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Starting with the 0749 from Euston to Birmingham New Street station then after a brief walk around, onto a local train for Sandwell & Dudley. From there through Oldbury Town Centre, very depressed but fine council buildings, to the Lion Farm Estate with a brief detour into Rowley Regis. Shells and tiny figures in a gravelled front garden in the latter. In the former much ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/urbanlit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/104\/2018\/10\/6-300x169.jpg\")
that was green and bucolic. Some striking gardening. Picturesque variety among the types and sizes of smaller social housing blocks and individual terraced homes. The remaining taller blocks being overhauled; another up the hill towards some antennae standing alone in its non-clad form.<\/p>\n
From there through fields and past canals to the Wolverhampton Road. Cheap snacks from Aldi. A long, long walk along a parkway with 1930s houses on either hand. Left towards Warley Woods, over an undulation, with narrow, gabled terraces and old Volvos about. Then entering Birmingham along the Hagley Road. Lodging-house and DSS ‘hotels’, then actual hotels, and little else but buses, cars and the odd pedestrian for miles.<\/p>\n
A greeting from a man you’d expect to be hoisting a can who called me ‘brother’, and then a sob story from a woman with a pushchair (unclear if occupied), eliciting a pound, announced the fringes of the city centre in about Edgbaston. Portland Road of old fame, and Cardinal Newman’s Oratory.<\/p>\n
Finally brash Broad St![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/urbanlit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/104\/2018\/10\/24-300x169.jpg\")
reet and the huge hole of works which now seems Birmingham’s centre. Never seen a city so remade. Up to the terrace in the library; finally back along pedestrianised streets with not a car or bus in sight. Pink trams crossed at Corporation Street \/ New Street junction, and a group of dancers entranced an audience, with a young man in black vest and loose pants twisting his arm around his head quite frighteningly.<\/p>\n
And on the 1603 back to Marylebone, armed with pictures<\/a>. Starting with the 0749 from Euston to Birmingham New Street station then after a brief walk around, onto a local train for Sandwell & Dudley. From there through Oldbury Town Centre, very depressed but fine council buildings, to the Lion Farm Estate with a brief detour into Rowley Regis. Shells and tiny figures in a … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs2.abo.fi\/urbanlit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/104\/2018\/10\/7-300x169.jpg\")
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