Tag: summer

August 12th – Sweet rain fell in short, sharp showers as I rode home, often out of an almost totally clear, blue sky. The weather is certainly odd at the moment; the wind has been quite strong and it’s been very changeable.

I’ve forgot in this really quite dry summer the music of rain falling on the canal and leaves as I pass. In summer, it’s an occasional delight to the senses.

So long as it doesn’t become too frequent..

August 10th – A remarkable season, and now the fruiting begins in earnest. The wind was gusting hard, and the threat of rain not far away, but I slid out mid afternoon in defiance of Hurricane Bertha (spit). I let the wind blow me along the wet canal to the cyclway over the common – on the way, I noticed what I think are cherries growing ripe on a tree by the Pier Street Bridge. They look rather fat and large to be such gems in Brownhills. Can anyone help there?

There’s also been a remarkably prodigious crop of hazelnuts from the hedge thicket opposite the Watermead estate – but what wasn’t already squirrelled was blown down in the wind; the towpath is thick with nobbled and wind-fallen nuts.

On the cycleway, a similarly bountiful crop of blackberries, and the elderberries too are ripening to a beautiful black-crimson gloss.

Summer coming to an end is always sad, but how can one remain so in the face of such wonderful fruits?

August 7th – Closer to home, across the spread of Springhill and Sandhills, it’s harvest time. At Cartersfield Lane, wheat was ripe, and ready to be harvested, a process already underway at Home Farm, where the combine was sending up a terrifically dramatic cloud of cereal dust as it worked. Also growing on the lower fields of Sandhills, a healthy and verdant maize crop, now quite tall.

This does seem to have been a most favourable summer for the farmers, but I’m sure they’ll find something to complain about before long…

August 7th – I had to nip into Brum on my way home from work, and hopped on a train to Shenstone on the way back. I haven’t been this way much lately, and the familiar wooded hill with church tower – just the one in summer, the other being obscured by trees – looked splendid in the early evening sunshine. I love how you can see the gargoyles at the vertices from a very long way away.

The station and it’s complex, partially mansard roof is still gorgeous, too, despite being neutered of it’s tall, elegant chimneys several decades ago.

Shenstone is gorgeous, and there are few better places to be on a warm, sunny evening.

August 6th – Riding back through Walsall on a warm summer evening, you realise this is the best time of year to see it; the trees around Hatherton Street, Lichfield Street and the poncily named ‘Civic Quarter’ are absolutely wonderful. People run Walsall down as being dirty, post-industrial and architecturally barren, but it’s one of the greenest pieces of urban landscape I’ve ever seen.

Beneath these trees, a town lives and breathes. 

If you don’t believe me, get somewhere high, like the New Art Gallery or St. Matthews steps on Church Hill, and look out. Walsall is a green oasis.

August 5th – Another saying my Grandfather used to use a lot was ‘It’s always a good year for something.’ On this, the old man – who lived life much more connected to nature than I – was bang on. Every year, every season, is detrimental to something and benificial to something else.

This year we have an absolute wealth of early blackberries. They, sycamore,  horse chestnut and beech appear to have done very well indeed. Oak and fruit seem to have had a very bad year. This is the first acorn I’ve seen – last year, the boughs were heavy with crab apples, damsons, cherries and acorns. This year, very few. Rowan, Hawthorn and cotoneaster seem to be doing reasonably well, though.

I guess it’s just how the weather falls. One late frost and the fruit crops are ruined…

August 3rd – Still laying off the long rides for the sake of my sore foot, I had to run some errands and get some shopping in – so I headed on a sunny, but windy afternoon to Morrisons at Burntwood.

A lovely day, for sure – and the harvest at Home Farm, Sandhills, had started, but the wheat still wasn’t ripe enough. Hopefully, it will be before the next lot of rains midweek…

August 2nd – Still treating my injured foot with care, I took in a lazy loop of Brownhills and bimbled over to Chasewater, then back down the canal. It was a gorgeously sunny late afternoon, and after the heavy rains of the morning, all the greenery looked splendidly fresh.

In the space of 20 minutes, I admired the mature trees on The Parade, enjoyed the shimmer of Chasewater and watched spellbound as a wakeboarder practised his jumps. I also spotted the best garden chair-hammock thing ever, in a limpid, green arcadia beside the quiet, clear waters of the canal.

Don’t ever tell me there isn’t beauty in this place.

August 1st – My return journey was weary, wet, grey and warm. Again, it felt like being in the gust from a hair-drier, so warm was the breeze. It was raining steadily, and having popped in to Brum, I returned from Shenstone down quiet, greasy country lanes, dodging a whole host of slippery hazards in waiting, now hydrated. 

I note most of the harvest is done here, but for a couple of fields. In the UK, I guess it pays not to dither, and as I was waiting at Shire Oak I reflected on the wonderful unreliability of the great British weather.