Tag: Common

April 22nd – One of the loveliest things about this time of year is falling petals from trees in blossom.

Like nature’s own confetti, it celebrates the coming of warm days, sunshine and  light.

To see this delicate beauty, driving in swirls on the breeze, dappling grass and decorating you as you pass is a joy to the heart.

I just wish it wasn’t over so quickly!

April 15th I cut over Clayhanger Common to the takeaway, and noted that the waters here had almost totally receded now. The lower meadow here is designed to flood, defending the village, and works well. The problem is the path has sunk over the years and is now submerged in times of the meadow doing it’s job.

Thing is now, you’d not really know what had happened. 

This really is a curious, well engineered landscape.

March 31st – Heavy rains continued into Saturday with a break in the afternoon, And I took a spin around Clayhanger Common to check out the flooding situation.

As usual in heavy rain, the canal overflow had swamped, and the lower meadow was flooding over the new spot path. I often wonder who comes out and resets the breakers on the street lights after the water level drops.

This area is designed as a flood buffer to hold water away from CLayhanger Village and resolve it’s historical flooding problem – and it does a great job.

March 17th – Coming back to Brownhills down The Parade, the snow started. As it turned out, it was in for the night and we ended up with and unexpectedly heavy fall. 

It was bitterly cold, and as nice as the common looked, I wanted to be at home in the warm. I don’t know if it was the particularly biting wind or just my hunger but this cold seemed far more harsh than the -8 degrees we’d had a couple of weeks ago. Since it was nowhere near that cold now, I have no idea why that was.

Come on Winter, you’ve said your piece. Sod off and give spring a chance.

March 4th – I was going stir crazy. A bad day – the internet was getting me down, the thaw had set in and the world outside had the slimy, grey, filthy wet feel you only get with melting, heavy snow.

I slipped out on an errand at sunset and something magical happened. I caught a surface-air temperature inversion. I saw it start on The Parade in Brownhills, as it was gathering over the common. I raced to Chasewater. It was stunning.

An inversion occurs when the ground is colder than the air above and mist forms is very low, isolated pockets. I’ve not seen on this strong since I was a kid. Mist drifted around and almost deserted Chasewater, and I was in the middle of it, like a kid in a sweet shop.

March 1st – Allegedly the first day of spring, but a better one insomuch as I was better prepared for the cold. I wrapped up better, and rode a more sensible bike. It was just as cold, with more persistent, more powdery snow – but on leaving work early, I did a loop of Brownhills before nightfall to enjoy the spectacle.

Enjoy it I did, although again, the wind and cold were punitive and pugilistic. The powder drifted in clouds like dust devils over canal ice and bone-dry roads. Snow depths went from nothing at all to 150mm. At 4:30pm it was already minus 5 degrees C. When my hair started to develop lumps of ice, I decided to go home.

I noted the gritting operation at the council depot was in full swing, and the grit barn looks very depleted. The coos up at Highfields Farm, Chasewater looked peaceful and unconcerned, and the fox I scared into woodland across the common near Watling Street was as usual for foxes in snow, apparently apologetic for his higher than usual visibility.

These have been remarkable days to be on a bike. They have been very hard, but I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.

It’ll be interesting to see what the weekend brings.

January 20th – Back on the Canon, the photos felt more… vital, or vibrant. Which is an odd thing to say about a bunch of images of a cold, wet, snowy and misty grey winter landscape. But they do.

It was lonely. And cold. And I think these images convey that fairly well…

December 26th – I met this interesting fellow on the way back from Chasewater. I guess it was hunting frogs and amphibians in the marsh there, as there’s no real open water – but of course, an adult frog must contain plenty of sustenance for an adult grey heron in winter.

Whatever it was expecting for lunch, it was a handsome and healthy looking bird and totally unexpected there. A nice treat.

December 24th – The weather was bad, I had much to do, so I didn’t go far. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m nursing a shoulder injury at the moment which is making life uncomfortable – sustained falling over my own feet on the stairs, I ended up with bruises and some kind of muscle strain that’s making long rides very uncomfortable right now.

I was pleased to see however that at Clayhanger Common, in the usual spot, earthstar fungus had returned this year. The fungus here doesn’t usually show until December when the leaves are finally off the brambles that cover their spot, and this time, they’d been difficult to reach on a bike due to the snow. 

I finally noted one badly damaged by frost and the spore pods of several others, so at least we had a crop this year, even if it went mostly unrecorded.

They are an most unusual fungus.