What better place, on a grey day! Comer Woods have become popular – there are quite a few other cars parked. Woodland is very absorbent however – we pass just three other people on our four-mile circuit. Towards the end of the walk, when the path nears the main road, there’s some traffic noise – otherwise, there’s just birdsong, an odd light aircraft – and the occasional tooting and chuffing of trains on the Severn Valley Railway, out of sight but well within earshot. We like Comer Woods!

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We’re wandering from Benthall Hall, to Posenhall, Wyke and the woods of Benthall Edge. The colours of spring and early summer are mostly gone, being replaced by the gradually appearing autumnal tints.

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More than ten degrees cooler. Yesterday it was just over 30C, today it’s barely 20C (rather humid though – can’t have everything!). After several excessively hot days, it’s good to be out in the much fresher air around Willey, where the corn (was it wheat or barley? Can’t remember!) has been harvested, and the apples and damsons look ready for picking.

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“A restored brick structure, once thought to be an ice-house, but more likely used for storage” – so says the website of ‘The Nine Men of Madeley project’. It’s all that remains of Madeley Wood Hall, demolished around 100 years ago. Whatever it is or was, it’s an interesting destination for a walk on this very warm morning. Ice house? An ice cream would have made the morning perfect…

Nine Men of Madeley Project: Madeley Wood Hall

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… a warm evening on Wenlock Edge. Perhaps it’s the heat? Things are not normal in the woods near Stokes’s Barn.

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Seeking the shade with a walk along Shirlett Lane, down Round Hill, through the Smithies and back up Ned’s Lane. Crabs? Two years ago, we had an excellent haul of tiny apples (which later became excellent crab apple jelly) from a tree along the way. Last year, barely an apple to be seen. This year – it’s well laden. We’ll be back! Near the bottom of Round Hill, we stopped to watch dragonflies. Again, a couple of years ago they posed obligingly on the bushes. Today – no chance.  “That’s a big one”.  Yes, it would have been – but it was a bat, not a dragonfly, flitting about in broad daylight (it’s about 2.30pm).  In the Smithies, there are more reminders that, despite more warm weather to come, it will soon be autumn. Yellowing leaves, damsons – and wild hops in the hedgerow.

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After a busy day, an evening wander around these very quiet lanes is just the thing… Last autumn, there was a bush beside the lane, full of wild plums. It’s still there (I remember it well!) – but not a single fruit! Further along, there are damsons galore, though they’re some way off being ripe…

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It’s the 1st of August – Yorkshire Day! It’s a long way to the Yorkshire Dales, but just a little over 10 miles to Brown Clee, so that will have to do. Others had the same idea – it was quite crowded up there. We must have seen at least 15 other people, though happily they were well spread out. One had the temerity to sit in the chocolate seat! Fortunately we’d had our lunch, on the tranquil bank of Boyne Water, watching dozens of dragonflies and a goodly number of electric-blue damselflies. Most of them refused to be snapped, but one common darter posed obligingly. The sunshine was pleasant, the temperature likewise, with a gently-cooling breeze. Gradually, the sky’s blue turned milky white, and as I write, the rain is teeming down. I wonder if it’s raining in Yorkshire? (They’ll all be suppin in t’pub if they’ve any gumption…)

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We walked this way in early March (see Roaming around Rindleford) – the air was clear and cold, the spring vegetation just beginning to appear. At the end of July, it’s a different scene – warm, grey, flat lighting – and truly a jungle on the descent to Batch Lane. Similarities: the route; the quiet surroundings…

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