Galleries

October 5th – One of the best things about autumn is the sudden and prolific emergence of the mycology.  Yesterday, there was nothing of note on this twenty-metre long, 1 meter wide grass edge in Telford. Today, after a cold, damp night, two different types of puffballs, tricholoma,, field mushrooms and tough-shanks variously peppered the damp grass. What isn’t often appreciated about these curious fungi is that they aren’t separate organisms; the surface growth is merely a bloom for a surface, or subsurface organism. How cool is that?

October 4th – Telford Railway Station is a wreck right now, and has been for some time. I’ve always disliked it – not unpleasant in the daytime, with easy ramp access, but at night in winter it’s cold, lonely and desolate. I still wince at memories of waiting for late trains here in the freezing, snowy run up to Christmas 2010. The whole site was due a refurb, but half way through, the builders who won the contract went bust. Allegedly now restarted, I’ve yet to see anyone on site actually doing anything. A disgrace.

October 3rd – The mystery of the bean field is solved. As I cycled past this evening, the farmer was harvesting the crop of beans I considered last week to be lost. I’d been musing on exactly how they were harvested for a while, and it seems the technique is identical to how much local maize is harvested: the whole plant is mown off at about six inches above ground, then chopped into rough chunks by the machinery, where presumably, it’s loaded into a trailer. I’d assume the beans a therefore used as fodder.

That’s a very big machine. Impressive stuff, and a mystery no more.

October 3rd – Out to Telford at dawn meant cycling to Shenstone Station. The weather has been really variable this week, the one constant factor being the northeasterly wind that’s blown me to Shenstone in the morning and home from Walsall at night. Just as this is the time of year for good sunsets, it’s also the time for decent sunrises, too, although I’m usually too rushed to photograph them. Today was a good example – a gorgeous sky heralding a temperate day. Coupled with the shinbone skyline, it was beautiful.

October 2nd – The condition of the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood seems to be deteriorating, but I’m not sure who’s responsible. This steep sided, notorious canal crossing is over a century old, and is made of brick and iron. The guard rails are wooden, and bolted on to angle-iron posts, which have now corroded away causing the guard rails to fall off. For a month or so now, someone has erected and re-erected orange webbing fencing to cover the hazard, but they’ve been so idle about the task that rather than cut the excess off, they rolled it up and stuffed the remainder in a gap. It regularly falls out and flaps in the road.
I hope someone, somewhere is planning a more permanent repair. 

September 30th – A grim, wet and windy day. I went out about 6pm, and enjoyed a spin round a dark and deserted Brownhills. It felt very wintery, but the wet roads sang under my wheels and the unusual solitude on the streets was welcome. In Coppice Lane, Brownhills, I noted the scumbags have been flytipping again; 2 complete leather sofas and at the top, garden waste.

If you pay people to do jobs like gardening or rubbish removal on the cheap, you’re contributing to this problem. It costs everyone money, as our council tax has to pay for the cleanup.

The animals that do this are arseholes. No more, no less.

September 29th – It’s finally happened. We’ve had so much rain in recent months, the Chasewater has refilled to an unthought of degree. Now, the water level is registering on the scale on the pier; just 20 days ago it was well below it. The scale starts at 148.35m AOD, having risen from it’s low point of 143.7m AOD last September. A huge gain, nobody thought this was really possible. 

Mind you, the price of this restoration has been a bloody awful summer…

September 28th – Finally, when I got home, I got some cycling in. I had to nip down to Stonnall in the early evening, and as the dusk fell, I realised I hadn’t got my gorilla pod – the adaptable camera mount I use for night shots. Since I don’t have steady hands, I had to rely on my fallback night photography trick – standing the camera on street furniture and fences, and setting it on self timer. 

The results were’t too bad.