May 4th – The day may have been on the dull side, but the countryside wasn’t. It delighted in shades of bright green, yellow and gold; and the undulating patchwork visible from Crow’s Castle was a joy to the heart.
The path from Hints Ford up the Blackbrook Valley is gorgeous with the bluebells right now.
Get out there, people. These bright colours don’t last for long!
April 26th – Out late afternoon for a fast spin out to Hints via Canwell, Weeford and Shenstone. It was a gorgeous day with a grim north wind – but the sun and shade more than made up for it. I didn’t have much time to stop, but the oilseed rape was at full blast, and everything looked fresh and green.
I note with sadness that the magnolia at Hints Church -which is normally stunning – seems to have had a bad year, poor thing.
December 28th – A ride out on a frosty, hard and crisp day to Hints and Hopwas, returning via Whittington, Lichfield and Burntwood. The views were wonderful, the air clear and the golden hour seemed to last all day.
The roads were very icy, however, and even with the studded tyres, I felt wary. It was cold and my feet were numb, but this is the kind of icy ride I missed last year. Hopefully the cold weather will continue for a few days yet.
I climbed Crows Castle near Hints, and the views were stunning. The rolling countryside west of Tamworth has never lost its beauty.
October 17th – I came back from Shenstone just as darkness was falling, and spotted by chance another bountiful crop of autumn. Isolated in the hedgerow at Footherley, a large, impressive and perfect group of mature glistening ink caps. These are toxic, and shouldn’t be touched, but the temptation to is huge. I love their pure white stalks and brown-black, sing caps.
I don’t think the fungi have been so good this year, maybe due to the dry weather – these are rare gems.
July 18th – By the time I was riding home through the backlanes between Shenstone and Stonnall, my energy had gone, I was hot, tired and in pain. It was hard going, but the evening views and atmosphere made it difficult to be upset.
A truly gorgeous evening, of the kind we don’t get in the UK much. Such heat, but so glorious; and a storm is coming in.
Don’t moan about the heat too much, it’ll be cold and wet again soon enough…
February 16th – It was a gorgeous day, and a reminder of what this country is like when the sun shines properly. With the sun on my back, I rode out at lunchtime to check out the floods of the Tame Valley, around Hopwas, Elford and Croxall.
I was expecting the Tame to be in flood. This wasn’t the case at all – the Tame had clearly stayed in-channel, and although brisk, the Footherley, Black and Bourne brooks were all below capacity, too; although we’ve had record rainfall, it’s clearly been spaced out enough to avoid the horrific scenes locally that we saw in 2007.
Of course, other areas have not been so fortunate.
What is evidenced is wind damage. At the hump bridge on Gravelly Lane, Footherley, tree debris blocks one arch, and a whole tree lies similarly before the Elford Bridge. Clearing the detritus from trash screens and under bridges is an essential part of waterway maintenance, and this will have to be removed.
The technicians that do this work have plenty to do in the coming weeks – their work is essential, and I wish them well.
January 5th – The Lammas Land isn’t at it’s best this time of year, but it is still nice to ride along the quiet trail. Running the length of the Footherley Brook along the northern perimeter of the village, it’s a lovely community project and facility, of which the villagers are rightly proud.
I’m not sure, however, about the Shining Stone. A stainless steel sculpture standing in the brook by an old pedestrian bridge on the footpath to Ashcroft Lane, it looks like some alien dropping polluting the water.
Put in place in 2002 and designed by artist Jo Naden, it’s said to take inspiration from the derivation of the name ‘Shenstone’, meaning shining or beautiful stone. It was stolen by metal thieves in 2010, to be found in a scrapyard in the Black Country, from whence it was returned (the material it’s made from isn’t that valuable as it happens).
The inscription reads ‘A flock of birds settle the green field re-echoes where there is a brisk bright stream’, an Irish traditional verse.
So help me god, it looks like some metallic turd. But the way the water swirls around it is fascinating.
An odd thing, to be sure.
October 3rd – I set out for work a little early on a murky, misty, wet autumn morning, and realised as I sped down the Chester Road that it was oddly photogenic. I decided to take a diversion and spun up to Shenstone, and grabbed some pictures as the season began to turn the leaves.
It worked rather well, I thought. It’s unseasonably warm right now, but I’ve got the feeling we’re on the verge of some really dramatic colours. I think this one could be worth keeping an eye on…
September 1st – Seasonal warning. Yes, it’s the hedge cutting season again, when our farming brethren flail the hawthorn hedges, in turn leaving the roads stewn with thorns made of some material that just glides into tyres. If you’re not rocking puncture proofs, avoid Gravelly Lane in Stonnall right now. It’s also quite grim up in Footherley too.
I don’t know why they don’t make weapons out of the same stuff hawthorn spines are made of. They’d never go blunt and pierce absolutely anything.
Like the Murphy’s, I’m not bitter…
June 5th – Glad I spotted this advert at the junction of Footherley Lane and Hollyhill Lane on the way back from Shenstone. Footherley Hall – a home for elderly ladies run by Catholic nuns – always puts on a great fete, and if you’re in the area on Sunday I recommend you pop in for a while. You couldn’t get anything much more English than this – tea, cakes,tombola, bric-a-brac and sunshine if they’re lucky, all in great, rural gardens. A fine thing.
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