March 15th – It feels like Narnia’s winter melting. We didn’t have the cold, but we had the grey and endless, endless rain: But at Springhill, some youngsters put on a performance for me that chased the winter away.
These are the true stars of spring, and how welcome they are.
Gorgeous.
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March 17th – I popped into Lichfield to do some shopping on the way home, and in the failing light, noticed the field of lambs and their mothers on the bypass near Waitrose.
Healthy, happy sheep and their new offspring graze, play and doze contentedly. These guys really do have cute in shedloads, and really are worth stopping to see.
After a really grim, groggy week, seeing this fresh life enjoying being alive was a tonic to the heart and soul.
April 9th – I passed this tiled mural late this afternoon, and finally recorded it as I’ve been intending to do since starting this journal all those years ago. It’s a simple, tiled inset in an otherwise blank shopfront wall next to AE Poxon Butchers, High Street, Brownhills. It shows, obviously, a bucolic scene of the kind of livestock the proprietor purveys – set in rolling, beautiful countryside.
Curiously, no chickens.
This is old. Really old. Poxon’s is an old company and a very old shop. This has been here certainly as long as I can remember, and much longer than that. I know nothing of who painted it or if it’s significant in anything more than as a local curiosity.
It’s a lovely thing, for sure, and a bit of Brownhills heritage.
April 9th – Lambs, lots of them. The lambing must be in full swing, and as I headed to Hoar Cross today through Hanch and Tuppenhirst, I spotted these wonderful offspring. Not a bad day to be born, really.
It was the same throughout Staffordshire: Up at Dunstable, the sheep in the avenue was a timeless view I reckon hasn’t changed in centuries.
March 22nd – Spotted just off Camp Lane, between Little Hay and Canwell, a small herd (is that the right term? Flock?) of alpacas. I love the colour variations. Gorgeous animals, that never fail to raise a smile, and I was quite shocked to discover how stroppy they actually are.
January 29th – I love goats, and it seems we have a local herd now. In the field by Jockey Meadows in which I saw Mr. Fox in last week, I’ve been noticing the goats for a couple of weeks, but they’ve never been close enough for a good photo. Today, they were trying to get through the hedge at Green Lane. It seems there are seven adults and four or five kids, with a rather impressive ram.
I have no idea who owns them, and I think they go wandering of their own accord sometimes; but on a grey, cold January morning seeing those little kids frolicking, jumping and having high jinks was a joy to the soul.
February 23rd – The cows on Chasewater’s north heath are a fixture now. Kept there to maintain the heathland, they do so by nibbling the fast growing voracious species, and allow the hardier, slower growers to come through, and their poo helps nourish the land. Earlier in the year there was just four, but there’s nine now, and they don’t seem to mind the people.
They don’t take any nonsense, either; they’ll stand their ground against impudent dogs and anything else that distracts them from their preferred occupations – namely loafing, eating and snoozing.
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