Day 48 Part 2 - The A461

(continued from Part One)

In The Butts, much has changed. The blocks of flats that overlooked our back garden are gone, the ring road has been widened and the Littleton Arms is no more.

Cars no longer weave around the potholes, which used to appear each month outside the fire station, to be hastily patched up with scabs of tarmac. And the huge roundabout that some locals used to avoid in the same way that the most nervous Parisiens avoid the Etoille is now a complicated light-controlled junction.

On to the Lichfield Road and I began a steady and unspectacular walk through Rushall, Shelfield, and Walsall Wood. I paused to wash down the sandwich that Sue pazcked for me with a pint of Banks's at The Fisherman's Rest. A sign advertised forthcoming nights of entertainment. One of the bands was called "51 stone" and I fancied this must be the combined weight of the band members. Were they a lithe five-piece boy-band, or an overweight husband and wife duo?

I shared the bar with just one othe customer, a chap of at about 75. We sat on adjacent tables with our pints, watching the three huge TV screens playing music videos from the summer of 1981. I was eighteen at the time and during every classic hit I had to resist the temptation to sing along. But what of my companion? He would have been the age that I am now when Spandau Ballet, UB40, Genesis and Bob Marley were singing these songs. It made me wonder if I'd be sharing a pub in thirty years time listening to today's music.

In Shire Oak the space between the swimming pool and the fitness centre had been developed as a KFC fried chicken restaurant. I wondered how many people used all three on the same days.

Downhill and eventually out into the country I realised that I'd given myself the problem of coping with the natural consequences of a pint of beer on a chilly day, on a busy main road. It took quite a while to find an entrance to a field with hedges tall enough to conceal my relief.

(continues in Part Three)