Tag: seasons

January 10th – For the first time this year, a pleasant, dry, almost tropical morning commute; sadly, it wasn’t to last and the journey home was cold and damp with a return to mist.

Cycling up the canal over Bentley Bridge my eye was caught by a flash of verdant green – a plant of some variety has clearly seeded into the rotting cavity of an old bench, and is growing well – truly life from death.

Crossing Kings Hill Park purely to catch the day, I tried the twin sisters and liked what I saw; The clock on St. Bart’s is in fine detail and all we need is some green on those trees. 

I know it’s way too early, but come on spring!

January 5th – First day back at work in 2018 – more working weeks should start and end on a Friday.

I enjoyed the ride to Darlaston, I’d missed the daily commute, and the shoulder seemed OK with it. I also popped through Kings Hill Park and noticed something.

Jack in the Green has tapped the ground with his cane, and called the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils on.

Roll on spring. 

January 3rd – Returning to Brownhills, there was a lovely, low sun at lunchtime so I visited the row of trees that make for such great autumn pictures during the leaf fall.

It’s fair to say they look totally different undressed, but no less beautiful.

Every time I see these, I can’t help but remember the when I was a kid, I remember these saplings being planted. 

Oh, how that makes me feel old…

December 29th – Winter is a normalisation process for me. I enter it, kicking and screaming and resistant, headlong into the darkness; I fight my way through the suck, the suck that is the autumn commute, and by the time I emerge blinking and dazed from Christmas, I’m sort of used to it. 

I’ve got used to the absence of light – which is OK now as it’s returning; I’ve acclimatised to the cold; and I’ve learned once more to look for oddities and interesting images in low-light urbanity.

Silver Court in Brownhills does Architecture and Morality. Peter Saville has nothing to fear.

Meanwhile, I trundle towards new year still nursing a bad shoulder and dreaming of warmer days…

December 24th – The weather was bad, I had much to do, so I didn’t go far. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m nursing a shoulder injury at the moment which is making life uncomfortable – sustained falling over my own feet on the stairs, I ended up with bruises and some kind of muscle strain that’s making long rides very uncomfortable right now.

I was pleased to see however that at Clayhanger Common, in the usual spot, earthstar fungus had returned this year. The fungus here doesn’t usually show until December when the leaves are finally off the brambles that cover their spot, and this time, they’d been difficult to reach on a bike due to the snow. 

I finally noted one badly damaged by frost and the spore pods of several others, so at least we had a crop this year, even if it went mostly unrecorded.

They are an most unusual fungus.

December 21st – And this is the reason for my sudden optimism. Today is the winter solstice, or shortest day. From here, everything gets better, because the light trickles steadily back into my darkened soul.

The bike GPS tells me the sunrise and sunset times on the main screen, as I love to watch them daily. Today, the sun rose around 8:16am, and set around 3:54. I’ve watched these times all year, and registered the slow acceleration of nightfall from Midsummer, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, minute by precious minute; then cascading and careering through the midway and the end of British Summer Time. Slowing up again, that last push to before 4pm is crushing when it happens. 

By the time I return to work after this, my final commute of 2017, the sunset will already be past 4pm. And no matter what the winter brings, inexorably, unalterably, the GPS will record the gradual steps into the light. And then, at the end of March, I will emerge blinking into the light evenings as British Summer Time commences again.

I have survived the oncoming dark for another year. All I need to dow now is watch the darkness retreat.

December 11th – I’d run around in the morning sorting displaced family members out and getting them back where they needed to be in the chaos of a snow-hit morning rush hour, so spent the day working from home. It was bitingly cold and with the snow a wee bit to deep to ride far in, I contented myself with getting caught up in the peace of a warm, quiet house.

Nipping out to take the air late afternoon in a lazy loop around Walsall Wood and Brownhills, taken slowly due to the conditions, I caught a lovely bit of snow day sunset at Anchor Bridge.

It caught me short for a bit. What a a gorgeous view that is.

December 7th – Out and about on a sunny, bright but windy day in Darlaston, and I was passing through the parks I love now that winter is now in full effect.

Mostly the leaves and flowers have gone, the majestic trees are bare and growth has stopped – yet the colours are still lovely and there’s still a barren beauty, and above all, peace.

The long shadows, sunlight and crisp air always make Victoria and Kings Hill Parks beautiful – every year I hate it’s approach, but every year I again learn to love winter.

November 30th – In Telford mid morning again, and fascinated to note that on what had been a very cold night, there still wasn’t a great deal of surface frost due to the dry conditions, which pleased me as I haven’t yet got the studded winter tyres on.

Also, I think that’s probably the last vestige of Autumn now and we’re well into winter… oh well, soon be time for a break.

November 29th – As I got to Redditch, the frost was still quite pronounced and coated grass and fallen leaves. It’s been a bit of a shock this year, we’ve been plunged into comparatively cold weather surprisingly quickly in the season after several mild winters with only a few really cold days.

I do hope this is a portent and we have lots of cold weather to come – maybe even a decent fall of snow…