November 14th – Home at a more normal time, but I couldn’t resist this quick shot. As I slid home on autopilot once more, a house in Green Lane, High Heath is ready for Christmas.
Seems a bit previous to me, but best wishes for the Christmas spirit and thanks for putting a smile on my face…
September 22nd – Cycling down Green Lane between Shelfield and Walsall Wood, I’m greeted by a discarded mattress. Clearly just thrown off the back of a van or truck, there hasn’t even been an attempt to get it to a gateway or lay-by.
Some people aren’t fit to live with pigs. Utter scum.
July 27th – Brownhills High Street.
Next time you hear someone dismiss this place as a dump, a ghost town or worse, think of this.
Local traders have worked hard – with the Town Centre Partnership – to create the wonderful flower displays we have. Just look at that – it’s gorgeous.
It’s a tribute to the hard work and community spirit of the traders who’ve planted and kept watering the baskets, tubs and planters.
The place may have problems, but these people had a go, and made something beautiful.
A wonderful thing on a lovely summer evening. Thank you.
15th April – I noted when passing this evening that the field of oilseed rape at Grange Farm, on the Walsall Wood – Shelfield border was nearly fully in flower. The scent doesn’t seem to have risen yet, but it is beautiful. I love this stuff; such a striking sight in the countryside.
Even quite late this field was alive with bugs, bees and butterflies. Which has to be a good thing…
April 1st – This day last year, I was cycling past 4ft drifts of snow in Bardy Lane, Upper Longdon, and the weather was wet and cold indeed. Today was very warm and mostly sunny, and at Grange Farm at High Heath, the early oilseed rape is just about to come out in a riot of scent and colour.
I love this crop; vivid yellow, smelling like Emmental cheese, it sets the countryside alight with vibrant yellow. Frequently and unfairly blamed for hay fever, the sticky pollen of this plant is way too heavy and course to be wind-borne. A member of the brassica family, it’s closely related to mustard and cabbage, and will provide a boon for bees and bugs as it blooms.
And as it does, I feel the season advancing a little further…
July 17th – more flytipping. Last week, whilst passing through High Heath, I recorded the beauty of this field from exactly the same spot – on this grey Sunday morning some scumbag has just reversed into the field and flytipped a pile of rubbish – which again, would mostly have fitted in a household dustbin. My mind boggles at the kind of tossers who would see fit to visit such vandalism on such a wonderful view.
July 9th – researching the latest post on the Black Cock Bridge subsidence mystery, my path inevitably wandered toward lunch in Pelsall. Coming back through High Heath, I spotted this lovely, ripening field of wheat on the corner of Green Lane and Mob Lane. I reflected as I cycled down Mob Lane that since I was going downhill toward the old Bullings Heath, High Heath was suitable named.
Funny how you only notice these things peripherally – and who would have thought such a beautiful sight were possible in such a post-indurtial place?
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