Tag: Brownhills

October 9th – There must be a good return on parsnips. I watched this mystery crop grow at Home Farm, Sandhills, from polythene covered strip mounds to lush, verdant foliage, from which readers identified the then mysterious crop. Harvesting has been ongoing for a week or two now – not everyday, but I imagine as often as demand occurs. Workers appear to sit in the shed-like trailer picking the root veg by hand, and tossing them onto a conveyor. Debris in one spot shows the crop was large and in good condition.

Don’t think I’ve ever seen parsnips grown in large quantities before. It’s certainly labour intensive to pick them. 

October 8th –  more pleasing spot right now is just up the road from the old Wheel Inn, at Anchor Bridge. The open space here is dotted with an assortment of mature trees, from willows to birches, poplars to ash. They are handsome any time of year, but right now, they are spreading the grass with a variety of colour. With the canal adjacent, but for the roar of the nearby traffic you could be in a great park…

October 8th – I noted today as I passed that the Wheel Inn is still derelict, and slowly rotting away. I had thought the former pub – or at least, the land it stands on – may be in for a renaissance a year or so ago, when the new gates  went up beside it, and some attempt was made to clear the yard. Sadly, this has not been the case, and the building remains forlorn, unloved and an eyesore.

I wish whoever owns this once fine boozer would take responsibility and either demolish or renovate it. It stands on Lindon Road, a grim welcome to Brownhills for any arriving traveller. I wish the owners could be forced to clean it up.

October 5th – The narrowboat Lowertown Lad has been moored up at the canal side by Tesco in Brownhills for a long time. A week or so ago it moved to jet near Anchor Bridge. I don’t know if anyone is living on it, or if it’s just moored idle, but it’s a nice boat and they’re always a welcome site on the canals of Brownhills.

September 28th – I haven’t seen any sloes this year. There are usually some growing in the hedgerows around Engine Lane in Brownhills, near the old Carver building, but they seem barren this year. What I have found, though, is damsons. Similar in colouring and texture, sloes are rounder and form clumps on the bush. Damsons hang individually, on a short stalk, and are vaguely egg-shaped. Sloes can be used in a number of drinks – sloe gin being one, where as damsons are more versatile and tasty enough to be eaten as a fruit, make jam with and so on.

However, growing on Engine Lane as they are, next to a notorious landfill and on former industrial land, it’s no wonder they are rotting on the ground. I certainly wouldn’t eat them, but nice to see.

September 27th – Out at sunset for a spin around town, and the sky was incredible. My grandfather used to call this a ‘mackerel sky’, and if one was observed, it meant ’24hours dry.’ I’m not sure about Grandad’s hypothesis but such skies are thoroughly beautiful. I’m glad I got to enjoy this one tonight.

September 26th – Further up the canal at Pelsall Road, I noticed what appeared to be oil on the surface of the canal. I was quite concerned as I approached, but I realised as I got closer that the scum is in fact a mixture of leaf-litter and other seed debris that had fallen onto the surface of the water. There must be physical reasons why it all seems to clump in one place…

September 26th – Winging back along the canal to Brownhills, I took another scout along the fringes of Clayhanger Common. Locals will know that 40 years ago, the was a benighted site of contaminated land used as a refuse tip. Careful and brave reclamation in the early 1980s saw the lad reclaimed and planted, and this is the result. Even with autumn on their heels, still the thistle, bindweed and meadow cranesbill are flowering strongly, teasels stand tall and ripe, and the shiny black gloss of elderberries hang heavy on the boughs. This is such a long way from how this land was, and something everyone in Brownhills should cherish and be proud of.

September 25th – Autumn is here now. I hate the interregnum between summer and autumn, neither one thing nor the other. I like Autumn – or at least, come to like it – when the leaves turn and the colours turn from green to gold. Despite the oddly warm weather right now, it’s starting to happen. A creeper in the hedgerow near the Black Cock Bridge has gone a deep, dark red, and along the canal to Brownhills, yellow and brown are starting to insinuate themselves into the trees and thickets. It’ll soon be time to get up into Abraham’s Valley on Cannock Chase, and capture the glory of the pines turning for another year.