March 21st – Despite the cold, spring is well underway now, and nothing will stop it. The early crops are emerald green, the blackthorn is in blossom, the swans are doing the nesting thing, and the local amphibians have been spawning in the small pool at Shire Oak Park.
Soon, the clocks will be forward and the darkness will be behind me for another year. Winter wasn’t too bad this year… And now, the promise of a new season.
This’ll do.
March 18th -This week has odd weather. Misty, with a perceptible wind, but the air quality is very poor; it seems smoggy like it did about a year ago, but I could be imagining that. The sun seems to have a hard time penetrating the murkiness, but when it does, it’s springlike, and warm.
It makes for decent canal views, that’s for sure.
March 17th – Heading to work on a misty, smoggy morning, the sun trying desperately to break through the murk and light up the day, but not quite managing it.
Spinning down the canal over Bentley Aqueduct, the twin sisters of Wednesbury on the skyline were as beautiful as ever. This view fascinates me.
March 8th – St. Annes cemetery in CHasetown is looking gorgeous again. The crocuses here are always really, really breaking, although I think they need a few more days yet.
On a miserable, wet Sunday afternoon, they were just what the doctor ordered.
March 6th – And elsewhere too, on the canal, signs of spring. At Walsall Wood bridge, butties are being loaded from a temporary, rough wharf from a derelict factory yard, ready to supply earth to a worksite near Catshill Junction. Growing from the brickwork canalside nearby, beautiful coltsfoot flowers in abundance, almost hidden from view.
At the new pond in Clayhanger, the scrub and copse still looks barren, but there’s a sense of anticipation, almost as if nature is waiting for the starting gun.
March 6th – Bloody hell Bob, not crocuses again!
Yes, crocuses. After the months of riding in dark, damp and cold, the brightness of the first spring flowers to me is magical, enchanting, life-affirming and beautiful. Like a hot shower after a long sleep, it’s awakening and you could enjoy it forever.
These are in Walsall Wood High Street, and remain, as every year I see them, a credit to those who planted them.
Thank you.
March 4th – Spring is really here. It’s not just the yellow crocuses in Kings Hill Park now, but the purple and white ones, too. Daffodils have joined the party, and the whole place looks gorgeous.
I know the daffs are early varieties, but they are gorgeous and a reminder that once the genie of spring has appeared, you can’t really get it back in the bottle.
Such a joy to the heart.
February 25th – And then there’s Kings Hill Park, too. I couldn’t resist swinging past on this fine morning to check out the crocuses – and to my surprise, the snowdrops were also out in force; the ones here must be a later flowering variety.
Am I imagining it, or do yellow crocuses flower before other colours? Plenty of yellow ones about, but not so many violet.
After seeing these, you can’t fail to go to work with happiness in your heart: spring is coming, and nothing can stop it now.
February 24th – Little firsts are the art of getting through winter. Little, tiny victories that mark the passage from darkness to light, and tonight, on my way home from work, it was my first normal-time commute in something approximating daylight, rather than darkness.
OK, it was wet, windy, murky, verging on the brink daylight, but it was perceptibly not dark. A little victory.
The joy of this almost totally took my mind off what an unutterably foul ride it was…
February 21st – The weather really couldn’t make up its mind – today, in about 90 minutes, I experienced rain, hail, snow, wind and warm sunshine. Heading back up the canal to Brownhills from Burntwood, the skies were beautiful, as were the patches of sunshine and shadow that chased over the landscape.
The verdant green of the new crops and bright blue really do whisper of a nascent spring, but I must remember, some of the heaviest snows for years were at the end of March in 2013.
I don’t think winter has quite laid down yet…
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