February 27th – It was still bitingly cold, but the predicted heavy snows missed us, instead teasing me with light flurries at the same time as bright sunshine. The contrast was beautiful.
In Victoria Park in Darlaston, hungry pigeons flocked to me when I stopped, but it was so beautiful. Thankfully the roads were not too icy, but the cold and wind were unpleasant.
Worth it for the beauty, though.
November 8th – And further on, at the top end of Victoria Park, the trees look absolutely beautify now they’re shedding their leaves. Riding up around the park, it was good to see the guys from the council tidying and sprucing up the war memorial for Remembrance Sunday.
The day in prospect was making me heavy-hearted but with such a lovely start, it couldn’t be a bad day on the whole.
August 29th – A day of animals with no time to talk. I saw the tabby with the remarkably bush tail strolling purposefully down where else but the Catroplis that is Scarborough Road.
I suspect puss is female, and was having no truck with my sort. Despite calling, making gentle gestures and the like, she said me zero heed and continued her walk down the road.
The squirrel in Victoria Park was similarly busy, gathering and burying acorns, storing food for winter, or ay be just starting off new saplings, who knows?
Neither animal stopped long enough for a good photo, so sadly, you’ll have to make do with these snatches quick ones, because… they were so busy.
August 23rd – I’m also really enjoying Victoria Park in Darlaston at the moment. Still to pull on it’s autumn jacket, the greens are still bright and the mystic bridge looks as gorgeous as ever.
I keep banging on about this but Darlaston and it’s parks are gorgeous. If you live nearby and have never been, why not pay them a visit?
August 22nd – The Elderberry crop looks decent this year, which is always a good sign for local home-brew winemakers.
I will be out collecting buckets of these tiny back juice laden berries for a relative to perform the usual magic of transforming this bitter, black harvest into a dizzying, beautiful dark red nectar.
They also make a wonderful sight as a roll around the area.
The oncoming autumn is lovely when you stop fighting it…
August 21st – Back in Darlaston, the building behind the town hall – for all the world nothing but a small, brick-built, ornate garage – had had more masonry removed, and scaffolding erected.
This is a sad state for what was the town’s fire station in the earliest days of the service to be in.
The site has been cleaned out and is tidy, and the further demolition seems too neat and level to be part of a total removal, so I’m hopeful this is the start of a full restoration.
I still have no idea what happened here, I’d be interested to find out.
August 18th – As I got nearer to work, I realised I’d just missed a very localised downpour, I love how the rain an light made Victoria Park look as things lightened up. Dripping gently, the green was beautiful and you’d never think you were in such an urban, industrial place so close to a town centre.
One of the many reasons to love Darlaston…
August 10th – Oak galls continue to fascinate, and on this tree in Victoria Park, Darlaston, there’s quite a display of knopper galls, the first I’ve seen this year.
Like other oak parasites, the knopper wasp lays eggs in it’s host, secreted in a chemical that corrupts the cellular DNA of the host plant matter causing the gall too grow. In this case, the target is the acorn itself, and on this tree, one can see some acorns blighted by two such galls.
As with others, the egg hatches and ithe wasp larva eats the gall and grows safe in it’s corrupted acorn, before boring it’s way out when mature.
Also on this tree, the more conventional wasp gall – the common ‘oak apple’ of folklore, a spherical gall grown the same way.
These galls don’t harm the host, but do reduce the functional acorn crop. I’d love to know just why the oak is targeted so particularly with the and not so much other trees…
July 17th – Later the same day, in Darlaston. A summer place.
This, my friends, is the heart of the Black Country: thought by people who don’t know it to be ugly, defiled, polluted and unlovely.
It’s actually mostly the absolute opposite and that’s why it has such a large part of my heart and soul.
This is my place.
July 10th – Nice to see the rowan, or mountain ash berries ripening well, adding a welcome splash of orange to hedgerows, verges and thickets.
A useful berry, it can be used to make jam or wine, and birds love it.
Can’t help feeling a tinge of sadness hough that this new arrival signals a notch further towards late summer and the fruiting season.
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