Growing: a small but very real allotment fillip

This might seem a tad odd, but on sitting down to reheated soup for lunch I suddenly realised that every ingredient had been grown on our allotment - & we are 'just about good enough' allotmenteers in the summer months. Black Beauty courgette, Charlotte potatoes, Lyons 2 leeks, Nero di Toscana kale, Gigante di Napoli parsley, Jalapeno chilli. Don't let the weird sludgey-green put you off; tasty, tasty, very, very tasty  - it's very tasty! It's all proved worthwhile... 'cos sometimes it doesn't!

Walking: Wyrley & Essington Canal 2 - Bloxwich, via the Mossley & Cheslyn Hay to Cannock

A second half day along the Wyrley & Essington, this time heading west from Leamore - a chunk of canal I've never walked - through bucolic bits of Bloxwich (but never far from the sound of the M6). Skirting the Mossley estate, we joined the northern, disused element of the canal at Broad Lane; this section has been reinvented as a rather lovely natural corridor linking Bloxwich & Cheslyn Hay. Skirting the western edge of Cheslyn Hay on green paths, down through the rec & Hatherton Reservoir, allowed the 'countryside' element of this walk to continue until we reached the A5 at Bridgtown.     

Walking: Wyrley & Essington Canal 1 - Bloxwich, via Pelsall to Cannock

I would advise everyone to take this wonderful town-&-country walk from Bloxwich via Pelsall to Cannock: joining the Wyrley & Essington Canal at Leamore, up to the Cannock Extension, then through the lanes to Great Wyrley. These are from a few months ago, but it really is too good a half day (in any season) walk to ignore...