March 29th – Along the cycleways and towpaths of the Black Country, despite the wet but warm morning, life is springing forth. Everywhere, some seasonal starting gun has been fired and leaves and blossom are appearing everywhere – and it’s wonderful.
There is little better on a grey spring morning that seeing the new green life, and the promise of a verdant, beautiful – and hopefully dry – summer.
March 21st – Gosh, it was cold this morning. After the warmth of the last week or so, riding out in the early morning in a wind air air temperature just above freezing was a real shock. Just as well, then, that the day was gorgeous with bright sun and blue skies.
The change in temperature hasn’t bothered the trees at all – they’re bursting into life. fresh new green leaves appearing, more every day.
I feel the gladness in my heart that only spring can bring – whatever the temperature!
March 16th – Spotted by the roadside in Darlaston, even the cherry trees are now taking spring seriously. This one, just on the verge outside a factory, is ready to burst into leaf.
Still can’t budge from the idea that spring is early this year, but I’m not sure if it really is, or I’m just relieved.
Anyone?
January 31st – While I’ve yet to break my snowdrop duck for the spring (and BrownhillsCommoner sent me a lovely picture of the ones in his garden) there are some spring flowers around, although maybe not conventional blooms.
These catkins are showing well at the moment in Wednesbury, and are a common feature of hedgerows, scrubs and waysides. They are the male flowers of the alder tree, and also occur on the close relative, Birch.
Wind pollinated, these blossoms don’t have normal petals or a flower like structure, but are a lovely, bright feature of late winter and a signpost into spring.
November 16th – Also providing colour, and much later than normally expected, the leaves are stunning still.
It’s that time of year when if it rains, many tracks, backlanes and other cycle routes become slippery with leaf pulp, which is treacherous and hard to predict.
The colours were beautiful, even against a threatening sky.
November 9th – A wet night in Walsall, returning later than usual through the area near the Civic Centre, I noticed the fallen leaves were forming a glistening, multicoloured carpet. This area is surprisingly beautiful at any time of year, with usually unnoticed mature trees and wide pedestrian areas, but in autumn, after dark, even with the peculiarly strident street lighting this place is special.
Walsall is a place of many hidden beautiful and unexpected corners.
October 30th – The Parade, Brownhills, on a grey, overcast and misty Sunday afternoon.
Go on, tell me again that this place is ugly and has nothing to commend it. Just try.
October 28th – An irritating day where I forgot my camera and everything happened at top speed, so little time to take photos. I’d been over to Telford in the afternoon and came back from Shenstone as dusk fell.
These lanes, I know them so well; they run though my veins like blood. I must have ridden this route thousands of times, and certainly many with the impending feeling of autumn I had today.
I know I will again ride this way on a springtime, sunny day and the wheel will continue it’s inexorable rotation, but tonight, in the gathering dark, it felt a very long way off.
I hate the dark months.
October 27th – Again passing through Telford, I came past a row of trees on Stafford Park whose neat, straight planting always fascinated me.
Just beginning to turn, they’re a welcome dash of colour in a grey urban landscape on a dull day.
Every year, I note these trees come into leaf, blossom, and shed their leaves. Seeing another cycle complete makes me feel old…
October 19th – Darlaston is at it’s best in autumn, and with the leaves turning, this is a great time to visit this humming little town and take in it’s unexpectedly great architecture and scenery.
Some of the best of Darlaston can be seen in it’s two parks – Victoria and King’s Hill, from which the glorious twin sisters of Wednesbury can be appreciated in all their glory.
It would be hard not to love this place.
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