Tag: autumn

October 6th – Just by Festival Gardens, on Queen Street in Lichfield, screech the bike to a halt. Fallen treasure! The conker collection instinct is as strong in me now as it was when I was a child. I don’t think any red-blooded British male can pass a fallen horse chestnut without thinking twice. There’s something about that shiny brown nut in a soft, but spiny husk that’s just wonderful.

Ah, I remember when love was nothing but a handful of sticky conkers. Come to think of it, it hasn’t changed much…

October 2nd – Sadly, the optimism of the previous day had evaporated with the good weather, and it was back to the damp and grey. Something, though, has caused a step-change; somebody has flicked the ‘on’ switch for the leaf fall. Mainly sycamores at the moment, but trees all over are turning colour, and shedding. For a while, everything will be golden. The best bit of autumn. Here in Telford, the cycleways are beautiful, if a little bit treacherous, as the foliage sheds.

October 1st – October? How did that happen so quick? After the grimness of the day before, the bright morning was a joy. For the first time in a while I was in Telford, and the rose hips on the cycleway beside the M54 are beautiful. Rosehips can be used for so much stuff – wine, jelly, syrup – but few seem to pick them. Sad, because it’s been a great year for the roses.
There are a whole host of fruits here, from blackberries to dewberries, crab apples, medlars, rowan berries, catoniasters and even nightshade seem to be showing well. Autumn is also coming on here fast, more of which later in the week. 

September 22nd – Since we’re around the autumnal equinox, the sunsets get quite reasonable, just as they do at the spring one. Returning home through dark lanes, lights on full and feeling cold, this was my first taste of cold-season cycling. I find riding in the dark fun, challenging and mentally exhausting, and this ride more so, as I hadn’t done it for so long. But the sky was my companion, and it was beautiful. You’re never alone with a good sunset.

September 22nd – a bright, sunshine autumn day. A ride through Staffordshire. My goodness, it was nippy as evening fell. It’s been one hell of a bad year for the oaks. I’ve previously recorded the absolute plague of knopper galls around Brownhills, devastating the acorn crop, and I’ve hardly seen any unharmed ones at all. Out in Staffordshire the story was the same. The ones that aren’t victim to the tiny, drilling wasp are small and sickly, affected by the lousy summer.

I hope they (and we) have a better time next year. To me, oaks are the epitome of the English tree, and when they suffer, I feel we all do a little bit.

September 21st – Late afternoon, the heavens opened. It’s been a fairly dry month, so it wasn’t too bad. But it affected my mood: it’s now the autumnal equinox when day is the same length as night, and the earth neither tilts toward, or away from, the sun. We are now crossing into astronomical autumn and winter, and the driving rain and wet countryside reminded me of this. I feel like this every year, before the leaves turn and the countryside becomes once more golden. It never gets easier, if I’m honest. It’s hard being an outdoors person when the nights draw in.

September 20th – On my return from Shenstone, tired and feeling down, I noticed that the trees along Lynn Lane were turning colour, and everything, including the surrounding, freely ploughed fields, was looking very autumnal. The colder, shorter days are coming now, and it’s hard to feel positive. I hate the nights closing in.

September 20th – A busy, draining day. I had urgent and unexpected stuff to attend to in Redditch, so headed out early. Expecting a quiet journey, it was horrid, and the task I had to undertake didn’t go smoothly either. At 11:30am, I left Redditch and had to go to Tyseley, so to get a bit of perspective I cycled up the Arrow Valley cycle route back to Redditch Station. It’s interesting how, even in this most unusual of years, some things have prospered. One of those things is hawthorn. Everywhere I go, hedgerows and trees are laden with deep red berries. Some say this is the sign of nature preparing for a hard winter.

The fruits themselves are edible but quite bland, and not actually berries at all; they are pomes, the same structure and type of fruit as apples. Haws are said to have health and fertility promoting properties, and can be used to make wine or jams. Birds love them, and will survive on this plentiful, sugar-laden bounty during the long months of winter.

September 14th – Home from work and off to Lichfield to do some shopping on a gorgeous, but windy afternoon. Heading up the canal to Chasetown, the tops of the hedges have been cut and my favourite tree is once again visible at Home Farm. I judge the passing of the seasons by that tree, it’s like a marker to me. Still with leaves, soon, they’ll be gone for another year. Looking over the farm, a buzzard wheeled high on the thermals and the harvested fields caught a patch of light. Not a bad view from Brownhills, is it?

September 13th – Elderberries seem a bit thin on the ground this year. Along the canal from Walsall Wood to Brownhills, there are usually clumps of the dark fruit hanging heavy on the bushes during autumn. I guess this is another symptom of a poor summer with few insects to pollinate the flowers. Local home-brew specialists may well have to find other wild fruit for their wines this year.