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!