News from Redditch...

Beacon Hill Toposcope, Lickey Hills on a cold day

Time is moving on, but nothing much is changing. We have walked and walked, still mostly on pavements which has caused a problem for Brian. He complained his heel felt like it was bruised, but there was nothing to see. 

However it got worse, not actually while we were walking, but afterwards, so I looked it up on the web. Hmm, sounds like plantar fasciitis, relatively common, but can take a while to go. Jo has suffered for years and said REST. I wouldn’t let him out for the weekend, so I had to do all the irritating running about, papers, cake, chippy.... 

A cold but sunny (and showery!) 17km bike ride

Fortunately he got an appointment with the podiatrist just down the road who squeezed him in on Tuesday lunchtime, and told him what to do and what not to do. It seems to be all about supporting the foot, so no barefoot walking, not even to the loo in the middle of the night! This is a little annoying but he’s doing as he’s told! Fortunately Ted has been taken out of the storage area by the maintenance man who has a workshop up at the storage, to repair the back corner, damaged on the gate post. What does this have to do with Brian’s feet? Only that the bikes were still in Ted, and we are not allowed access to the storage, Dan’s workshop however is a different story. We went to get the bikes yesterday, managed about 17 km, though it was colder than we expected, and did rain on us a little, but at least it’ll stop him going stir crazy....

Here's the view of Birmingham from the top of the monument on Beacon Hill Toposcope. There are almost uninterrupted views all round from here, the Malvern Hills also visible in the other direction. There's probably lots of landmarks, but the one that's most obvious are the three oval buildings left of centre, which is the New Queen Elizabeth Hospital. You must be able to see the Rotunda and the iconic Selfridges building but, sadly, my photo isn't sharp enough to pick them out. Must come up here with binoculars!

We’ve done a couple more stints with Support Redditch, one just delivery and one packing and delivery, though this time I delivered, and Brian packed. We’d just told the mechanic in the village he could keep the car overnight for service and MOT when Emma asked if we were available. We were, but only in mum’s car, which B isn’t insured to drive. I returned from my five deliveries to the guys packing, and talking, which I suspected would happen! The plus to this was we were still there when one of the other delivery guys popped in for his boxes with 4 donuts. These weren’t just normal donuts, mine had a Rolo on, B’s a strawberry....they were definitely a cut above! We didn’t need lunch after.

Birthday cake for Pauline. Big breath now!

The date finally came round for Mum’s Internet switch, we assumed she’d have had no internet all day Sunday but that hadn’t been the case and first thing Monday she messaged to say the telephone had gone over but that she appeared to have a new number! This was not what we wanted to happen so B got on the phone to Plusnet. At least you can get on the phone to Plusnet which is more than can be said for TalkTalk. The lady was quite insistent there was nothing she could do, mum’s old number would be in ‘quarantine’ for a fortnight but they would put a request in to get it returned to her on its release. This wasn’t good enough, so B requested a call back from her manager, who also insisted there was nothing he could do, until B went on a bit, and he decided that if the number had only ever belonged to BT he might be able to just.... We got the number back the following day. Hurrah. We then waited all day for the broadband to be connected, it could take up to midnight you know? We didn’t, and it hadn’t happened before we went home for dinner. It still hadn’t happened the following morning, so B back on the phone. “Oh yes, I’ve just got to make this switch” he was a lovely man, and it only took a moment, but why had we had to call about it at all? Back to mum to connect her and all is good.

Carefully chosen as its purple inside (although this photo doesn't really show it up)

It was a busy week for mum, the following day was her birthday, so back with flowers and cake and chocolates. Not to mention brisket cooking itself in the Mr.D thermal cooker, mmm beef with all the trimmings.

A robin on Paulines bird table, tidying up the seeds dropped by the blue tits

We’ve all been a bit ‘doctored’, B has had his Covid jab, which didn’t hurt a bit but left him feeling completely rubbish for the whole of the next day, he’s been to the podiatrist with his feet, and for a cystoscopy. I’ve been for a mammogram, and mum has been to the opticians which has led to an appointment at the Kidderminster hospital eye department next week. The NHS is doing things other than Covid then.

Brians Covid jab was at a pharmacy HQ in Redditch. This looks like its normally a Goods Inwards/Warehouse, the gazebo on the right is against the roller shutter door and the entrance. The desk almost off on the right is reception, I'm sitting in the waiting area. The four gazebos in front are the vaccination areas, you walk out into the far side and wait 15 minutes if you're driving, and the exit back out through the gazebo. All very well organised

We are still cooking up a storm, B did a great chicken madras the other week, and I got some sea bass going cheap. Yesterday was a joint Indian cooking day, how to use the end of the roast chicken and half a tin of lentils? Well that’s obviously a curry, would it be enough? Well I did buy some gram flour last year, and have to try onion Bhajis at some point. They were surprisingly easy, and surprisingly good. We’d picked up some poppadoms from Aldi, raita is easy as is onion and tomato salad, and lime pickle (we had some in a jar) what about mango chutney? Can it be made from this horrible dried mango the lovely people we Housesat for in Glasgow last year gave us? Turns out it can. Three course, yummy Indian meal it was then! Made up for eating nothing but pancakes the previous night, some with traditional sugar and lemon and some with banana, ice cream and gooey rich butterscotch sauce mum had made!

Just one of many culinary delights created mainly by Jackie, with help from me. Sea Bass - fabulous!

