Tag: Stonnall

May 22nd – Summer is really on her throne now, I think. Returning home that evening, I came from Blake Street through a green, hazy wonderland. The oilseed rape is still bright yellow, the hedges and copses dusted with white blooms of cow parsley and hawthorn blossom. The air is heavy with pollen, bee buzz and insects. Near lower Stonnall, the first hay crop has been cut. It’s left to dry in the fields, then turned and dried some more before baling. It’s been a long time coming but this is just wonderful.

May 14th – It’s been eight months now since I recorded the closure of the Mango Tree restaurant on the Chester Road in Aldridge. Soon after that, it was reported the building had been bought, and a new venue was to open there. Well, when I cycled past at 4pm today, it seemed that Voujon is now ready to reopen, if it hasn’t done so already. Looking smart, and totally refurbished, it’s nice to see the building back in use again. There’s a long history of eating establishments of this site – from transport cafes to a Little Chef. I wish the new proprietors well in their venture.

May 12th – I shot around Stonnall, Shenstone, Little Hay, Canwell, Hints and Hopwas. I had the sun on my back and speed in my wheels. The countryside was beautiful, with the most vibrant greens and yellows. Birdsong was all around, and I really had the sense of nature going about it’s seasonal business. The canal between Hopwas and Hademore was limpid and placid, and the return through Lichfield was equally lovely. Can there be anywhere finer than South Stafforshire on a sunny late spring day?

April 26th – I came home under a cloud, as I often do. This one, however, was meteorological rather than psychological. It was grim when I left Leicester, and trying to rain; my train was delayed, and then I got bumped onto the next one 40 minutes later due to lack of space. Arriving at Shenstone an hour later than usual, the black skies were gathering. My mood, and the outlook, was black. Yet the rain held off, and the countryside of Footherley, and the sight and sound of a healthily flowing Footherley Brook cheered me. Oddly, I arrived home in quite a good mood, albeit rather late. I guess that’s why I cycle.

April 25th – April is certainly the cruellest month of 2012 so far. Maybe I just got used to life in the dry, but commuting this week has had it’s difficult moments. I headed to Lichfield at dawn in a rainstorm, wrenching myself up the A461 against a merciless headwind. Making the train just in time, the inclement weather seemed to follow me to Leicester, where it hung around menacingly outside, like some school bully waiting to beat me anew on the way home. Fortunately, the trip home wasn’t so bad, just drizzle, really. But whatI did notice was the trees: clearly thirsty, there has been a sudden explosion in foliage and blossom. It’s an ill wind, and all that. 

April 19th – Returning from Lichfield, I was still managing to avoid the showers. Everywhere seemed damp, verdant and growing. Birds scuttled in an out of the hedgerows, rabbits darted into ditches and roadside warrens. Crossing the M6 toll at Summerhill, near Sandhills, the weak sunlight captured a field of oilseed rape near Stonnall, lit the whole thing up and made it precious. Some moments catch the light like diamonds.

April 18th – Baby weather – wet and windy, but warm. I worked from home before heading off mid-morning for a meeting in Redditch. It was drizzly and wet, but the riding through Stonnall and Little Aston was great. I saw lots of birds – great tits, blue tits, long-tailed tits, greenfinches, bullfinches, goldfinches, buzzards, a kestrel, a jay. I saw a countless rabbits, and a fox. Summer is coming. I can feel it. The rain is getting warmer….

April 13th – By heck, it was nippy this morning. Not cold by winter standards, of course, but cold by spring ones. There was quite a heavy frost last night, and it made for an interesting mist. The sunrise wasn’t vivid like earlier in the week, but pastel-hued and ever changing. At Stonnall, my muse, Grove Hill, was stunning, as were the pylons and woods at Mill Green. An hour and a half later, on the Arrow Valley cycle route in Redditch, the lake was also captivating, it’s fringes holding a light mist, softening the light that made even the Canada Geese precious.

April 11th – This makes me angry. Very angry indeed. This small bungalow – the lodge to Owletts Hall Farm, in Lynn, on the road between Shenstone and Stonnall, is another long-empty property being left to collapse by its selfish owners. This wrecked, derelict house – like Keepers Cottage and the abandoned terraces in Footherley – could make someone a lovely little home. But for some reason, the owner would rather see the building carried to dust. I’ve known this building to be empty for over thirty years. There ought to be a law against this. 

April 11 – For a few days, I’ll be up before sunlight. Today, I had to go to Redditch, which meant cycling to Four Oaks to get a through train. It was jolly cold this morning at 6AM, and there was a ground frost in the hollows – but what more than made up for it was an absolutely stunning sunrise, viewed from the best place around here to see it – Shire Oak. As I piled it in down the Chester Road, I caught sight of Grove Hill with a fiery red backdrop, and slammed the anchors on, and pulled out the camera. What a start to the day. These images are untouched and exactly as I took them.

The smudge of rising stem on the horizon to the north east is Radcliffe On Soar power station, between Derby and Nottingham.