July 5th – One of my wildflower joys at the moment is the humble thistle. Not just for the vivd purple brush that forms the flower, but for the delightfully spiky and prehistoric looking buds this curious plant forms.
They may not be conventionally beautiful, but next time you pass a thistle, look closely. They’re amazing things.
June 29th – On the canal near the Black Cock Bridge at Walsall Wood, work appears to have been undertaken today.
I have no idea what. It was clearly over when I came through, which makes the graffiti-style approach to warning about it wrong; how do you know the warning is current? At least you can remove signs when the job is done.
The spelling was very non-conformist, so I decided to preserve it for posterity.
June 23rd – On the canal at Darlaston, a flower I’m assuming is some kind of wild rose, although the flower itself looks a bit like a large blackberry bloom.
The flowers are wonderfully delicate and the centres a gorgeous shade of yellow.
Any ideas, anyone?
June 9th – Such a profusion of flowers at the moment, for which pink and purple seem to be the current fashion. Roses, orchids and one I’m not sure of all brightened my commute.
The orchids are particularly welcome growing along the towpath near Clayhanger, and on the slope to the new pond. I just adore them.
May 26th – One flower I forgot yesterday that really deserves attention is clover. It’s just coming into flower at the moment, as as I proved yesterday, is a very sadly overlooked component of the verges and meadows.
At the moment, I’m mainly seeing purple ones, and their colour is lovely and bright, and the leaves are beautiful too, especially after rain.
We shouldn’t overlook even the humblest of flowers. They’re only trying to grab our attention, after all.
May 25th – As we advance to late spring and early summer, some of my favourite flowers are emerging now; birds foot trefoil ‘egg and bacon’, buttercups, elderflowers and ox-eye daisies all brighten the verges, hedgerows and edge lands of my commute.
Such lovely flowers. How I love this busy, colourful time of year.
April 16th – Heading up the canal toward Newtown, on the bend just past the old mill, a relaxing couple on a sunny afternoon. I’ve not seen the swans do this on the canal bank here before, and this one has me a little puzzled, but they were utterly relaxed and convinced the spot was just right for them.
A lovely sight, but I know the one that was ostensibly asleep was totally aware of my presence.
March 23rd – The towpath resurfacing between Walsall town centre and Bentley Mill Way continues, as I noted earlier in the week, tarmac is being laid on top of compacted ballast. It’s a nice enough surface, but I’m still bemused by the pointlessness of it all.
Today I passed as they work crew were filling a butty with hot asphalt, ready to spread and roll. The ease with which it tipped from the excavator bucket and the steam that billowed suggested it was very hot indeed – and it made me wonder how it was heated – in the yard or from the place it was produced? I suppose the limestone grit it’s made from has quite a high specific heat capacity, so it must hold heat awhile.
One thing I always love about hot tarmac is the smell. It’s one of the really strong smells I recall for some reason from my childhood, and one sniff of it and I’ back in the schoolyard.
Funny how smells do that to you.
March 21 – The resurfacing of the canal towpath between Walsall town centre and Bentley Mill Way continues apace; I noted today that sections of the route have a newly-laid tarmac surface. It’s a nice job.
I still can’t get my head around this. I’m not ungrateful – I use this route regularly and it’ll be nice to ride – but this money would have been much better elsewhere on the local canal network – like the stretch from Longwood to Rushall Junction or from Goscote to Pelsall.
The Canal and River Trust are beyond my comprehension sometimes.
February 10th – Still irritating me is the work to resurface a perfectly decent canal towpath between Walsall Town Centre and Bentley Bridge. Kier, the contractors, are pushing ahead – mainly because they seem to have realised they haven’t much to actually do.
I don’t know who was consulted before the Canal & River Trust decided to undertake this project – it certainly doesn’t appear to have been local cyclists.
Such a waste of money when towpaths in Aldridge and Bloxwich are virtually impassible to all in the winter.
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