Images

April 28th – Another striking return is of the leaves to the row of trees on Stafford Park in Telford. I love this regimented row, which in winter always makes me think of Joni Mitchell and her song ‘Urge for Going’  with the line ‘Shivering trees standing in naked rows’ – but in spring, summer and autumn, when caught at the right angle, these carefully planted and well maintained trees are a joy to the heart.

Such a lovely shade of green.

April 28th – A beautiful morning but yet again, very cold. It’s like spring has been underway in every form except the temperature, which is stuck resolutely in early March.

The chill hasn’t stopped the spring arrivals, however; daisies, buttercups, cowslips and other grassland flowers are booming, and the dandelions in particular are superb at the moment.

These lovely yellow flowers, so often ignored, are a gorgeous colour and actually fascinating if you stop to study them.

So great to have them back.

April 25th – Awful commuting weather. On the way to work in the morning, I faced a grim wind and sharp, heavy shows. It was cold and I was missing waterproof trousers, so arrived at work damp and miserable. Similarly, on the way home I was caught in heavy rain, but this time there was a severe headwind. And between the squalls? Flashes of bright sunshine and dark, threatening skies.

April has proven a real challenge this year.

April 22nd – A rare break in the clouds saw the sun shine as I came up from the canal at Bentley Bridge on my way back from an errand at lunchtime. To left and right here, out of shot are massive scrapyards, yet running like a green vein through the centre, the canal; peaceful, tranquil, verdant.

I love the Black Country and this scene typifies the way it’s canals exist as magical green natural corridors through great sprawls of urban life.

Wonderful.

April 21st – I came back through Walsall Wood as I had to make a call, and noted that the new leisure centre at Oak Park was nearing completion. Due to the size and location, it’s been really hard to get decent pictures of, but it looks like it’s going to be a great place and a worthy successor to the raging centre currently here.

I note huge amounts of earth are being moved around the site at the moment to regrade an re-landscape it.

I look forward to seeing the finished project.

April 20th – I was rolling down a back street in Birchills, Walsall when I spotted this fellow in the road. Outwardly in rude health, but clearly dazed, I think he’d had glancing contact with a vehicle and was stunned. I took his photo – chaffinches a re glorious, beautiful wee birds – then gently picked him up, checked him over and popped him in a nearby hedge to hopefully recover.

Wonderful to get so close to such a beautiful bird, but sad the circumstances in which it occurred. Hope he was OK. I think I probably saved him from being squished if nothing else.

April 19th – Spotted on the way home, a small group of red deer at the far side of a freshly planted field on the south side of Jockey Meadows, near High Heath.

Haven’t seen deer on this side of Green Lane for a while. They were right over by the brook, and I guess they’d been laying low in the marsh there for most of the day.

I still can’t really believe we live in a place where these large, wonderful and beautiful creatures roam freely.

After all these years, to see the deer is still a delight.

April 9th – I passed this tiled mural late this afternoon, and finally recorded it as I’ve been intending to do since starting this journal all those years ago. It’s a simple, tiled inset in an otherwise blank shopfront wall next to AE Poxon Butchers, High Street, Brownhills. It shows, obviously, a bucolic scene of the kind of livestock the proprietor purveys – set in rolling, beautiful countryside.

Curiously, no chickens.

This is old. Really old. Poxon’s is an old company and a very old shop. This has been here certainly as long as I can remember, and much longer than that. I know nothing of who painted it or if it’s significant in anything more than as a local curiosity.

It’s a lovely thing, for sure, and a bit of Brownhills heritage.