September 2nd – This year, as usual, I’m charged with foraging fruits and other goodies for the family winemaker, and precious jewels indeed are the sloes.
Thankfully on my ride out to The Roaches, I found a plentiful crop I’m not going to give the location of!
Thes dark red berries with the blue sheen, very similar in appearance to damsons make a lovely warming gin and are much prized.
A great find!
August 22nd – The Elderberry crop looks decent this year, which is always a good sign for local home-brew winemakers.
I will be out collecting buckets of these tiny back juice laden berries for a relative to perform the usual magic of transforming this bitter, black harvest into a dizzying, beautiful dark red nectar.
They also make a wonderful sight as a roll around the area.
The oncoming autumn is lovely when you stop fighting it…
August 14th – Another tree I keep an eye on is the odd pear tree growing near the top of the bank between the canal and new pond at Clayhanger. I have no idea how it came to b there and suspect it sprouted from a discarded fruit core.
This small but dense tree usually fruits copiously, but this year is suffering terribly from blight and bird attack. The fruit on this tree have never looked appetising at all, to be honest.
An interesting thing though, and I’ll keep watching as it grows and develops over the years and hope that one day the harvest prospers.
August 12th – One local treat I look forward to in late summer is local growing wild apples.
I don’t know who planted the row of fruit trees of different varieties which I discovered in a remote spot 10 years ago, but they tend to fruit copiously and the delicious apples, ungathered, rot on the ground. Every year for a decade, I’ve made a point of passing, checking the crop and gathering a pocketful. This year the russets are a little hard and tart, but the cox’s are delicious.
A lovely little local secret.
August 6th Dusk was falling on my return from Chasewater and at Home Farm, the harvest I had foreseen the day before was underway before expected rains appeared, and the farmer was working into the evening. Clouds of dust rose from the combine, and for all the world looked like it was on fire.
I feel really sad this year at Summer’s passing; I have enjoyed the warm days so much, with the sun and flowers. I guess again, I will endure winter and the cold and dark and come to enjoy it after initial resistance as I always do. I just wish the warmth had a fairer share of the year…
August 4th – For another sign of autumn’s looming shadow, you can do little better than windfall conkers. This large, pristine example was found on the Lichfield Road, near Walsall town centre.
I rescued it before it got squashed by traffic, then feeling foolish on my realising there was absolutely nothing I could do with it as the shiny fruit within the spiky shell wasn’t ripe yet.
Like most male humans, I’m programmed not to pass by a conker in the road, and throughout autumn I’ll have pockets full of them to no end whatsoever.
There was nothing else to do except feature this find on 365days…
August 2nd – Travelling to work on a miserable morning in steady rain, it was nice to continue the fruit-spotting with these glistening, deep red crabapples near Bughole Bridge in Darlaston.
Crabapples – bitter, hard miniature versions of the more palatable dessert fruit – come in many varieties from green through russet to deep, deep red like these. These fruits seem uninviting to almost everything and these will remain on the tree until well into the new year, and rot on the ground untouched by birds or squirrels.
They must be awfully acid, but they are so very handsome when new.
July 28th – A sunny morning, but dreadfully wet return from work made for an odd day. I’m increasingly aware now of summer and time marching on and this shows in the shift from flowering to fruiting.
The apples near the scrapyard at Bentley Bridge are looking wonderful again this year. Such a shame nobody can get close enough to pick them!
Looks like it’ll be another fruitful autumn…
November 28th – Although Victoria Park in Darlaston is beautiful any time of year, in winter it comes into it’s own.
Low sun, long shadows and morning quiet make for a beautiful oasis in the midst of humming industry.
A lovely short stop for a think on a bright, chilly morning commute.
November 26th – Out for an early spa and an errand to Aldridge, I passed through a grey, millpond still Catshill Junction. With it nearing December, and nobody around, this is a quiet, if bleak spot to take five minutes and contemplate the day ahead.
Still astonishingly plenty of colour in the trees from the late autumn, though.
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