Tag: Woodhouses

September 18th – Ah, the season of the conker.

Every year, I point out the same truism: that few men can pass a conker lying on the ground and not pop it into their pocket. It’s a primal instinct from childhood, when they were seemingly so rare, and highly prized. 

Despite the leaf-miners and cankers, the horse chestnuts have had a fruitful year and the beautifully shiny, leathery nuts lie in their split spiky husks on the ground beneath many a rural tree. This one, spotted near Burntwood, ended up in my pocket too.

It’s be rude not to.

September 5th – Ah, Autumn. Or is it? I guess we’re on the cusp, really. It’s cold; it was very chilly out today, and the hedgerows and copses of Hammerwich, Wall and Stonnall were full of large, juicy blackberries and other fruits. The elderberries and sloes are blackening up. There’s hints of brown and yellow in the leaves. The light is soft.

In a spot I know in the backlanes, apples hang off the branches of wild trees. Pippins and russets have done well this year – sweet and crunchy, when I took a look, they were falling to the ground and being eaten by wasps.

Good to see them.

October 14th – At the junction of Woodhouses Road and Lichfield Road at Edial, near Burntwood, there’s an imperious horse chestnut tree, and this season it has fruited in abundance. I have never seen so many conkers littering the ground. I mentioned my love of the brown, shiny nuts a week or so ago. I just had to stop and take a few home. Just instinct.