Darlaston – Page 18 – BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

April 18th – There are lots of floral arrivals at the moment but it would be wrong to concentrate on the dramatic, showy ones. One return in the last week or so and enjoying the morning sunshine today from every patch of grass and roadside were a huge number of one of nature’s most overlooked gems – dandelions.

These humble yellow flowers are actually really lovely if you stop and look at them for a bit – which today, I advise anyone to do. They’re really gorgeous.

Sometimes, it’s the little, familiar things that are most beautiful.

April 18th – Last week I found the lovely pieris flowers I didn’t recognise in Wednesbury, even though as readers Susan Marie Ward, Linda Mason and others pointed out, I’d posted them here before.

The reason I hadn’t recognised them was because I’m used to seeing them with the beautiful bright red foliage they normally develop in early spring, but this year seems very late, and last week there was no hint of it.

Well, now it’s arrived and the result is truly stunning. Pieris – sometimes called fetterbush, rather delightfully – is grown a lot in gardens and in beds on industrial estates and parks.

Little things like this make spring such a wonderful time, I’m so glad it’s finally here.

April 16th – One thing that has been extraordinary this year is the show from the daffodils. They’ve been out for weeks and are still going strong, and in this morning’s sunshine made even the dull industrial estates of the Black Country beautiful.

April 13th – I rode to work in steady rain heavy hearted. It’s not often I say this but the morning had no redeeming features I could find; it was wet, cold and very, very unlike spring. 2013 was a pretty bad spring, starting very late with heavy snows in the dying days of March like this one. But at least the sun came out and things dramatically improved. 2018 has tested even my usually stoical resolve, I must say.

Rolling through Kings Hill on an errand mid morning, everything was headache-grey – the roads, the buildings, the sky.

It’s rare I feel so bleak about the weather.

April 12th – Victoria Park in Darlaston was looking moody and dramatic as I passed back through, and I still adore the mystic bridge.

This park isn’t doing so well for the flowers this year, sadly; the old cutting is usually a riot but there was hardly anything, mainly I think to over-enthusiastic grass cutting.

Sad really. Darlaston does have some excellent parks and open spaces.

April 12th – another wet, grey and frankly unlovely day. Where is the sun? The warmth on my back? The neighbourhood cats I’m normally welcoming back on warm evenings as I cruise jacket less through the suburbia of Walsall?

I watch, I wait, I plough on in the murk and damp.

Meanwhile, the damp, raindrop bejewelled Kings Hill Park continues to entertain with a variety of flows and planty of spring promise.

Soon. It’ll be soon. You’ll see.

April 9th – I’ve been passing this rather beautiful white shrub for a week or more now and have absolutely no idea what it is. It’s growing in a clump of cotoneaster in an industrial estate flower bed in Wednesbury.

In the damp beauty of a misty morning it was absolutely gorgeous. Anyone know what it is?

April 4th – A quick run across Kings Hill Park to B&Q reminded me that although the day was grey and damp, spring was getting on with the job anyway.

A hint of sunshine and this place will be an absolute riot of colour.

Gorgeous as it is, but some warm sun and happiness would really make this fabulous… I hope the weather gods are listening!

March 27th – And in Darlaston, near the Black Country Route, the hawthorn is coming into leaf, splattering formerly dull, barren hedgerows with bursts of vivid emerald green.

Spring really is trying her very hardest to please us.