October 30th – Sadly, I took loads of photos today, not realising I had a piece of fluff on the lens and they all came out badly. But these toadstools, spotted on a grass verge in Wednesbury after the rains of the morning had stopped were wonderful. I think they’re oak milk caps, certainly some form of lactarius. I love the way they dimple and hole water as they grow.
I actually spotted them because that little one resembled a bum. It appealed to my sense of the absurd. Sorry.
October 21st – How do you like these apples? They are growing near Telford Station, and seem to be untouched by human hands.Dripping in the insistent rain, they looked beautiful in their glistening, ripe glory.
Gently, so as to not get drenched. I plucked one from the tree and tried it. A little sharp, but not bad at all. And a very good harvest, to boot.
October 8th – I was right about the rain and the fungi. On Clayhanger common in the morning, pleated ink caps, sometimes known as the Japanese parasol. These delicate, paper like caps only last a day, and 24 hours later, there will be no trace. They appear straight after heavy rain, their spores lying dormant until triggered by nature.
The fly agaric are also going for it. In Pleck on the canal bank, a nice crop which will surely proliferate now. Such lovely fairy-tale toadstools.
October 7th – I was right about the rain and fungus. At the weekend I bemoaned the lack of interesting fungi, particularly fly agaric, and suspected the dearth was due to the dry weather.
Cue the rains of the last couple of days, and hey presto! – A huge forest of glistening ink caps has popped up on Clayhanger Common, and the orange peel fungus I spotted a week ago has, after spending days dormant, opened out.
Rain may be an annoyance for me, but it has been needed for a few weeks.
September 15th – It was an intemperate commute, the traffic was mad and the weather highly changeable, derring between azure blue skies and sudden, hectoring bursts of rain.
On the canal in central Walsall, there was little to indicate autumn here in green nowhere, with just blue skies, verdant foliage and mirror-like water. Only the saturated towpath spoke of the untrustworthy weather.
September 2nd – Like most people, I’m holding out for an Indian summer, but as I made my way home on Wednesday, it seemed the chance was slim. Caught by two very localised, heavy downpours, I was soaked by the second after having escaped the first by stating it out in an archway in Pleck.
It’s gone cold, too. Summer, come back!
August 31st – I rode out via Canwell and Middleton to Middleton Hall for a cup of tea and cake, all the while in steady rain. I nipped down to Bodymoor Heath, onto the canal and up to Fazeley Junction. Back along the old A5 to Weeford, then home via Shenstone.
It was warm enough, and there wasn’t much in the way of wind. The roads were quiet and the riding fast; but it was very, very grey and very, very wet. The countryside dripped silently little droplets of grey summer sadness.
As ever on grey days, there was fun and beauty to be found; the architecture of the canals – not just the bold redbrick house, but the small lock-keeper’s hut with the chimney for a stove (how cosy must that have been in winter?); the Kingsbury lock flight and greenery of the canalside reed bed. Fungus is growing well in the damp, and those polypores were huge.
Middleton Hall was as stunning as ever.
I just loved the hound tied up outside the cafe. He had an endearing way of looking at you with his head to one side. He was muddy and wet and had clearly been having lots of fun.
The red and orange spiny, furry growth on the rose stem that looks like a ball of thread? That’s a robins pincushion or Diplolepis rosea – a gall formed, like the oak galls by a wasp.
I asked a few weeks ago why only the oak is bothered by wasp galls; it’s not only the oak, but mostly. Lime trees, conifers and roses suffer too. Here, a wasp lays 60 or so eggs in a tiny, developing leaf bud, surrounded in a chemical which causes the plant to mutate and grow this furry aberration, which is internally quite solid with cavities for the larva to hatch and feed.
Nature is quite horrific in it’s fascination sometimes. Find out more about this curious parasite here.
August 30th – A grey day, but I needed a ride. It’s been a few weeks since I had a good one, what with the cold and everything else. Conditions were pleasant enough, and it was warm with a little drizzle.
I went out to Whittington, and back across the heath to Weeford. I forgot how nice Weeford is, and what a curious little marooned village it is: built as a demonstration of his architectural prowess by noted ecclesiastical architect John Wyatt, it clings to a hillside in rolling countryside bisected by the A38.
The late summer colour was nice, and the roads were peaceful.
I need more of this in my life.
August 23rd – Caught in heavy rains at Cannock Chase, I headed for the nearest shelter which happened to be the cafe, Springslade Lodge. Awful phone photos, but I was struck by the effort the staff had put into dressing the garden with plastic tablecloths, flower vases and such, for no customers to be able to use it.
Oddly beautiful and a little sad.
August 19 – Some folk, of course, don’t even notice the rain and carry on regardless. After all, when you live on the water, what difference does a drop more make?
This cygnet – one of the Watermead family, still apparently in rude health – was just getting some greens as I splashed past near Silver Street.
I love the way these shoots are constantly cropped by the swans – it’s like their own little grazing patch.
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