#365daysofbiking – Coming around again

February 8th – While heading for Chasetown High Street, I recalled that the cemetery in Church Street always has excellent displays of purple and white crocuses at this time of year. Or maybe I was a shade to early.

It turned out this annual spectacle that comes around every spring is just starting. It’s gorgeous, beautiful and something I truly love.

Somehow, that fact that it’s in a cemetery makes it all the more lovely: The thought of a bright new spring coming forth from loss.

Give it a week or two and this will be truly stunning.

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August 25th – I loped back from Alvecote through Seckington, Clifton, Darlaston and Whittington. It was a lovely evening ride marred only by my stomach troubles.

At Haunton, the beautiful little Catholic church there remains a hidden gem, the rows of graves of nuns from the local convent still sobering and very sad. Here I noted cyclamen, another sign of Autumn, and darkness fell what seemed to be cruelly early bit with a gorgeous orange moon.

Autumn is tapping me on the shoulder now…

June 18th – I passed through Hints late afternoon and stopped off at the church, as I always do. I was sad to note the churchyard looking so scruffy – it never used to be so overgrown, but the fact that it is is probably much better of the wildlife.

Talking of which, for as long as I’ve been coming here – 35 years or more – the south gable of the church has been hime to honeybees in summer, and this year is no different. The creatures swoop and buzz amongst the gravestones, and make an appreciable sound that fills the air. 

I love to see them and the constancy of their annual return is a joy to the heart.

February 28th – A much nicer day, and I was getting over the cold at last. Still bunged up and with a mouth full of ulcers, but I had energy and the sun was out. I needed to pop to Chasetown, and called in at the wonderful St. Anne’s cemetery on the way back, currently a riot of crocuses. This spot is delightful and well worth the visit, and today, I was accompanied by a huge bumblebee, already busy in the flowers.

Can spring, light days and warm sun really be so close?

March 21st – Brownhills churchyard cemeteries are a disgrace. The grounds maintenance here is, quite frankly, appalling, and something I’ve noted before. What annoys me most in that the memorial garden currently in use has ridiculous rules enforced strictly about what folk can leave on memorials, apparently to maintain the appearance of the churchyard – yet relatives, who’ve paid a considerable fee to have their loved ones interred here – have to suffer untidiness, uncut grass and mud. This is a scandal, pure and simple. This is where an awful lot of Brownhills folk are remembered – it it too hard to show them the respect in death they deserved in life?