Tag: hawthorn

December 5th – It was cold today, and I felt it. Winter has me in it’s grip now, and the mornings are bright, icy and clear; the evenings dark, damp and very, very chilly. Today, as I came home through Walsall Wood, I passed the Drunken Duck pub, one of the oldest in the village. Various renamed The Hawthorn and Tipplers, this house has been a stable fixture of Walsall Wood Life for over a century, and still seems popular. With the warm-looking lights on this cold winter night, it’s hard to resist parking up the bike and popping in…

September 20th – A busy, draining day. I had urgent and unexpected stuff to attend to in Redditch, so headed out early. Expecting a quiet journey, it was horrid, and the task I had to undertake didn’t go smoothly either. At 11:30am, I left Redditch and had to go to Tyseley, so to get a bit of perspective I cycled up the Arrow Valley cycle route back to Redditch Station. It’s interesting how, even in this most unusual of years, some things have prospered. One of those things is hawthorn. Everywhere I go, hedgerows and trees are laden with deep red berries. Some say this is the sign of nature preparing for a hard winter.

The fruits themselves are edible but quite bland, and not actually berries at all; they are pomes, the same structure and type of fruit as apples. Haws are said to have health and fertility promoting properties, and can be used to make wine or jams. Birds love them, and will survive on this plentiful, sugar-laden bounty during the long months of winter.

July 10th – This is a terrible photo, but illustrates something that always comes as a shock. The first vanguard of the fruiting season are the formation of haws on the hawthorn hedges and thickets. These hard, bitter berries will take the rest of the summer to ripen, before being eaten by the birds over winter. The sight of these fruits swelling and turning crimson is a harbinger of autumn to me, and a sign of the seasons’s passage. Together with the rain, this did not make for a terribly uplifting ride home…

February 2nd – If you’re a cyclist, Green Lane between The Black Cock pub, Walsall Wood and Shelfied School is best avoided, at least until the next heavy rains. Today, as I went to work, the hedges were being flailed. This happens every few years, either in the autumn or winter. Cutting the roadside hedges back is essential, and must be done when birds aren’t nesting, but it showers the road with debris, in this case, Hawthorn clippings. These short bits of twig bear sharp, tough thorns whose specialist skill is puncturing bicycle tyres – particularly cheap, thin ones. I’d say that in rural areas, 90% of my punctures have been caused by Hawthorn spikes. I don’t blame the farmer, the job has to be done. But until rains come and float the debris away, the route is best avoided.