Images

October 28th – An irritating day where I forgot my camera and everything happened at top speed, so little time to take photos. I’d been over to Telford in the afternoon and came back from Shenstone as dusk fell.

These lanes, I know them so well; they run though my veins like blood. I must have ridden this route thousands of times, and certainly many with the impending feeling of autumn I had today.

I know I will again ride this way on a springtime, sunny day and the wheel will continue it’s inexorable rotation, but tonight, in the gathering dark, it felt a very long way off.

I hate the dark months.

October 27th – Again passing through Telford, I came past a row of trees on Stafford Park whose neat, straight planting always fascinated me. 

Just beginning to turn, they’re a welcome dash of colour in a grey urban landscape on a dull day.

Every year, I note these trees come into leaf, blossom, and shed their leaves. Seeing another cycle complete makes me feel old…

October 27th – Spotted in Victoria Park, Darlaston, this field mushroom. All on its own, it’s mates had either been picked, or not turned up – but this was a splendid specimen, and quite rare so far this year due to the dry autumn we appear to be having.

It’s a strange autumn when you can’t find enough wild mushrooms for a senescent omelette!

October 22nd – Seeing my old friend, who’s still ill but better than the time I saw him in the spring, we talked about time, and waiting and how illness makes waiting a very variable thing.

During the conversation I reflected on that being the reason why I doggedly note and watch the yearly changes, and any season’s passage welcome or unwelcome, is time gained, even if ultimately lost. 

Time’s arrow is sometimes your greatest friend, and sometimes your worst enemy. But time is everything, and one thing my friend taught me today was that time with those we like and love is valuable, whether a gained or lost.

As autumn closes in, both I and my friend look forward to a warm spring with the sun on our faces and open countryside, fine walks, a good pint in a decent pub, and the joy of time to pass.

Get well soon old friend. This journey, though mine alone, is still for you.

October 22nd – I’d been to see an old mate who’s not been so well of late, and came back along the canal past the new pond at Clayhanger, where a large, grumbling flock of Canada geese seem to have lately taken residence.

Oddly, they aren’t aggressive, but aren’t scared of me either, and I have to stop and actively shoo them out of the way, which they’ll com-operate with grudgingly.

They’re puzzling me a bit as all the other local geese are positively sociopathic malcontents, honking and flapping at anything that approaches.

People give these geese a hard time, but they are actually quite fascinating birds.

October 20th – Heading home along the canal through Pleck, another of those rare treats: a rainbow.

It hadn’t rained here that I was aware of and I guess someone in east Walsall was getting an unexpected shower.

Hadn’t seen any for ages, and this is the third this month. You can’t beat a good rainbow.

October 18th – Stripes here is cross because on the way to work, I disturbed his hunting activities, and scared off the blackbird he was painstakingly stalking in Pleck.

Bless him, he was so very cross with me. But oh, hasn’t he got a wonderful ‘tache!

A lovely cat. But I’m glad the blackbird was spared for another day, at least.

October 17th – I’ve passed through Ocker Hill and Toll End a fair bit lately, and I’ve noticed this house at the top of Toll End Road near the island.

It’s old. I think it’s older than anything in the immediate vicinity, and of what looks like a very un-black country design; the only thing I can liken it to around these parts is the old White Lion in Caldmore Green, Walsall.

Does anyone know the history of this curious house please?

October 16th – I remember when we just used to get plain old moons, but these days every full moon is special for one reason or another – a harvest moon, a supermoon, a hunters moon, which this was – all of a sudden every appearance of this old familiar has to be special.

Which is daft, really, because the moon always is special. Caught from near George’s Hayes, Longdon, it was low and made orange by the atmosphere. 

I never tire of looking at the moon.