April 14th – You think there’s nothing that could match the daffodils. Then you look upward.
My gosh, the cherry blossom was astounding. Pure white and pink against a blue sky – and again, those nascent leaves, bringing warm days and lovely afternoons.
Excellent.
April 14th – A sunny, warm moring. A run through a Wednesbury Industrial Estate, to come upon a grass bank covered in hundreds of daffodils.
I’m no Wordsworth, but I think I know what he meant.
Few spring sights are this joyous. Beautiful, and good for the soul…
April 13th – Only mid April, yet the canal at Lindon Road, Brownhills is greening up well. On a cold evening as I headed on an errand up to Ogley Hay it was cold, but there is spring everywhere. I can’t really get over how quickly and seamlessly we seem to have progressed to this. It doesn’t seem five minutes ago it was Christmas.
Who knows where the time goes?
It would be nice if last week’s sun and warmth came back to see us, though…
April 13th – Spotted in passing, this black and white little cat was sheltering from a chilly breeze in the lee of a large plant pot on the canal bank at Walsall Wood. Try as I might, I couldn’t attract his attention: he was either studiously ignoring me, or watching the birds…
April 12th – I didn’t make it home before the storm broke.
There was quite a degree of precipitation. The geese didn’t seem too bothered, though…
April 12th – On a headache-grey, still windy day a quick circuit around Brownhills and Chasewater before the storm closed in. Everything looked grim, dark and full of foreboding, as if the previous week of spring hadn’t happened at all. It was so windy, even the wakeboarders had given up.
The common was looking good though, and I must say the recent plantation removal works and tree thinning have been a real improvement.
April 11th – The swans at the Watermead, near the canoe centre in Brownhills, have been doing well. Subject to a little bit of unwelcome attention last week, by Saturday they seemed relaxed and content. Dad was patrolling, leg up resting, and mum was preening. They are hardy birds and will go after anything that threatens them, and this pair are historically very territorial, as the nearby canoeists have discovered. I think they’ll be OK.
Sadly, the Catshill swans, despite showing interest earlier in the year, appear to be nesting elsewhere this year. Wherever they are, I hope they do as well this year as last.
April 11th – A short trip to Chasewater on an unpleasantly windy day was rewarded with the realisation that I’d had a guerrilla-planting success: last autumn, I scattered a load of wild cowslip seeds at Anglesey Basin: this year, a pleasant patch of my favourite flowers.
If we enjoy these things, help them out by spreading the love. I collect seed heads in little bags and spread them on wasteland and verges, then enjoy the results.
Wild flower power!
April 10th – Passing the huge shopping complex at Merry Hill today, I realised a few things. Firstly, that although it was sold as regeneration – it was built on the site of the Round Oak Steelworks in the late 1980s – it hasn’t regenerated the area around it at all, large tracts of which are still waste and derelict. Secondly, it’s looking just a shade dated and tatty these days – but no less busy.
Thirdly, the ill-fated monorail that linked this place to the Waterfront – taken out after six years of unreliability and trouble – still has a ghost presence. Just above M&S, the black oblong prism is a former monorail station.
Oh, brave new world. What went so wrong?
April 10th – Cycling the Netherton Tunnel is a genuine challenge. The towpath is now deteriorating badly; it’s full of wheel-snatching potholes filled with obfuscating water that conceals their depth and severity. Water continually drips on you, and occasionally pours. Although you can see daylight, it’s a long time away. And then, the relentless, unforgiving task of riding for twenty minutes or so in a 4-foot gap between a wall that curves closely over your head and a corroded, week handrail.
The relentlessness of it, the eyestrain and psychological effort of keeping alert enough to keep everything flowing is a real challenge.
But I love it every time I do it. I’d say it’s for the experienced cyclist only, and take a hat, jacket and good light. But it is fun.
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