Tag: shenstone

#365daysofbiking Through the haze

September 1st – I headed out to Whittington Country Fair and Craft Show (a large gallery from which can be seen on my main blog here) along Bullmoor Lane and through Wall on a warm, lovely late summer day. 

This lane has always captivated me; diverted south to accommodate the toll motorway, a hill was created at one end 15 years ago that now gives commanding views of the treetops to Wall Village, with little hint of the motorway and A5 between.

A gorgeous, little known gem.

August 8th – The rain came in Redditch just as I boarded the train back, and I thought it was probably in for the afternoon. I was however wrong, it seems to have been a narrow band of rain that passed the conurbation, and it approached me once more as I rode back from Shenstone. It caught me in the lanes.

The rain was sweet, warm and enjoyable when it came, following skies that would surely have won an Oscar for best supporting performance. 

What wasn’t so great however was that one more, with insufficient rain to wash it away, the roads became greasy, slippery and soppy with the road debris and wash down.

It pains me to say it but we need heavy and prolonged rain to clear this away.

July 30th – Working late at a remote site, I came back through Birmingham and Shenstone to hit the homeward commute just as a beautiful sunset unfolded across the landscape. 

One of the joys of late summer is it’s the season of the sunset, and it was a cracker. There were the earliest hints in the way the sinking, golden sun caught the thick, rolling clouds, and it ended in a banded crimson sky that made the homecoming skyline of Ogley Hay magical.

I’m so glad I caught this.

July 26th – The very hot weather seems to be coming to an end, timing almost perfectly with the end of the major session of the harvest. Locally now for a couple of weeks, the grumble and whine of fantastically large and complex harvesting machinery has been a continual backing track to rural life, and often I’ve ridden through clouds of wheat dust from this year’s crop being threshed in the harvester.

Not much spilled this year, which is interesting, the roads are usually thick with spilled grain, called ‘gleanings’ as traditionally workers and the poor were allowed to collect – glean – this harvest bounty and they’d feed it to their animals and fowl.

Interesting also to note the return of the rectangular bale. Well, they do stack better.

And with harvest and the end of the heatwave, the year gallops on…

June 25th – Riding home from Shenstone it seemed like the hottest afternoon ever. Of course it wasn’t, but I was tired, the hay fever was giving me hell and energy was low.

I notice now that the haymaking is ongoing, in great weather for it, a the Footherley Brook looked as gorgeous and changeless as it must have done for decades.

I was quite impressed with the image quality of the cathedral view from Shire Oak: for a camera with limited zoom that’s not a bad image at all.

April 27th – A mystery finally solved. I first noticed this patch of what appear to be yellow dead nettles in Footherly Lane a few years ago. Every spring they return, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them anywhere else.

This eye-catching yellow display is absolutely gorgeous and fascinated me for the delicate colour and intricacy of the flowers.

After asking online, it turns out the plant is Yellow Archangel or Lamiastrum galeobdolon and indeed is of the same family as the dead nettle, and a staple of our ancient woodlands.

What on earth did we do before being able to use the collective hive mind of the internet for plant identification?

April 20th – Returning home from from Shenstone on a gorgeous evening, passing lanes full off other cyclists whose general absence was noted when the weather was not so lovely, I stopped to check the familiar and have a rest.

There is a piece of scratched graffiti amongst many others in the soft sandstone of Footherley Lane’s brook bridge. It says ‘Billy + Tracee 30-4-83′.

I remember this when is Wass freshly cut, when I was a kid exploring these lanes. Coming soon will be the 35th anniversary of this act of what was presumably, love.

In this beautiful spot, Billy and Tracee recorded their love, and I often wonder if they’re still together, and remember this.

I do hope so.

March 29th – Again returning from Shenstone, again it was raining as as I alighted from the train. My heart was heavy and I didn’t fancy the wet ride home but something caught my eye in the shrub border to the platform.

An ornamental blackcurrant, in flower. It was dripping with rain, but that glorious pinky red was most vivid in the gloom. And for that, it made me happy.

March 13th – I know I featured this the other day, but it is a view that’s quite short-lived and one I love lots. Having been to a meeting in Birmingham in the afternoon, I came back to Shenstone as usual and hit there in a sort of pink, gentle golden hour. I was only about 15 minutes from sunset, and the pink cast was from a dying sun, but it flattered the dark sandstone of St John’s church tower beautifully, it’s gargoyles proud and prominent as ever.

Also worth noting in these shots are the rooftops, gables and chimneys of Shenstone, a wonderful array. How lovely that a village should grow around the hill in that remarkable way, with the remains of an early church, and a still functioning Victorian one immediately adjacent.

March 10th – I had to pop to the garden centre in Shenstone, which always grinds my gears, as there’s no suitable bike parking and the place seems to be cunningly and cynically engineered to hoover money out of the pockets of the older folk who seem to be it’s target customers, mostly in exchange for expensive items one could find cheaper elsewhere. Walking in with concessions of a pet shop, 3 or 4 clothing brands and other such stuff, the actual garden stuff seems a sideline.

I returned from the garden centre grumpy and decided to travel the length of the Lammas Land in Shestone, running from the Birmingham Road to just near Shenstone Station.

Spring is trying to start here, and pleasingly, the daffodils were out, but on the whole, the place was still very much of the winter. I stopped to look at the Shining Stone of Shenstone, which looks no less like a silver turd every time I see it. It’s a peculiar thing.

I was intrigued by the purple alder-like tree I found there – with purple male catkins and the familiar more globular female ones. If the leaves match that will be an extraordinary sight.