Tag: shenstone

July 30th – The ripening is noticeable everywhere. Returning from Shenstone, the fields of wheat and oilseed rape were losing their last vestiges of green; not yet ready to harvest, but well on the way. The golden colour is welcome and is like late summer’s coat; the countryside is replete in golds, beige and dark, dark green.

Also doing well, the bramble fruits – dewberry and blackberry – are turning red, and the parsnips growing at Sandhills look in fine fettle.

Doesn’t look like it was such a bad season, after all.

June 5th – Glad I spotted this advert at the junction of Footherley Lane and Hollyhill Lane on the way back from Shenstone. Footherley Hall – a home for elderly ladies run by Catholic nuns – always puts on a great fete, and if you’re in the area on Sunday I recommend you pop in for a while. You couldn’t get anything much more English than this – tea, cakes,tombola, bric-a-brac and sunshine if they’re lucky, all in great, rural gardens. A fine thing.

May 14th – Grim ride home. The morning wasn’t bad, but just as I started the evening commute, the heavens opened. It was thoroughly wet, dark and miserable. Not helping the mood were the remarkable number of speeding drivers on Lynn Lane at Shenstone – two were actually racing each other in very bad conditions indeed.

My glum determination was lifted, however, by the familiar cheesy, flowery scent of oilseed rape. The thick, heavy pollen was being stirred by the raindrops. In the dark afternoon, it was gorgeous.

There’s beauty in the most unpleasant days.

May 8th – Sweet rain.

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time outdoors, I’m fairly honed to the seasons and their timetable. That was, until this year. Spring is so late, it feels like a chunk of the year has just gone missing, lost, been edited from the tape.

The natural order being disturbed, I’ve missed little things without realising them. One being the smell of the countryside in spring after rain. When I travelled to work, the drizzle was very, very fine and almost not there at all, but heavier on my return. At Shenstone, the air was damp, musty and smelled beautifully of pollen, oilseed rape, moist earth and growth.

I didn’t know how much I’d missed that smell until today. I got off my bike, and stood there, just opening my senses to it. Not just the scent, but the colour, the light, the birdsong. 

It was glorious. Even dull days can be a joy.

April 23rd – I returned against the wind from Shenstone, just to ride through the sunlit backlanes. I hadn’t eaten all day and it was a bit of a battle, to be honest, but worth it, all the same. Everything is awake now, and the greening is well underway. At Shenstone, the ruined church tower will soon be hidden by leaves for another season, and the brook at Footherley will soon be an emerald arcadia once more. Some things are changeless, though, like the cottages and converted barns at Lower Stonnall. They look good whatever the season.

April 17th – I returned home late enough to catch the sunset – it was great tonight, although the winds were somewhat tempestuous. Thankfully, they were mostly behind me, and the warmth of them is still a pleasant surprise to the system. On cue, roadsides are a riot of daffodils, and everything seems busy with springtime.

It’s been worth the wait.

April 17th – Someone asked me on twitter this week why Lynn Lane between Shenstone and Stonnall was closed. I had no idea it was, so tonight, I took a detour and checked it out. The lane is, indeed, barriered off at both ends, but roadworks that seem to have been taking place between Thornyhurst Lane and Raikes Lane seem to have finished now. There was certainly nothing to justify the closure when I passed this evening.

They may well be going to dig another hole, but one can’t help wondering why a road with no hazards remains shut.

April 11th – In the fields just outside Shenstone, one might be forgiven for thinking there was a frost. However, it was too warm for that today, and this looks more like a dusting of icing sugar. It’s actually a freshly ploughed field, dusted by nitrate fertiliser. Soon, a crop will be planted here, and the growing will start over again.

The only trouble with dusting fields in this way is that even in still conditions, everything around gets dusted too, like the holly in the hedgerow…