Tag: South Wigston

August 12th – The teasel, or dipsacus – is a great plant. Alien-looking, spiky, provider of food for finches and small birds, it grows in meadows, scrubs and hedgerows. Once used for teasing out cloth (hence the name), it’s now spread as a wildflower. These examples have matured beautifully on the wild embankment at South Wigston station, and were, unusually, the only colour there today to speak of, yet by the look of the rosebushes, we’re due an excellent crop of hips in all their red-orange glory.

June 27th – a third day at Leicester, and another day admiring the flowers at South Wigston. I’m not sure if that’s a thistle (it wasn’t spiky) or a type of cornflower. Even the dandelions going to seed are pretty. Nothing has done more to make me look closely at the margins, the unwanted, the wasteland, than this place. Beautiful.

June 25th – In Leicester today, and out early. This gave me chance to see my favourite patch of scrub, the embankment at South Wigston station.

I’m acutely aware that not many people have favourite patches of scrub, and this does mark me out as a little eccentric.

South Wigston is only a tiny dot of a suburban halt on a busy goods junction, and is totally unmanned. At some point, I think the green margins around the platforms and walkways were managed and planted, but haven’t been so for many years; the perennials that were planted here, plus some wild imports, run riot now all throughout the year, and reward me continually with colour, beauty and bounty.

It feels like I’m the only person ever to notice this; the only one ever to stop and watch the bees busy in the daisies, or bustling around the cotoneaster. Meanwhile, all around the sound of clanking industry, rumbling goods traffic and the joyful hubub of children from the nearby school.

It’s a wild place in the city, and I love it.

April 23rd – To be in England, in the springtime. I had to go to Leicester, and the patch of waste ground that so enthrals me at South Wigston Station was, as ever, a joy to the heart. Beebuzz and birdsong greeted me as I hefted my bike of the train in the bright, warm sun; peacock butterflies flitted about the lush flowers. Grape Hyacinth, primrose, gorse, dandelion. Performing for me, in this moment, in the middle of urban sprawl. A small wayside oasis, hardly noticed by anyone.

It doesn’t get much better than this.

March 4th – A day beset by travel difficulties. Actually, a bloody awful day all around, if I’m honest. I set off on an 8am train to go to Leicester. I didn’t get there, due to signalling issues, until gone 12pm. Hopping off the train in South Wigston, in bright sunshine,resisting the urge to kiss the platform papal-style, the deathly dark mood was suddenly lifted.

Readers who’ve been following this journal a while will recall from last year that I’m fascinated by the flowers that grow, untended, on a patch of embankment at South Wigston Station. All year, this once tended strip of border is a riot of colour. Today, I noticed it had already got it’s spring jacket on.

Yellows and blues were the order of the day. Crocus, forsythia and a small blue flower I think may be hepatica or anemone, but I welcome a positive ID.

I went on my way, my mood lifted. Heaven, in a wild flower.

September 3rd – Beauty is often found in unexpected places, and unexpected circumstances. Like a bad penny today, I pitched up again in South Wigston. This station – no more than a suburban halt, really – has always been a station I’d hated. No information system, little shelter, grim and fore bidding in the dark. And very, very cold in winter. Yet, this year, something strange happened. I discovered beauty here. I started to study the patch of scrub between the ramp and platform on the northbound side way back in spring, when it started to show a remarkable diversity of flowers. Untended, it seems to have been subject to some form of guerrilla planting. As the seasons have advanced, I’d spotted more stuff going on in this patch of scrub, which I feel sure I’m the only person ever to have noticed. It’s enchanting.
Today I found myself studying it again, at 8:45 on a misty, yet hazily sunny autumn morning. The fruiting has started in earnest. Haws, Hips, and catoniaster (the blackbirds go nuts for those bright orange berries) mingled with teasels, snails and cobwebs to make an autumnal tableaux that astounded and transfixed me.
Sometimes, I think I must be the only person in the world who gets excited about this stuff.

July 23rd – I found myself commuting to Leicester this week. This means an early run to Lichfield Trent Valley, a change at Nuneaton and cycling from South Wigston. This is a journey unique in the British railway system in that it features the two worst stations in the country (apart from possibly Hale and Dovey Junction). However, this year, South Wigston has been a delight. I have no idea who, but someone has been guerilla planting flowers on the scrub on the northbound platform. Earlier in the year it was a riot of grape hyacinths, bluebells and primroses. Now it’s a peculiar but delightful yellow unknown flower, roses, budleia and foxgloves. Beauty in such an unexpected place. It can’t be cultivated, because it’s still just scrub.

May 14th – Today, I went to Leicester for a two hour meeting, which pretty much wasted the whole day. It was a terrible Monday anyway; a day of forgetfulness, lost objects and minor irritations. Whilst waiting for a train home at South Wigston – thankfully, the trains were on time today if nothing else was – I noticed this curious label attached to the railway sleepers in the four-foot. Someone out there must know what this means. A yellow label, apparently mass produced, bearing the legend ‘Appendix A’ and pointing toward Leicester. Any ideas? Am I the only person that notices this stuff?

April 19th – A week of threatening dark skies continued. I had, however, been oddly lucky; I had to go to Leicester for a few days, and only caught a light shower on the way. As I arrived at South Wigston early morning, the gloom gathered, and it rained throughout the day, but held off just as the I awaited my return train that afternoon. I know we need the rain, but psychologically, I need some summer. A real quandary…

March 26th – Beauty can be found in very unexpected places. As I got off the train into a sunny South Wigston, in Leicester, these gorgeous grape hyacinths were growing up a piece of grass that’s usually wasteland. Mixed in were  primroses, polyanthus and what seemed to be some kind of violet. This station is is normally just one away from being the rectum of the UK rail system, only beating Lichfield Trent Valley because it has ramp access to bot platforms. Usually it’s desolate, untidy and lonely, often threatening. Today, it was a little oasis of purple and joy…