March 30th – The day was a little more summery than that previously and on my way home I nipped up the canal to see if the field of oilseed rape was out yet at Home Farm.
It’s getting there, it’s getting there. About another week to ten days, depending on how warm and sunny it is.
I love the smell, the colour and the spectacle of the sun-loving brassica. A real sign summer is coming!
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September 17th – My sadness at the end of summer and oncoming winter slides in and out, accompanied usually by a delight at the new season.
They say that drowning is quite pleasurable if you stop fighting it. Autumn and the oncoming darkness are a bit like that for me.
Early morning in Mill Green, on my way to the early train, the mist, low sun and autumnal fields combine and give me a reason to be positive about things.
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September 16th – It’s all about autumn now. The change seems to have been very rapid, but in reality it’s been actually quite slow and by almost imperceptible daily degrees.
There are fewer and fewer flowers now, and those that are left are the world-weary late summer soldiers, hanging on for a bit of late pollination – willow herb, dandelions, ragwort, evening primrose, bindweed and like this bedraggled specimen, butter and egg or toadflax.
Beautiful but sad, I bid them farewell for another year and look forward to regaining the colour with the spring. That seems like a lifetime away right now.
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August 24th – A bank holiday weekend set for fair weather. This, whilst not unheard of, is a delight. Moreso this time as I hate the August Bank Holiday.
I hate it because it’s the last one before the darkness comes, and the suck of the dark commutes. It always feels final, the end of school holidays, the end of summer. If you haven’t done that summer thing by now, you’re not going to, and so on.
A miserable summer bank holiday drains the soul.
But not so this weekend: A heatwave beckons, and I slipped out at teatime into a glorious golden evening. I went to Hints, somewhere I’d not really been much all year. Shenstone Park was as beautiful and French-seeming as ever, and I took a walk up to Crow’s Castle to survey the landscape.
Over to Hopwas as night fell for a drink by the canal.
All around farmers were working into the night to get the harvest in, and strange machine noises and lights punctuated the ride home and made it otherworldly.
This was a perfect late summer evening, and I’m glad I managed to catch it in some of my favourite places.
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August 17th – With my fascination with galls, it’s easy to overlook the fruiting of the oaks as it should be, and I’m happy to report this year that the crop of acorns – even though it’s been hit very heavily by knopper gall wasps – is plump and profuse.
The heathy acorns I’ll later gather to spread in hedgerows and on edge lands as is my tradition look better this year than they have for years. I guess a warm but wet season was good for them, if not so much for me.
I always have a dilemma here though: I can collect acorns solely from trees unaffected by knoppers, and assume they have so resistance, but in spreading solely those am I harming the wasp ecology? I suppose I should just spread any acorns I find, but it’s an interesting conundrum…
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August 16th – Another place I love is Kings Hill Park in Darlaston, one of Walsall’s little known, minor parks.
Sadly in the last couple of years it’s not had the maintenance it formerly had, with resources going to the borough’s ‘Green Flag’ parks instead: We no longer get the planters maintained as beautifully, and the attention to upkeep is more cursory.
However it’s still beautiful and has some gorgeous flowers – just not so many as it did, sadly.
To be here, seeking space from work on a wet, blustery summer day, in peace and quiet with industry just metres away, is bliss. You can stand here, take five and just inhale the green.
A beautiful park, a credit to the town and those who care for it, but it needs more resources sparing for it.
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August 14th – The awful summer continues, with heavy rain for most of the day. Returning from work soaking and miserable, I rode up a deserted Brownhills High Street.
I have no idea what we did to deserve this summer – it’s been grim. Yes, we’ve had good days, but I’ve not been able to get out for a long ride for weeks.
Let’s hope we get an Indian summer to at least compensate a little.
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July 26th – All hell broke loose in the afternoon. I had to travel out to investigate an unexpected job. I returned at near enough 11pm by train to Bloxwich.
The night was warm, and the train and station quiet.
I prepared the bike and looked down the line. I was tired, no, worse than that, exhausted. But stood there in the LED light, feeling the night air and listening to – well, nothing – I felt I was near home.
For the first time since last winter, I had those late night feelings again.
What is it with me and railway stations at night?
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July 20th – A day of maintenance, work interruptions and grim weather. I spun out mid afternoon into the wind for a run over to Burntwood on an errand.
As summer advances, the greens of the hedgerows and woodlands are darker and more weary, and the fields are now turning gold for harvest.
How quickly this year is passing. But the summer is still beautiful.
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July 12th – Wanting to ride the city canals the day before but unable to, I broke out of work, collected a mate and went for a spin down the Plants Brook/Newhall Valley and into Brum, returning via the Tame Valley.
The canals were as wonderful and peaceful as ever, and the wildflowers – those that have escaped the fanatical dedication to mowing the Canal and River Trust seems to have – are looking fabulous.
As was the Gas Street black cat, disturbed from it’s slumbers by our happy chatter.
Summer is all about rides like this.
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