In the centre of Birmingham the canal area is really nice. I had a drink in the sunshine at Gas Street Basin. My new job will be moving to that area in a few months (hopefully) and I think it's a good place to work. It's such a pleasant spot.
The next stage of the walk is through the Jewellery Quarter. This is a proposed world heritage site, and it's where my forebears worked. On my grandfather's birth certificate his mother is listed as a 'gold worker' and my grandmother's first job aged 13 was gold-soldering with a blowpipe she held in her mouth. My Great Aunt Adelaide was a power press operator (see the first image, manual gold press, on that wikipedia page) and hence quite rich for a working class woman. It's now all posho flats and boutiques.
Then the canal goes through an industrial wasteland. There's a long stretch of barren open land with ruined factories, which is actually quite dramatic and beautiful. I was right by where that pic was taken, but it was much sunnier than that.
After that there's a couple of miles going past actual working factories and warehouses, and a massive waste incinerator. I wouldn't do this walk again, because that bit while interesting was not particularly pleasant.
Then the second half of the walk - so about seven miles in all - was through a long shady cutting. That bit of the walk was lovely. I would do this bit again, so it's a shame, this is a walk with two excellent parts separated by a part that's a chore.
I ended up at Catherine De Barnes which is a village in Warwickshire. I sat in a pub garden and phoned H to come pick me up. All in all a very good day out.
ETA - I was saying to H I sometimes get tired on walks, but I never get bored. And there's not many things you can do for six or seven hours without ever feeling bored.