November 2019 Run Review and Excess Photo Dump

On the 9th, the first freeze of the season arrived with sleet during the last 1/4 of a 20 mile trot. The sun graffito mocks me.

All change this month with a house purchase (and move), Thanksgiving (and return of the Holiday Run Streak), Impeachment yonder and a snap General Election here.  First, monthly stats:

Miles: 141
Runs: 19
Avg:  7.4 miles/run
Long: 20.4 miles
Pubs on runs: 8, and total: 14
Best pub: King Edward VII

 

The 2019 Holiday Run Streak is the first in a couple of years (these always seem to fall on odd-number years) but at the end of the 2017 effort my inflamed soft tissue injuries dating back to the Ridgeway Challenge were only a few months away from curtailing ALL running for the entire summer of 2018.  In fact, return to form has never completely occurred albeit this year represents a noble effort for an old man.

The rules are dynamic, and this year include a minimum of 3 miles per day but use the ultramarathon training schedule I recently started as a guide for the days with longer runs.  More at the first weekly update, here.

One nice discovery this month was the Harborne Walkway, an old railbed converted to paved foot/bike path running from Harborne into (at least) Smethwick.  Exits onto busy roads but also tunnels under or uses old rail bridges to fly over them.

“Stand for something,” reads the sign one of the background women is carrying at the Mary Macarthur monument in Cradley Heath honouring the trade unionist suffragette who, among a long list of achievements, led a strike of women chain makers here in 1910.  Spotted on a long run on my way to the Wetherspoons a couple miles away:

Another rainy run turned up this monument to the 2nd Boer War with another towering woman (I reckon this is Brittania) flanked by two artillery men:

 

This was the day after Remembrance Day and the sad, solitary tribute of poppies at the base seems fitting to a war about gold, diamonds, and the Boer’s resentment of their British overlords prohibiting slavery nearly a century earlier.  These ladies’ diaphanous gowns were worth the stop:

The running plummeted after the house purchase led us into a pre-move refurbishment rabbit hole.  This is beginning to recover with aforementioned Holiday Streak…its weekly updates will supercede the monthly ones from today.

The Old Fourpenny Shop, Warwick

Pub #2309:

We took the day off work to see a mortgage broker in Warwick.  We considered the meeting a success and did a bit of tourism then, lost, opted to consider the online maps whilst lunching on sandwiches and a bottle of wine at the Fourpenny Shop.

A Georgian house that got its name for undercutting the competing canal inns (four pennies instead of six for a cup of tea and some rum), we were hoping for a little more atmosphere.  The refurbishment was more of a modernisation than a restoration, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, incredibly friendly with a good line of taps to choose from (if wine isn’t your preference).

 

The New Inn, Yardley, Birmingham

Pub #2305:

We were meeting to see a house for sale (second visit) around the corner from the New Inn.  My train had been delayed so I was rushing to get there, knowing Jackie had been stranded for more than an hour.

Not to worry.  She’d already become a regular (the bartender saw me stop by and already had her refill ready when I approached the bar).

The George flag might seem an intimidating site and it WAS a most white group inside but a group of Muslim girls came through for 0%-ABV bevvies.  Also, I can’t fault the jukebox…good 80’s and 90’s rock but neither metal nor new-Modern.

We dashed off for our viewing.  The house is move-in ready and quite nice but not the one we want.  This would be a decent local, if it were.

The White Tower, Duddeston, Birmingham

Pub #2299:

House hunting is a tiring business … a thirsty one.  I had just come out of the most recent dumps on offer and really needed to rinse the bad taste out of my mouth.  Up ahead, I could see the White Tower from my perch upstairs on the bus and rang for the next stop.

“Where are you?” Jackie asked when I rang to report on the morning’s explorations.  When I told her the White Tower she cut my sentence off with, “I love that building.  What’s it like inside?”  I told her about the old guy either asleep or dead at the entrance and how everyone else is crowded round the bar area.  Then, I coaxed her back to the business at hand.

Good bar, friendly people, but it closes at 6 from what I can tell on google maps (the Facebook page is a little more generous).  A day drinker’s paradise, though.

The Vine, West Bromwich, West Midlands

Pub #2298 and Kebab #79:

Taking a walk from West Brom central to The Hawthorns (where there’s a house we are thinking of buying), we decided to stop in the Vine for lunch.  The front of the house is a fairly traditional (and spectacular) pub with a series of small rooms circling the bar; when we ordered our kebabs wrapped in naan, the bartender actually asked us, “which room will you be in?”

We chose one at random and there was a picture of a bunny on the wall.  Yet another sign we were choosing well, this day.

Kebab was good.  A bit salty, but good.  However, I’m intrigued by the back half of the house which incorporates a proper BBQ pit and a huge dining hall.  We’ll be back even if we don’t move into the buurt.