Tag: rain

July 1st – Has half the year gone already? Really? Wow.

I flew from Walsall with the wind behind me just after the rain passed, and with a call to make in Stonnall, I let the wind blow me on a lazy loop around Shenstone. The wet lanes glistened in the sunlight, and the sky was deep blue. With the wet June, everything is verdant ad green, except the barley, which is turning now to the gold of high summer.

As the year and seasons move inexorably on, although it’s been wet, it hasn’t felt like a bad year for the weather. Let’s hope we get a drier, sunnier July and August.

June 30th – As we approach what is a very damp midsummer, the flowers and greenery are beautiful this year, even if the weather isn’t. Although the early flush of blossom and spring colour has now passed, there are now more gentle delights if you look carefully. 

The thistles are just emerging now, in several forms and the self-heal has been in bloom for a week or two now, with it’s tiny, but beautifully coloured flower heads. Also remarkable and spotted today near the cycleway at Goscote, this wonderful orchid.

Purple definitely seems to be the colour of the moment.

June 18th – After such a wet and miserable week it was lovely to have some sunshine and a relatively warm afternoon. Whilst the damp has been very good for the foliage and crops, it’s not been nourishing my humour at all, in fact, it’s been a very difficult period in which to stay positive.

Today’s ride, however, dispelled my gloom. Sights like this beautiful hay meadow in the Blackbrook Valley at Hints were enchanting, and the sun on my face was lifting.

You can be disillusioned with a British summer, and would be fully justified in being down – but there’s always something to remind you of why it’s such a beautiful season. The rarity value sometimes just serves to make the experience even more precious.

June 13th – Another day, another rainstorm, another soaking.

I headed out mid-morning from work to visit a customer; sadly, I left just as the heavens opened. 

Fortunately, the flowers I saw on the way were so beautiful, they made up for the wet legs.

To the person who’s been practising the rain dance: I think you have the hang of it now. Please stop.

June 12th – Washed out.

I didn’t think rain was in store for today; I awoke to the sound of it, and it continued until early afternoon. I needed to collect something from Cannock Chase, so sensing a break in the weather, I went for it. 

I got soaked. 

I took shelter in Birches Valley, and watched the torrential rain until it stopped. I was there an hour. Very little of the standing water was there when I arrived.

As soon as the skies lightened I was off. No unpleasant particularly, but wet and uncomfortable, these are the only photos I took.

Some days are just a challenge.

May 21st – Up on Cannock Chase, I went looking for a fire tower I’d heard had been rebuilt. These watchtowers are scattered throughout the forest, and I thought they’d slipped out of use; when I last visited this one up near Sow Street high on Wolseley Park in 2011, it had collapsed in the bad weather and was nothing more than a pile of rotten wood. Tipped off by fellow local historian Dave Fellows, I discovered in the week that it had been rebuilt – so I went to check it out.

Sadly, it’s gated at the top so you can’t get in, but it’s a curious thing with an otherworldly feel. As the rain began to fall, the clearing the tower sits in – on the junction of five or six firebreaks for best visibility – came alive. Solitary, quiet apart from the rain on leaves, I realised how much wildlife was around on a dull day; I could hear deer in the wood, and the fungus and flowers were wonderful.

Then the heavens opened – but dry in waterproofs, even that was a sensory wonder.

May 11th – On the Walsall Canal, despite the grim weather, life was continuing as normal. There are coot chicks in abundance, and I’ve been savouring the excellent description of them by Phil Griffin as ‘looking like badly knitted moorhens’ – they certainly are odd little things. 

There was blossom aplenty from lilac and ornamental cherry, and the heron paused in it’s preening to look crossly at me, as if I’d broken it’s train of thought. 

All of this in a 50 metre stretch of canal in the centre of urban Walsall.

May 10th – I squelched through Walsall Wood on the way home, like a drowned rat. The deluge had been particularly heavy around the ring road, and it had made the traffic aggressive and worrying.

I had something to do in Walsall Wood, and mindful of my promise to bring my friend the best of what was around, I spotted the gorgeous cherry blossom at St. Johns.

The day may have been a washout, but this more than made up for it.