I put on clothes suitable for a country walk and remembered my sunglasses, and it was 12.37pm (and 17°c) when we left (with 23032 on the cars milometer) – and activity was beginning on the bowling green. The fields around Hill and Leek Wooten were incredibly green, a place was spotted housing alpacas – so we stopped, and the brown and the white alpacas there were very happy to pose…

…then Beausale was entered at 1pm precisely – via Dirty Lane, Hasely Knob and Drum Lane. There was an organic farm, I saw somewhere else called The Convent, it was 15°c at 1.07pm when we passed Baddesly Clinton, and we entered the car park of Packwood House 7 minutes later and nibbled some of our provisions. 1.26pm was when we began, and followed 3 little fluffy dogs up the driveway, through the gates and along what the book termed ‘Packwood Avenue’, and there were loud sheep noises coming from all directions, and a few lumps of sheep poo. At 1.40pm we went through a gate, past a very muddy and gooey pond – following 1 shitzu and 2 shitzus/Maltese terriers, and continued down the very lumpy bumpy root strewn path, where a little toddler (just over 1ft tall) was playing in a hole in this path with a ball and his brother and sister. We left the avenue at 1.55pm and crossed a road – into part of a farm with 3 silos, a big barn of hay bales; across another driveway sort of thing was a mound of grass with lots of dead daffodils and bluebells on it; and then we had to climb over a fence that said ‘public footpath’ on it, but as there was no stile, the way of getting over it was rather painful.

We crossed a private driveway with a disintegrating metal basketball hoop in it; then a very dark and wiggly path with signs on the posts saying it was the Millennium Way led us past a massive house with a red postbox outside. Once out from that footpath we crossed a railway bridge and passed a very pungent bush; further down the road was an equestrian centre, an ancient looking house, and we reached the bridge we’d gone the opposite way over earlier (which said on it that it was for Anglers Association Members only – and there were risks from overhead power lines).

We took the Grand Union Canal towpath at this bridge – where there were long-term moorings for boats, 1 had a washing line set up next to it, a cuckoo was heard, there was a man with a fishing rod a bit further down, midges everywhere, a pond to 1 side of the path covered with and partially solidified by algae, loud birdsong, a male duck having a nap and a female duck who may’ve been his wife swimming around with a fluffy duckling, and a strong smell of horse manure.

A boat was next to a pub sort of place with a busy garden – by bridge 65 – that we passed just after 3pm; a bridge on the right (numbered 37) had a slightly wonky signpost opposite, a sign said it was the Kingswood Junction, and a post with a big metal handle said on it ‘turn the handle to hear the story of Rosie Meller’, which was done, and the post started telling this story. A boat had a wooden statue of a rabbit with bolt upright ears on it, and as we reached Kingswood Junction (where there were boaters facilities – listed on a sign) I saw a dog stood on the end of a boat – looking very proud of what he was guarding. We crossed bridge 36A, turned right to Kings Norton where there were lots of boats moored, crossed another bridge, I noticed a boat named after a cat before we crossed bridge 35A, and a sign said it was the Kingswood Junction. A rather unhygienic dribbling ‘water point’ was by bridge 35,

which also had big pipes criss-crossing it with notices on them saying ‘DANGER OF DEATH – DO NOT CLIMB’, and the Lapworth flight of locks took us to bridge 34, which had a road and modern houses by it. There was a massive green pipe crossing the canal next to bridge 33 – prior to a massive flight of locks and a tiny metal marker in the grass that said ‘Kings Norton – 12 miles’ on it, and a blackbird was singing extremely loudly in the tree above it. By bridge 32 at 3.38pm – more bird twittering was going on; and 10 minutes later, we left the canal. The moon was out then, and there were midges everywhere; at 3.58pm we turned right – and on a lane with some massive houses and quite a lot of traffic – a gate had a sign on saying Horse Watch operates in this area (and I tried to record a bit of the very very loud bird twittering I could hear); and at 4.13pm, we reached Packwood House again, and Mum thought we deserved tea. We found the restaurant – which had a field of sheep on 1 side, lots of ice cream on sale, I saw a woman sat outside with a small Highland cow soft toy (and another woman sat with her smoking an electronic cigarette). There were interesting reusable bottles of water for sale, and a small boy (4 ish) and his sister (2 ish) were bouncing a tiny football backwards and forwards across a table – and it bounced off course and knocked over a glass of water. The father had bicycle themed tattoos all over his arms and legs, I saw a pram that said MacLaren on the side, and then noticed that the Highland cow soft toy had been joined on the table by another Highland cow and a duck soft toy. ‘Owl hoots’, little boxes of 50 activity cards that said ‘Busy Ideas For Bored Kids’ on them, long-handled turtle bags, some books titled The Great British Bucket List, olivewood dog chews, wooden acorns, various Reed diffusers, gin and tonic flavoured chocolate and lemon curd biscuits, coat hooks that looked like the back ends of dogs…

..and lots of plant pots made from coir by The Hairy Pot Plant Company were for sale in the shop; and it was 4.57pm when we returned to the car (which felt like a sauna due to being parked in the sun – so we sat there with the doors open for several minutes), and 5.02pm was when we set off home again.