So we went to Mrs Rad’s parents house today, for lunch and to play some games. It’s boxing day in the UK, no we don’t have fights in the streets, well no more than usual, but it does mean that its the second public holiday in a row. Compared to Christmas day though, it’s not aw quiet, some shops are open and many of the ‘January Sales’ start at the big retailers. There are massive queues outside some of the shops that start early in the morning, with people hoping for a bargains. We did not take part in any of that shenanigans. We proudly buy all our products at RRP, making sure to keep those mega firms in profit.
In recent years there is generally quite a good bus service running on boxing day in our city, so we took advantage of that to visit the relatives. It takes 2 buses and about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Mrs Rads parents house, and it’s a bit of a trip through time. The smart double decker arrives at the bus stop just a couple of minutes walk from our house (we nearly missed it). We start the journey in the modern city centre, by the big arena (where Rad stood in the car park for Ariana Grande, another story) and it weaves through the gentrified canals, the bars and restaurants and past the modern tramway system.
We continue through the suburbs on wide dual carriageway roads but at some point, we cross the city boundary and take a right turn into an area know as the black country, because of all the coal mining that used to take place here. It feels distinctly different here. All the mining has pretty much ceased here, so the area appears frozen in time around 40-50 years ago. We first go under the motorway, where there has spring up a huge traffic roundabout (known as an island around here) and a number of big box stores with massive car parks. These areas are grey and a bit soulless, but there is a fair amount of activity. The same cannot be said for the town of Dudley, which was one of the most important towns during the industrial revolution. The life has long since passed from this place, and of course, its here that we change buses, a short wait in a desolate bus station, save for one guy that is smoking and another that is shouting at his phone. A ray of hope does exist for this place, the bus station is to be closed in a couple of weeks and rebuilt to accommodate the new trams which that will come from the city.
The next bus is quieter, except for the PA which announces each and every stop. It runs along the quieter, narrower roads and meanders through miles of housing estates built in the early 1900’s. The area is known for it’s humour thought, and I can’t help but chuckle as we pass by the takeaway on Kent Street – ‘Kents Tuck-in Fried Chicken’.
We get off by the church at the top of the hill. There are lots of churches in this area – these have a sense of humour too – one proudly displaying the slogan ‘Tomorrows Forecast: God reigns and the Sun Shines’.
Mrs Rad’s family live at the top of a steep hill and we walk by a large field with horses. This allows for a great panorama of where we have been on our little bus ride. In the distance we can see the tower blocks of the city, which is only 8 miles away as the crow flies but seems a lifetime away from where we are now.