Jeri’s Steps: 14,645
Miles walked: 6.3
Elevation: 223
Pints: none (wine)
Churches: none
Stiles: none
Benches: 2

More canal walking today, between the ancient town of Tamworth and the ancient city of Lichfield. This time it was the Birmingham and Fazeley, built in 1789 to carry traffic between the Coventry and Oxford canals. It took about a mile and a half to reach the canal, walking first through the old attractive parts of Tamworth, then past a series of roundabouts sprinkled amongst car dealerships and big box stores. At Tamworth castle there is an impressive monument dedicated to Aethelfleada, a powerful woman known as Lady of the Mercians at a time when a combined England did not yet exist and huge areas of the east were ruled by Viking invaders and their descendants as part of the Danelaw. She died in 918 and her story is not well told in the history books.

The walking was good and the canal traffic plentiful, but alas there were few benches. We saw a heron make a spectacular take off. Lots of people like to walk their dogs along the canal and the owners were happy to chat. Lunch was taken on a bench in the cricket grounds at Whittington just as light rain started to fall. The George hotel in Lichfield was very nice but unfortunately the windows were locked shut and the aircon didn’t work so we pretended we were in Costa Rica.