August 6th – A decent morning followed that glorious evening. Tired, early, Telford. They cycleway to Priorslee, again from a station, right beside the M54 is a glorious green tunnel.
I love this route and this kind of thing is why Telford can be such a wonderful place to cycle in.
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August 5th – I was at work in Birmingham, late. I came back on a Lichfield bound train at sunset, and stumbled out tired in a beautiful, quiet golden hour.
I’ve been riding this weary journey from work for years along Lynn Lane. Always the same story: Summertime, working late, fatigue. Climb the long, steep steps up from the platform at Shenstone carrying my bike. Look down the lane towards home and the setting sun. Become struck with the sheer beauty of the hour.
And for all those years, the joy of it, and the love for it never wanes.
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August 5th – Birdsfoot Trefoil is a staple throughout summer from the earliest of the season until autumn. It dapples lawns, verges and meadows with yellow and red patches, and is one of my favourite flowers.
Not many folk though realise how this plant got it\’s unusual name – it’s because the seed pods look like a bird’s feet.
This gorgeous flower is so very ubiquitous that it’s one of the few wildflowers I love that I’ve never bothered to collect the seed of and spread.
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August 4th – A lane I’d not really ever registered the existence of disappeared a while ago, without me being aware. This is unusual, as I’m normally fascinated by these things.
School Lane, Little Wyrley was a quiet, winding, lightly used lane with no dwellings between the A5 Watling Street and Gorsey Lane. This whole area of scrubby, grubby not-quite countryside between Brownhills and Great Wyrley is plagued with fly tipping and other antisocial behaviour, but School Lane was particularly badly affected.
Having endured enough, in 2016 [Edit – It’s been closed much longer than this, from at least 2009 – Bob], Cannock Chase Council decided the best way to stop the problem was to gate the lane. Permanently.
This completely passed me by at the time, and I only noticed when it was mentioned in passing a few months ago on social media, so I made a mental note to ride it while I still could. As you can see, nature is now taking over and it’s an odd, but peaceful and wonderfully pollution-free byway disappearing slowly back into the landscape.
Like Dark Lane near Longdon, lost lanes intrigue me no end.
I’m glad I checked this out.
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August 4th – I had a call to make over in Bridgtown and I was pushed for time so I blasted down the A5 and over the challengingly complex Churchbridge Islands, just for the hell of it. 25 minutes later, my errand was complete and I returned via Great Wyrley, intending to check out a lost lane I’d been meaning to do for a while.
In Hazel Lane, I startled this handsome set of stripes and whiskers who was stalking something small and squeaky in the hedge. What a fine garden tiger!
An absolutely gorgeous cat who was clearly very annoyed with me for disturbing it’s activities!
Someone if very proud of that puss, and justifiably so.
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August 3rd – I got to Chasewater late on a generally overcast afternoon, and was surprised to find the light there magical.
I watched, as Joni Mitchell put it, the water-skiers glide and was captivated by the sunbeams through the break in the cloud.
Even the dullest days can provide moments of breathtaking beauty.
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August 3rd – I’ve always loved how the growing Canada geese clutches move into adulthood and still stay in loose family groups as they mature.
I encountered this particular group of beaky blinders at Ogley Junction, but they hatched near Catshill Junction and have been pottering around the local canals ever since. They are notable for being particularly intimidating, with mum (or dad, I never thought to ask) once leaping on my back as I was riding and pecking my head furiously.
This aggression has been passed to the next generation and one or two always take a lunge and hiss defensively at passers by, whatever their mode of transport.
Now in adult plumage, I’m fascinated by the one that appears to be suffering premature greyness and wonder if I should get it a bottle of Grecian 2000 or maybe just a black sharpie pen…
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August 2nd – One of the more surprising developments happening locally at the moment is the new care home being built on the Chester Road at Stonnall, on the site of a former concrete block factory and quarry.
The home – which is a large, impressive and has the appearance of being very well built has risen over winter and the preceding spring and seems to be nearing completion.
This doesn’t look to be your average granny farm, but rather a specialist care facility for older folk with particular challenging needs and I think it’s the kind of thing that is needed here with our raging population – and the jobs it provides will be welcome, too.
Part of the development includes road safety improvements here on the Chester Road, which is good to see.
I wish the proprietors and future residents well in this new venture.
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August 2nd – This week has been all about seasonal markers, and this evening as I left Shenstone for Stonnall and home, the harvest was well underway.
The fashion for huge, cylindrical baling seems to have ceased and we seem to be back to the more space efficient (and stable!) rectangular ones.
As ever, the machinery, synchronicity between drivers and sheer power of the operation is breathtakingly impressive, and a reminder that the countryside is still a huge, open air factory floor dedicated to our sustenance.
Always impressive to watch.
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August 1st – The various varieties of wasp gall that form on oak trees are necessarily seasonal. Rosy, marble and apple galls form from wasp eggs injected into leaf notes, so grown from them in spring and early summer, and by now are largely vacated and spent.
Knopper and artichoke galls form from eggs laid in acorn buds, corrupting the fruit into a gall from the crop, so don’t start appearing until late summer. Right now they’re developing well, forming a protective, curiously shaped home for the wasp larva to hatch in and develop.
Galls are fascinating things for sure, and are markers of the passing year.
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