Tag: 365daysofbiking

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 19th – Nice to see the housing project between Deakin Avenue and Watling Street coming along so well. A mixed development of flats and houses by Walsall Housing Group, it’s good that some social housing is being built here to replace at least a few of the huge number of dwellings that were lost in the slum clearance of the mid-2000s. 

These homes overlook the open heath at the top of Holland Park. Whoever gets the flats in the foreground will, in all probability, regularly get red deer visiting. Wouldn’t that be great? 

September 19th – I found myself out and about in the sunshine after rain with an empty camera case – which isn’t good. Rather than whizz home for my camera, I figured I’d have a play with the phone camera. It isn’t too bad, as it happens. The contrast seems a bit harsh, and it seems a little over saturated, but not unpleasant. The panorama mode is really better than the one in my camera.

I’d headed across the common and back down the old rail line and onto the canal. Apart from a few tinges of orange-brown and the obvious crimson hues of hawthorn, rowan and rose hip, you’d think we were still in late summer.

September 18th – Conkers. Every man I know is inexorably drawn to the shiny fruit every autumn, it’s almost an instinct to pick a few up if you see them. This splendid tree is at Festival Gardens in Lichfield, and the conkers are just starting to fall. This year, they’re small – I’m not sure if it’s just this tree, or general, but there are lots to come; the boughs are heavy with the spiny-husked horse chestnuts.

The tree is clearly suffering the ubiquitous leaf miner parasite, but it large and handsome, all the same. I gathered a couple of pocketfuls, and tossed them near Wall Butts on the way back.

September 18th – This grey wagtail and several others have been busy along the canal at Catshill, Brownhills, all summer. Before this year, I’d never seen one in Brownhills, and I’m pleased to note their appearance. A small, yellow and grey bird, it has an erratic, pulsing flight that’s fascinating. All the time he’s on the ground, he’s bobbin up and down in the characteristic way that wagtails do.

A lovely, joyous addition to the local wildlife. Sorry for the grainy pics, but the bird was quite a way off.

September 17th – A spin around Chasewater in the rain. The park was pretty deserted just after lunch. I span round, the drizzle persistent but relatively warm. The cows on the north heath were trying to find shelter in the woods, and looked thoroughly cheesed off. Meanwhile, further down the heath to the north shore, workers were cutting the scrub and burning the waste, resulting in the lake being covered in a low layer of sweet-smelling smoke. 

As I returned down the causeway, I noticed the crews of kids in rowing boats, out from the Outdoor Education Centre.

Life doesn’t stop at Chasewater when the summer goes; it just gets a bit more challenging.

September 16th – I headed back to Brownhills down the canal, and crossed Clayhanger Common for a change. I noticed at the old access driveway, near where the ranger’s hut used to stand a row of sweet chestnuts, with a glorious crop of nuts. I’ve never clocked these before, but they’re in rude health and look beautiful. Considering the history of the land upon which they’re growing, I’d not eat the fruit, but it’s a great thing to see, for sure.

September 16th – The lanes and key-bys of the area (and probably the country) are currently suffering a rash of dumping. The rules have changed, and scrap yards will no longer accept fridges and freezers, so tatters are stripping the metal from them and dumping the remnants anywhere they can.

This discarded shell of a fridge is in Green Lane, Walsall Wood.

I still see discarded appliances left outside houses for the scrap men to take. Don’t do it, because this is where the shit ends up – as far as I’m concerned, anyone who leaves waste out like that is condoning flytipping and should be prosecuted as a flytipper.