April 13th – It felt like winter returned today. Although the signs of spring were still all around – green shoots, songbirds flitting in and out of the hedges – the sky was dark and threatening. Here at Fighting Cocks Farm, between Stonnall and Springhill, it started to spot with rain.
April 12th – I’ve been able to find out little of John Smith. He was clearly a big cheese, because he could afford a handsome, three-storey foursquare traditional redbrick Staffordshire farmhouse – Ivy House Farm, Lower Stonnall. I pass this name stone set into the barn an awful lot, and often wonder if the stonemason did that deliberately, or if he was just illiterate, and copying something written for him. It’s a charming little mystery.
April 12th – It’s amazing just how far spring has advanced in just a few short, warm days. Birds are nesting, the first cowslips and bluebells are making their debut, and now the oilseed rape is close to being in full bloom.
I just hope that wasn’t it for summer this year…
April 11th – The Goscote Valley in North Walsall is often condemned as a polluted, post industrial wasteland. This is sad as although it suffers the issues of any urban green lung, the cycle trail that runs parallel to the Ford Brook – tributary to the River Tame – is a quiet and speedy way to travel. Today, my journey was punctuated by the sight of a kingfisher, a large male fox and a buzzard. Nature has a habit of surprising you.
April 11th – Credit crunch? Recession? Darlaston and it’s former workplaces never recovered from the damage of the Thatcher years. Roof removed as an early eighties tax dodge, the Charles Richards Imperial Bolt Works remains as a forlorn monument to what’s been lost.
April 10th – Low sun dapples the small, poolside copse on the Aldershawe Estate at Claypit Lane. This evening was more like late summer than early spring. It’s impossible not to love this countryside.
April 10th – Wall as seen from Bullmoor Lane, near Muckley Corner, on a short late afternoon ride.
April 7th – The bright greens and blues of spring are really beginning to show in the hedgerows, copses and fields. Here at Footherly, the birds are abundant and field margins are busy with rabbits, hares and patrolling buzzards.
April 7th – Little Aston Church looks like a rural idyll, one wouldn’t imagine it to be on the edge of the city, but it is. It has managed to maintain it’s sandstone beauty and air of isolation. A lovely scene to pass on journeys to and from work…
April 6th – Spring really got into gear today. Cycling home in shirtsleeves through green country lanes. Here in Lower Stonnall, the hawthorn is well in leaf and the golden hour renders every twist in this quiet lane a beautiful vista.
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