March 31st -Spotted on Clayhanger Common, a touch of optimism in the gloom: one of my guerrilla seeded patches of cowslips is just coming into flower.
My favourite flowers that I spread the seeds for ten years ago now have returned, and in the middle of a wet Saturday when it seemed the sun will never shine, they appeared to cheer me up.
Spring, right there.
BrownhillsBob’s #365daysofbiking turned 7 today!
(Well, actually yesterday, but not bad going I think…)
March 29th – Again returning from Shenstone, again it was raining as as I alighted from the train. My heart was heavy and I didn’t fancy the wet ride home but something caught my eye in the shrub border to the platform.
An ornamental blackcurrant, in flower. It was dripping with rain, but that glorious pinky red was most vivid in the gloom. And for that, it made me happy.
March 28th – Daffodils. We all love them. I don’t think it’s possible to dislike these jolly, bright spring staples; yellow, white and orange, growing in gardens, verges, hedgerows, woodland and wasteland.
I adore them because they symbolise a new year beginning of light, long days, good rides and beautiful nature.
They are stunning in the huge displays they form, but while those are undoubtedly wonderful, I’d like to hear it for the solitary soldiers of spring – the loners, the brave, singular blooms you see dotted about.
Often on verges or poor ground, they may be the tentative start of a new patch in coming years, destined to multiply and impress from a single bulb that got there – who knows how?
They may be the last remnant of a patch decimated by disease (as large daffodil colonies often are) or disturbed by man.
They may not be perfect. They may be tatty, small or distorted. They may be eking out the last scrap of nutrition from a poor clump of soil, or harassed by traffic, animals or the wind, but they’ve done it, the lonely, single flowers. They put on a show for us.
Let’s hear it for the tenacious, bold one-offs!
March 27th – And in Darlaston, near the Black Country Route, the hawthorn is coming into leaf, splattering formerly dull, barren hedgerows with bursts of vivid emerald green.
Spring really is trying her very hardest to please us.
March 27th – A wet, cold unpleasant commute in both directions made for a horrible day, but seeing wild primroses in bloom defying the gloom on a roadside verge in Wednesbury really cheered me up.
Joy and the relief it provides can come from unexpected places.
March 24th – One thing I am liking very much at the moment is the improvement works to the Shire Oak Junctions. At 8pm on a Saturday it was of course quiet, and the asphalt glistened in the light in the damp of a short, passed shower. But the new surface, more intelligent light operation and better lane markings have made a real difference, and queues along the A461 – particularly at peak times are significantly reduced.
When Streets Corner is also complete, I expect the difference will be really noticeable.
Well done to all concerned.
March 24th – I had stuff to do at home, and didn’t get out until after dark, when I nipped down to Stonnall to call at a pal’s house.
Stonnall is an interesting village; it seems to be sprawling and dormitory now, and I caused a bit of a fuss a few years ago on this journal for likening it to Stepford; but the housing here from the postwar decades does seem to have enveloped what must have been quite a characterful place, and I find that the older buildings and their charm only become really evident now after dark.
It’s a nice enough place, for sure, but time hasn’t been kind to it.
March 21st – Leaving my camera at home made a bad day for photos – but the day was dull anyway, so at least not much was lost.
Coming back through Brownhills, though, I noticed the sky was that gorgeous azure blue of late spring dusks, and the moon was a pleasing crescent above the still skeletal trees.
I feel certain we’ve seen the last of winter now – and I’ve probably just doomed it, but there you go – and I’m really eager for sunny, warm days.
With the clocks going forward on Sunday it seems like a real possibility and not just a distant dream now.
March 19th – Things that happen when you’re not looking….
Sunday must have been the mathematical vernal equinox: When day and night are equal in length at 12 hours. Today, with sunrise at 6:13 and sunset at 6:17, the day was longer than night by four minutes.
Of course, the equinox isn’t as simple as that; there’s a full explanation on Wikipedia here and the true astronomical equinox, when the earth’s equator passes the centreline of the sun, occurs on Tuesday 20th March this year (2018).
This is another little milestone to longer, better days; with the coming of British Summer Time on Sunday next weekend, it will feel like summer is just around the corner.
Hopefully, the weather will oblige too.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 