September 19th – I wasn’t feeling lucky, but it seemed fortune was on my side. I came back to Walsall on the train, and rain ominously flecked the windows. Emerging into the light, the rain – which I was dreading, with no waterproofs – hadn’t reached Walsall. I raced home, the sky to the north east getting darker and darker. Arriving home dry, I was feeling rather smug… But as it happened, the threatening skies never delivered, so I was safe after all.
September 17th – This is a summer tradition that’s been hit by the weather. All through the growing season (and into autumn, usually), throughout rural Britain the traveller will see trestle tables of surplus fruit or veg, with an honesty box for payment. I’ve seen very few this year, which is sad, as they’re a lovely tradition. I’ve purchased everything from these roadside stalls, from cucumbers to windfallen cooking apples, from tomatoes to plums. With the weather badly affecting the growing this year, the only stall I’ve seen has been this one of runner beans, in Main Street, Stonnall. Here’s to a better year in 2013.
September 12th – A poor day; I left home in the morning during a rain shower, and as I left work that afternoon in Tyseley, the heavens opened. There are few places greyer than Tyseley when it rains. The showers were very localised, however, and on my return, the sun came out at Duddeston, but it was raining hard at Perry Barr.
Welcome to Britain, and the most fickle weather in the world. Come on you gits, where’s that Indian Summer you owe us?
September 10th – This is really exciting and unexpected. The water level at Chasewater is now no more than a few centimetres from the bottom of the depth gauge on the pier. The scale starts at a height of 148.35m AOD (above sea level), and on the 14th September last year, the water lever stood at 143.7m AOD. Than’s an incredible gain of 4.65m in 12 months. I don’t think any of those observing the situation could ever have dreamed of such a recovery.
Shame the downside has been an atrocious summer…
September 4th – I know I keep banging on about the harvest, but this year really has been highly unusual. It’s now early September, and crops that should have been in barns a month ago are still languishing in the fields; many possibly ruined.
Ziksby replied to my recent post about the harvest around Stonnall and Shenstone mostly being over, by pointing out that it was still ongoing around Aldridge and northeast Walsall: indeed, I was over-optimistc and it was still ongoing around south Staffordshire today. I noted one particular crop of wheat, still stood in the field between the railway and Hollyhill lane at Shenstone, that seems to be ruined. The grain is blackening, shrivelled and small.
Despite this, the recent good weather has prompted an agricultural machinery invasion, with harvesters working around the clock. A truly remarkable season.
August 27th – I bloody hate summer bank holiday. To me, perhaps wrongly, it represents the end of summer. Last break until Christmas, from now, the nights draw in in earnest, the weather closes in and the warm days and sunshine once again become hazy memories. Except this year, we didn’t have much summer, either, and I felt doubly cheated.
I had to skip over to Burntwood at teatime. Driving rain, and a biting headwind. Some times, people ask me why I do this: today, deprived of summer and battling the elements, I was asking the question of myself…
August 22nd – The harvest seems to be taking forever this year. A bad summer, a series of late, false starts. Several fields around Stonnall and Shenstone are half-harvested. This must be a nightmare for farmers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen wheat lying ripe in the fields this late before. The swaths of straw at Springhill, I noted last week, have now, in one day, been baled and gone, yet work inches forward at Lynn and Sandhills.
This is one dreadful year.
August 21st – Autumn is tapping on my shoulder. Soon, it will be that most depressing of bank holidays, the summer one. To me, that one signals the end of summer and start of autumn, like a marker post. Tonight, there was distinctly autumnal weather to remind me. Sudden, very heavy showers alternated with sunshine. It was getting colder, and there was a chill edge to the rain. This is what autumn always feels like at first.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
August 4th – I spun up round the cycleway on the old railway, and at the old cement works bridge over the canal at The Slough, the heavens opened. I sheltered under the bridge for 20 minutes, then made a dash for home. The canal – like the town – was deserted save for the odd heron. As the sky above changed from a threatening black to a friendlier blue and sunset red, it lit Brownhills up in the most wonderful, cinematic fashion.
Man, I love this place.
August 4th – Barely time for a ride today, but I snatched one in the dying light of the evening. It was a grim evening, and we’d had heavy rainstorms throughout the afternoon. The sky was alternately light and dark, threatening another deluge with bands of bright blue coming through. At Coppice Lane, the small, automated pumping station in Birch Coppice was clearly swamped and unable to cope; the access hatch in front had water gushing up through it. It was flowing back down the lane and forming a large flood.The weather this summer really has been lousy.
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