Tag: Ogley Hay

Monday 9th – One of those days when you get disheartened as you took some great images but didn’t realise until late that there was a smudge on the camera lens that ruined them all…

After realising and wielding the lens pen, coming back from Lichfield late in the evening as I came up Shire Oak Hill the sunset was coming on well. This is the second time in the last few days we’ve had insteresting sun/cloud interactions, and it looked great in a gold-suffused hour.

It felt much fresher, and the building cloud is making me wonder if the weather is soon to break… but after the worst, latest spring I can ever remember, if it rains until l December now, we’ve had a terrific summer.

October 7th – Time for a seasonal warning, I guess. Along the canal from Anchor Bridge to around Wharf Lane Bridge, the hedge flail has been out and the towpath is covered in cut foliage debris and thorns from the hawthorn that constitutes the hedge here. This thorns are just lying, waiting to be picked up in soft tyres where they’ll quickly cause a period of deflation.

If your rubber is a bit thin, best avoid this route for a couple of weeks until the thorny problem has passed.

September 1st – I returned from work mercifully early and did some work on the bike, before taking a spin late in the afternoon. Despite it being colder of late, the cat population is still active (well, as active as these laid back creatures get) and I spotted two cats I’d not met before: a black one peering at me from behind a car near Catshill Junction, and further up as I headed to Chasewater, the splendid grey and white youngster in a back garden near Millfield School.

Oh how I love these impromptu neighbour watches…

August 19th – I was having a terrible day: I had plans to get out early, but the wind and weather were grim, and everything I did seemed like wading through treacle. 

After miserably writing blog posts, messing up dates and publicity schedules, I finally got a grip and went out, to find a bright periodically sunny late afternoon in which harvest was being completed and the fields of stubble were golden delights over towards Sandhills and Hammerwich.

The sight of that lovely church and converted windmill cheered me, as did the bright, surprisingly warm if short-lived sunshine.

A nice pick me up on an awful day.

August 5th – A day when I wasn’t feeling great. People I love are leaving for long holidays, which will make my personal life unusually quiet for a few weeks, and I had a dreadful migraine that disturbed my vision and made it impossible to read or concentrate.

I went out late to do some shopping, and spun out to Chasewater along the canal. The day had been squally, but right now there were blue skies and sun, and I admired the fields of wheat running across Home Farm to Sandhills. I guess these will be harvested soon as the adjacent oilseed rape has been, and the cycle resets for another year.

Today, I felt sad, but the sun and air did me good. But inside, the weeks of quiet to come were making me down.

July 29th – I met the Watermead swan family who were making fair speed along the canal back from Chasewater towards Brownhills, but old habits die hard and they drifted from their central course to see me, just in case I had food. I didn’t, and they were visibly irritated.

The five youngsters are now pretty much the size of their parents and their adult, white plumage is starting to come through.

Another successful brood for these experienced parents marks out another good year for local swans. But where are the youngsters going every year?

July 23rd – A somnambulant, headache-grey day followed a night during which a work call out had prevented me getting any sleep at all. I slipped out early in the afternoon to sunshine and showers from a shifting, occasionally azure blue, occasionally black sky,

I drifted up to Chasewater, and on the way took a look at the crops in Home Farm fields at Sandhills. Both the oilseed rape and wheat are near ripeness now and I bet as soon as the rain dries off, the harvesting will be game on.

And so the year and season advances a notch.

June 3rd – I rode out on an annual pilgrimage – to the Klondyke Mill steam fair at Draycott in the Clay near Sudbury, and had a great afternoon of very English entertainment. From there, the afternoon was pleasant enough so I headed for Scropton, Tutbury, Rolleston, Horninglow, SInai Park, Tatenhill, Barton and then home via Walton upon Trent, Croxall and Whittington. A nice 68 miler in decent warm and sunny weather, topped off by a beautiful sunset over Brownhills as I returned home. 

The day was great, the little villages sublime and the golden hour – haunted by the blackest, most threatening cloud was superb.

May 21st – A much nicer day with warm sun and gentle southerly breeze. I headed out through Stonnall to Footherley, then Canwell, Hints, Tamworth and on the canal to Polesworth, returning via Orton on the Hill, Austrey, Clifton and Harlaston. A nice 60 miler.

We’re into summer now; the leaves are fully out, the air is alive with bugs, bees and birds, and pollen is the dominant scent. The countryside of Staffordshire and Leicestershire was beautiful, and I was pleased to note the honeybees still nest in the roof of Hints Church, as they have done for decades.

All topped off with a lovely sunset over Ogley Hay that showed St James Church beautifully.

Changeless, and beautiful.

November 27th – It was a very dramatic-looking afternoon as I headed up the canal towards Lichfield on this cold afternoon suffused with golden, low sunlight.

I note from my favourite tree – the lovely horse chestnut at Home Farm, Sandhills – that it is now winter, as it’s bare. 

As I noted yesterday, surprising how much colour is still in the landscape.