Three years ago, we visited the Aston Manor Road Transport Museum, at the former tram depot in the shadow of the better-known football ground. Just over a year later, the museum had to close, and the search for new premises had begun. Earlier this year, the museum reopened in Aldridge – and today would be a “Running Day”, when the preserved buses would take to the road and allow visitors to “remember what buses used to be like”. The weather looked decidedly showery – not a day for a walk. We decided to take a ride instead. We had a choice of four routes – and could have enjoyed them all. A ride to Chasewater Heaths station in a 1960 Routemaster was quite sufficient; we had the impression that most visitors (and there were plenty of them, judging from the parked cars) were riding everything on offer.

Aston Manor Road Transport Museum
Our previous visit

…and hips, and berries, and sloes, and crab apples, and other seasonal things (autumn crocuses are also known as naked ladies, apparently, as they come up without any leaves). A walk on a warm and sunny autumn afternoon – the last, I suspect, for a while.

Somewhere we’d never been – though we’ve driven past within a mile often enough. It’s a folly, marking the second-highest point on the Cotswolds. It wasn’t a walk, though it’s on the Cotswold Way, and we did walk the mile or so along the much quieter grassy edge to the top of the main road – the unexpectedly-named “Fish Hill” – and back. The tower is busy, but few venture beyond. The views are extensive – we could just make out the Wrekin, 55 miles to the north-west, and the Black Mountains earned their descriptive name when seen from the English side, with the sun behind them – again, more than 50 miles distant.

Broadway Tower on Wikipedia

It was certainly misty this morning. It’s mellow too – still, humid, comfortably warm for a wander down to the river. And truly fruitful – we could have picked pounds of big juicy blackberries (and a good few damsons) but we had no bags, so we ate them instead. A few, that is, not pounds…