November 7th – Coming up from the Black Country, back to Walsall – at this time of year, Junction 9 is the safest route, as the traffic volume makes negotiation of the junctions easier.
Music is ‘Snapshot’ by the Art of Noise.
October 31st – The mornings have been damp over the weekend, and we’ve had a little rain in what has generally been a very dry autumn indeed. This has led to the fungus taking a surge, and I noted in the canal cutting through Pleck this morning there was lots of fly agaric growing, some of which were astoundingly large. Contrary to my earlier fears, it actually seems to have been their year after all.
Meanwhile, the toadstools I found on the log at the back of Queen Street Cemetery have turned a gorgeous orange brown colour as they mature and die off.
Lets hope with a little damper weather, more fungus will appear. I love to see it.
October 21st – Riding to work along the canal in Walsall in the early morning, I noticed how green parts of the towpath margins still were – the bracken hasn’t yet turned at Bentley Bridge and the dead nettles are full in flower for the second burst this year.
This has been a peculiar autumn, with many things coming into bloom a second time before dying off. The weather really has been kind to us this year, but I can’t help feeling winter is going to be a shock to the system.
October 19th – Although I use the bike cam constantly, I stopped featuring video here because road cams are so common now I think they probably bore the pants off people.
But I’ve been thinking of late that I should start again – short clips showing positive things about riding.
Here, I’m about to tackle the Bescot Road island in Pleck, Walsall, and the importance or environmental awareness is key. A quick dive left and they pass, no delay.
Monitor not just your fore space, but to the left, right and behind you. And never relay on hearing.
October 18th – Stripes here is cross because on the way to work, I disturbed his hunting activities, and scared off the blackbird he was painstakingly stalking in Pleck.
Bless him, he was so very cross with me. But oh, hasn’t he got a wonderful ‘tache!
A lovely cat. But I’m glad the blackbird was spared for another day, at least.
October 12th – I don’t think I’ve ever known a season where the wildflowers bloom for so long. It’s now mid October, and in the urban heart of Walsall on the canal at Pleck, there are beautiful flowers still.
Still attracting bugs, these are gorgeous and brightened an otherwise dull journey to work.
October 11th – Oh boy. Not more that a few days ago, I was bemoaning the lack of decent fungus this year, and was stunned to find a sing fly agaric toadstool in the usual spot near Chasewater, then this.
I was shotting along the canal through Pleck of all places, and as I rode a red flash on top of the canal cutting embankment caught my eye. Scrambling up there to investigate, I saw found one of the best crops of these cute red and white spotted fungi I’ve ever seen.
Large, profuse and very beautiful, these are in the heart of formerly industrial, urban Walsall, in a place few humans would ever think to go. A really wonderful find.
September 26th – On my way home in the road in the backstreets of Walsall, I spotted these large acorns in unusually hairy cups. Not having seen the like before, I assumed there were some kind f insect gall.
Looking it up when I got home, these are actually the acorns f a turkey oak, and quite normal for the species. I’ve never seen them before, and they’re quite alien after the familiar gnarled, knobbly normal acorn cup one usually sees.
An interesting oddity.
September 13th – On the way home, I was travelling in the damp air and landscape just after heavy rainfall. Everything glittered, reflected and shone. Of the things rendered precious, few were more beautiful than the snowberries near the roadside in Pleck which looked pure and dappled with glinting raindrops.
Cycling after rain is a joy. Actually in the rain – not so much.
September 12th – The Autumn fruits are starting to come with abundance now, and few are more welcome than the bright reds and oranges of the rosehips. Where there were beautiful wayside flowers a few months ago, there are now gorgeous, shiny berries providing a feast for wildlife and a splash of welcome colour in the hedgerow.
The diversity of shapes and colours of these little-appreciated fruits is interesting, too.
Always a nice compensation for the ending of summer.
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