Day 50 - On signs

Chris and I used to eat frugally as students, now he was cooking us bacon and quails' eggs.

Lest I should assume that this was the way he started each day, he told me that they had been bought for a dinner party. We had three each, peeling their ever so slightly rubbery shells and eating them whole.

I happened to mention this treat on Twitter and received the response, "How typically Sutton Coldfield!"

Technically, I was in Four Oaks. But this is still the part of Birmingham (though some would contest even that) which Brummies poke fun at for its middle-class peculiarities.

I set off past Waitrose (of course), through Mere Green and Roughley, under the M6 Toll road.

I'd been planning to reach Middleton via an appealingly straight east-west lane. The motorway and diverted A38 had chopped the road into pieces, giving me a tricky bit of manouvering to find the right route. But talking with Jennifer on the phone I past the turning.

Not wanting to turn back, I decided to take a more northerly route towards Drayton Bassett, where I spotted the Heart of England Way running along the towpath of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. The sun was shining and I anticipated a lovely easy-paced stroll.

(continues in Part Two)