.
Although bright and sunny, there was still a chill in the air.
On the canal in Walsall Wood, my first ducklings of the year – seven balls of mallard fluff squeaking and doing their best to stick with proud mum.
This is always such a joy to see. Look forward to more of it, and goslings, too.
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April 18th – Also on the MacLean Way – more traditional beauty is to be found on the site of Brownhills Railway Station, just in central Brownhills, behind the Smithys Forge pub on the old track – primroses. Loads of them.
I don’t know how they got here but they are truly stunning.
Well worth look.
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April 18th – I took a ride down the McLean Way – the cycleway that runs down the old South Staffordshire railway line through Brownhills, being converted by Brian Stringer and pals from Back the track.
From what was a rubbish filled cutting, I must say the volunteers have done very well. It’s a credit to them and their hard graft.
What I’m liking also is the work of the graffiti writers who ply their trade at night under the A5 bridge. There is some seriously impressive artwork down there.
It’s great to see such affection for the NHS too.
Clearly a very talented artist.
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BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 