16th January Stratford

Geoff has started playing football after school on a Friday and true to form he has a small injury already so he limped round Stratford today. I wasn't really expecting anything other than shops so only had my phone on me, but there are photos from other times we have been to get the feel of the place. As we walked down the side of the river it was still frozen around the start of the canal, further down the river there was turbulence from the weir and general flow of the water so swans were swimming and rowers were starting their practise.
 Holy Trinity Church RSC Theatre Shakespeare's Birth place Hall's Croft home of daughter and grand daughter and his grave!

Ryton Pools 9th Jan

We tried to avoid the mud on this walk so we turned to one of Warwickshire's county parks. Allegedly 12 minutes drive away, with the vague map on the web site we drove for 30 minutes before succumbing to using the internet. After arriving we wandered round on the none muddy paths, past ice cream vans, a sensory garden and the 'pools'. We popped into the bird hide put only spotted some mallards and a moor hen.

1st January 2016 Coventry Canal

To get in our 10 000 steps I try to find different places to walk. At present it’s a little muddy going over fields and footpaths so I’m looking for road walking (not my favourite) or places where it will be less wet. Living in canal country as we do at the moment we are looking for circular walks involving tow paths. Today’s excursion took us into Coventry (with the ulterior motive of picking Maddison up from a friend’s house). Parking at Ikea we walked across town to the Canal Basin.
   


From here we wandered along the tow path for 4 of the bridges before we needed to turn back. Over the top of some bridges there is a piece of art work depicting the journey we might have made given sufficient time.
 Viewed from one direction it looks somewhat like a snake with an open mouth, this end is actually the canal basin we started at.
Some of the art work along our way was reworked by spray can artists, which fitted in with the photos I didn’t take of the rubbish along our path.

         
We walked back into Coventry via the road that crosses bridge 4 and found our way via Sandwell Park which had free exercise equipment for people to use (we didn’t).

2nd Jan Mud, Mud, glorious mud

Walk 1349 - A Circular walk from Hunningham

We were looking for a walk to take near Leamington Spa before we picked up this weeks grocery shop from ASDA and the internet produced this little gem on the Walking Britain site. Only 4 miles so well within our capabilities even though there was a fine rain as we left home.
Parking at the Red Lion  we headed across the River Leam and through the kissing gate (yes we always do) towards Cubbington through varying depths of mud. Some patches so deep it covered our boots and other places were it was hardly noticeable. From Hunningham to Cubbington we followed the Millenium Way.

this trough style bridge was new to us!

 Walking back meant following normal public footpaths, although it did seem like not many of the public were following them. Possibly the amount of mud was slightly off-putting and the public would be flocking in their droves come the dry season to sample the delights of the great British outdoors.



After yet more muddy fields, a footbridge over the swollen river Leam and a field of sheep we returned to our starting point and a mud splattered jaunt around the supermarket. Next week we are looking for something a little less pathless!