Zoom call last night with Solihull Mountaineering Club. Bill was going to talk about ski touring in Scandinavia and Phil about Astrophotography, one of his many hobbies. In the end Bill had to postpone due to technical problems so Phil took the two slots. Here's one of his slides and, on the right 4 of the attendees (there were 13 in all), we're at the top with me taking the photo, next down is Margaret with just the tail of Poppy, her cat showing (she was looking straight into the camera but I was too late), next down is Rob and Alex , Jackie was WhatsApp messaging Alex during most of this, hence the reason they are both looking down. They were like naughty schoolchildren sitting at the back of class passing notes to each other and not paying attention! 

Its been cold here this last week or so (its warmed up a bit now), due to the new Beast From The East that's caused lots of snow. I was slightly amused by this since the headline said 4 degrees warmer tomorrow. Sounds good, except that 4 degrees warmer means +1 degree, up from minus 3!

Exploring Redditch

 

Headless Cross, Redditch on a snowy day

It’s not exciting in lockdown, but we are still enjoying ourselves. We are simple souls as I said last time. So we’ve walked, mostly through Redditch as it’s been very damp, so the countryside and woods are very muddy. We did have a lovely snowy walk a week ago while the ground was still frozen but the sky blue and no wind. The advantage of Redditch is it’s a ‘new town’ so there are green spaces, little bits of woodland and lakes all joined together by proper paths. Paths which were thought about so go over or under all the major roads making for a good safe environment. I know in some places underpasses can be a little unsavoury or scary, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here, though we don’t tend to be ambling about after dark. The worst we’ve had is a couple of floodings that we haven’t fancied paddling through! There is one underpass on our way to Tesco that seems to be an informal boxing gym. I haven’t stared hard enough to decide if it’s always the same client or if the trainer has different people on a one to one. Either way, it’s not a problem there’s space for all!

It snowed, so we had to go out for a walk in the sunshine. This was Monday, so few people were around. Just to the left of Jackies head (her right) on the horizon are the Malvern Hills with snow on them. Memories of when we ski toured over them many years back and skied off the summit - not many can say that!

Our Tesco bargains. All this for £3.61

Tesco has become a feature of many of our walks, we know where the reduced shelves are, so can dash through looking for bargains. We did go in for a swede to go with our haggis on Burns night and did spend more than the 80p a swede would have cost, BUT for that we got a bag of diced swede for 11p, two packs of fish cakes, mini lamb roasts, lots of veggies and some good pasta salad and hummus all for £3.61. The 75% markdowns before 13.00 are most unusual!

The snow did hijack mum having her Covid jab, I’m sure the road into Birmingham would have been fine, but our, road, mum’s road and possibly where the mosque actually was left a little to be desired. We didn’t fancy running the risk of running into anything else, so cancelled, fortunately the postponement was only three days and then came through in Bromsgrove, half the distance away, much more convenient.

St. Stevens Church Redditch (under repair)

We’ve done a second session for Support Redditch, I packed boxes for families, couples and singles while Brian did another set of deliveries. That along with all our walking is really helping ‘join up’ Redditch. What is interesting is the variety of people who have rung up to ask for help. It can’t be easy to ask for help in this way yet they all seem very thankful for the boxes. What is a bit of a surprise is the houses that we’ve been to haven’t all been in the more rundown areas, we’ve had a doddery old boy, with a personalised number plate on his car, and a a delivery to near where we are with two new cars and a caravan on the drive. Furlough or job loss can be hitting all sorts of people.

On our walk today, which took in Redditch centre, we came across this monument to a drummer, right by St Stevens church. On inspection we found it is to the great John Bonham, drummer with Led Zeppelin and considered one of the greatest drummers of all time. He was born in Redditch in 1948, but died 32 years later in 1980 after consuming 40 measures of vodka in 12 hours. Led Zeppelin disbanded shortly after out of respect for him

Just round the corner from John Bonhams monument is another. These are images of needles and a wavy line of bricks through them to signify a thread. Its there to commemorate Redditch's many factories that made the worlds needles. Incredibly, in 1870 Redditch industries manufactured 90% of all needles in the world!

Here's another interesting fact. This is Redditch railway station and is the end of the line that runs from Birmingham New Street, through our village of Alvechurch to here. However, it hasn't always ended here, it used to continue on through that red buffer, under the bridge we're standing on and on through places like Studley, Coughton, Alcester, Evesham and onto Ashchurch,  where it joined the main line from Birmingham to Gloucester. This station was built in 1972 and was originally a goods yard, the original station was behind me on the other side of the bridge but was demolished to make way for the Kingfisher shopping centre and bus station.

This was the original line. Apparently, in 1965 it was proposed to close the whole line, but the section from Barnt Green, through Alvechurch and Redditch was saved. I got this map from the website http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/r/redditch/index.shtml and if you click on the link you can read a bit more about its history

There's a huge number of walks in and around Redditch. Here's one through some woods which is located next to a Tesco superstore close to us. You would never know you were in or near a city. We haven't been up there yet as its very muddy, as are all the walking trails at the moment, so we're concentrating on local walks on tarmac paths until its drier. There are many such paths leading through towns, parks and woodland, dodging the main roads with underpasses or bridges. Its really very well organised.

Here's a link to a video of a walk we did on a snowy day. It shows the route we did and includes a few snowy photos. I tried to embed it on this page so it self loaded but it didn't work, so you have to click on the link. We've done loads of these of every walk we've done, but one's enough on here we think!  

Have a look:

https://video.relive.cc/3148268935_underarmour_1611583303261.mp4?x-ref=site

And finally, here's some photos of an excellent Chinese meal Jackie cooked:

Here's the raw ingredients. Belly pork cooked in the broth you can see for 2 hours (giving it a huge depth of flavour), then fried in a sticky chili sauce. There's also king prawns cooked garlic, Bok Choi and beansprouts amongst others for vegetables

The finished dinner ready to eat. It was fabulous - and the smell... you'll just have to imagine!