Tag: conker

#365daysofbiking Living on the skyline


Tuesday February 16th 2021 – Time for a favourite tree update.

The tree I love most of all is this particular horse chestnut, visible clearly on the skyline at Home Farm, Sandhills from the Wyrley and Essington Canal at Catshill, not more than 100 yards from Anchor Bridge.

I love it’s shape, the way it punctuates the rural landscape here, right on the very interface of the urban West Midlands with rural South Staffordshire.

It’s also my gauge of the seasons. I follow it’s colours as it weathers the the year: At the moment it is resolutely bare, but it will be in bud, and soon, from my distant towpath vantage point, I will see the familiar sheen of bright green emerge, before it comes into full leaf.

Usually it lags behind the fields and hedgerows, always the more eager neighbours, and so it is this year, with the field between us bright green with fresh crop growth.

I live for this view, this skyline. And that tree.

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#365daysofbiking Silly things

May 19th – I’m finding working from home impossible, if I’m honest. It’s very hard to keep focus with family life happening around me. There is no separation, I miss the commute; and I constantly find myself needing things from my den, or elsewhere in my workplace that would make tasks easy but without them they take forever.

I need to go back to work.

In the mean time, my daily outdoors fix is essential, and this evening I spent probably longer than necessary admiring my favourite tree, at Home Farm, Sandhills. This handsome horse chestnut is currently in bloom and looks gorgeous in the Tuesday golden hour.

Some things are markers in the madness. These fields, the canal, the sun, and that tree. They save me from nosediving. Silly things, but there you go.

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#365daysofbiking The nuts are dropping

October 7th – Although plainly of no use to me whatsoever, I still can’t walk past the fallen fruit of the horse chestnut tree without stopping to admire the shiny conkers, crack open a few husks and find the treasure within.

It’s programmed into me, like it must be to every British man of a certain age.

I’ll keep a few in my pocket to guerrilla plant, I guess. Such attractive seeds.

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#365daysofbiking Tree of life:

September 29th – Heading out at sunset after what was a pretty bad day, I swung up the canal through town, over Catshill Junction and over to Barracks Lane. The canal was beautiful and peaceful, and the only souls I saw were the waterfowl scudding around looking for food. 

Looking over the fields to Home Farm my favourite tree – the horse chestnut on the skyline just by the farm buildings – is beautifully golden, and glowed in the evening.

All round me now, the greenery is packing up and going for autumn. There’s no ignoring it.

July 28th – There was not only a remarkable sunset, but a partial rainbow within it, so I shot out on the bike to catch it in what I thought would be the best place – from the canal overlooking Sandhilsl and Home Farm.

When I got there, I realised that I had a problem: The hedge was too high to get decent pictures. So I rode up the canal to the gap in the hedge, and crawled through. Walking the field of uncut wheat was wonderful, particularly so following the day’s showers, which made it a sensory delight.

How I adore that horse chestnut tree.

July 13th – I’m sad to see the huge horse chestnut trees on Stafford Park in Telford are suffering for the first time I think with leaf miner parasites. 

These tiny larva destroy the leaves of the host tree from within, and although leaving the host pretty much unharmed, they bring on an ‘early autumn’ but causing the leaves to become blotchy and brown.

It looks worse than it is, but it’s a sad end to the season for many a beautiful tree.

Hopefully the current wave of these insects will pass soon.

October 7th -The Saturday was just as grey, and seeking fresh air I went out in steady rain, dried off for a short while, then returned home again in penetrating drizzle.

My seasonal barometer, the horse chestnut at Home Farm, Sandhills is currently wearing autumn colours, and will soon be naked once more, it’s green majesty having pleased me throughout the summer. Now it’s the turn of the fungus, and on the bank near Wharf Lane on the canal, where I thought there were to be none this year, the fly agaric are having a riot amongst the ferns under the silver birches.

It looks like contrary to my previous assertions, the fairytale red fungus with white spots is having another excellent year.

September 20th – The conker (or horse chestnut to be formal for non-UK readers) harvest this year is ample, which is excellent to see considering so many of these marvellous, noble trees are having their foliage ravaged by leaf  miners and cankers.

Here at Darlaston, the nuts are so copious, even though the kids gather around, there are loads of them left on the verge, a bounty I could only ever dream of as a kid.

I’ve said it many times but I do think there’s a real primitive instinct with British men and conkers. We’re programmed to collect and admire them from an early age.

September 13th – Spotted on the footpath on a Wednesury industrial estate, these giant pine cones. Weighing in I’d guess at half a pound in weight, they’re actually quite sharp and abrasive and I’d not want one to land on my head as it fell from the tree.

Remarkable things, and lots of them; like conkers, at this time of year falling harvests can be the only decent reason to wear a helmet…

May 14th – A gorgeous warm run out to Fradley, Barton, Rosliston and Syerscote was just the tonic I needed. I didn’t take many photos – sometimes, you just don’t – but the landscape was beautiful, particularly the river section of the Trent and Mersey Canal at Alrewas, where this most utilitarian of canals kisses the Trent. 

I noted also a beautiful red horse chestnut in full bloom in the sheep pasture by Wychnor Church. Those really are lovely flowers.

I really enjoyed the sun on my back today.