Today’s ride started with some memory joggers. That’s the spot where the person stopped watching his canal tv as I was providing more entertainment falling out of a canoe into the (stinking) Coventry Canal: it’s easy said Barbara. Then via Hartshill to Galley Common and the lovely wee miner’s terraced house we left in 1988 to move to Swansea. No plaque as yet.
What’s interesting in these outskirts of Nuneaton is the sheer amount of house building going on. I think only the spoil heap on Tunnel Road is safe. The new estates do look good though, well spaced.
Don’t canoe here 
No plaque as yet 
Covered alfresco? 
Welcome
Soon enough we’re at Meriden and the ‘old’ centre of England. They mark it with more style than Fenny Drayton, so good luck to them. The Hatch coffee bar is the best value coffee and cakes we’ve had all trip.
Inclusive 
Street view didn’t have this
We’re getting into HS2 build territory now. The scale of the site we pass is impressive. Having lunch later in a great church yard in Snitterfield, who hide their Shakespeare family connections, and looking at the crumbling fabric of the building, I can’t help but think the HS2 money might have been better spent on the social infrastructure of communities.
Onto Stratford upon Avon (strangely quite) we head along the Greenway rail to trail for 5 miles. Ending at Long Marton, there’s a view of what turns out to be a huge train coach and goods wagon knackers yard.
Old and still standing 
Hope it lasts 
July 
Solid 
Greenway cafe 
Stratford lunch, arm wrestling in progress
And an almost sudden transition into Cotswold land: fine stone houses with that lovely orange glow. Gates the people of Alderley Edge’s Cheshire would be proud of. Chipping Campden is the stop after the lumpy bump over the hill to get here. Quite a few shops and pubs closed for good here too, still a grand wee place.
This way 
That way
So it’s up and over straight after breakfast heading to Avebury.
Travelling reflections 