June 1st – A great friend from Walsall recently commented that when he came back from holidays or distant journeys, crossing Shire Oak Hill in the car always made him and his family feel like they were nearly home. I love this view. Seeing it, like the one from Church Hill in Walsall, reminds you of what a tremendously green area Walsall actually is.
Nipping up to the Wood on the way home, I was reminded of this. Al, you’re a star.
June 1st – As the week matured, the weather, and the early mornings got better and better. The wind died and the sun came out. It was still grey today, but the meadow before Little Aston church was green and smelt sweet with pollen. Stopping by at 6:15am, with little traffic, I could hear beebuzz and birdsong. I didn’t want to go to work…
May 31st – It’s not just the barley and potatoes coming on in the fields now, this field of wheat in Lynn, near Stonnall, is looking fine after the recent rains. I doubt it will be long now before an early harvest.
May 31st – The weather really settled down today, and summer is definitely on the return. The air was chilly at 6:30AM in Four Oaks, but the light was gorgeous and the wind had died right down. I stopped to admire the architecture of this house in Lichfield Road, which I’ve passed many times. Is this stunning, or what?
May 30th – Rabbits don’t do clever, but this one at Farewell, Staffordshire was quite unique. Taking a suicide run out of the hedge on the left, he doubled back when he realised the danger and ran straight ahead, in the same direction as me, for about a quarter of a mile. The camera loses him for a bit, before I catch him up again and he jumps into the hedge. Never seen that before.
The video quality is quite poor. I’ve had to zoom in quite a bit, and you may need to turn the quality setting up on youtube.
May 30th – Just as I came down Church Street in Rugeley, the sun came out. After weeks of blustery wind and thin sun, all of a sudden it felt like summer again. The breeze was warm, and scented with pollen. Some great chimneys here, it’s a lovely street with some fascinating architecture.
May 30th – As the weather broke, and the rain began to ease, I headed out for Cannock Chase. Crossing the common, then up through Norton, Heath hayes and Hednesford, I stopped to note this poor, unloved old pub. For students of mining subsidence, this is quite a good one, and there are’t many straight edges to the building.
Another victim of corrosive social change.
May 29th – in the seemingly unnamed, orphaned strip of woodland that lies wedged between the River Tame and the canal just north of Hopwas Wood Bridge, the largely disused southern driveway to Tamhorn Park provides a nice green route for walkers and cyclists. Vehicles used to come through here, but not for a few years and the wrought iron gates remain locked, rusting and blocking the track to most motorised traffic. This fallen branch – surely snapped by the weight of the parasitic creepers bound around it – now provides an additional obstacle.
The cyclists and walkers, however, just wore a path around it…
May 29th – I wondered how they replaced high-voltage lines with minimal disruption, one look at the pylons near Stockfields, between Hints and Canwell, answered my question.
I pointed out a couple of weeks ago that this transmission line was undergoing maintenance, and I noted today that there are now pulleys fitted under the insulators on the cable hangers. Presumably, the old line will be attached to the new and pulled through by a power winch. Slow, but steady. I’d love to see that in action.
May 28th – Pottering around Chasewater, from Pool Road, I noticed deer over by the old spoil heap to the rear of the disused Highfield Farm. They were too far away to get a decent picture, so I entered the park, crossed back over the toll road via the footbridge and hopped onto the old railway line at the back of Poole Crescent. I came face to face with the group of red deer – two hinds and two young stags, with antlers still in velvet – just by the marsh at the corner of the heap.
The were skittish, but curious, and we faced each other down at a distance of 50 yards or so for a good 10 minutes before I spooked them, and they ran off toward the thickets at the edge of the field. A wonderful sight, still shocking to me.
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