More ruins

I already had a long standing plan for today to walk (weather permitting) to the city centre to meet up with some other people with Type 1 diabetes (we formed a local peer support group via social media during 2020 - valued it so much we carried on via WhatsApp when the original platform became...interesting and we offer this kind of social meet up) when the plan for the location changed  to the neighbouring city rather than central Birmingham. I looked at the map, decided it was only really a few more miles, I already knew most of the route really well, the rest was straightforward, so off I trotted, as soon as I'd done the essential morning routines. If I'm off on a long walk I do like to get as far as I can before most of the world has woken up... 

Now,  this particular set of ruins, the remains of the Priory in the park by Dudley Zoo, was new to me! I've often walked to Dudley but not gone that way to go on further. I also think, when I've been on the bus which goes that way, I may have been reading and missed it.

It was a remarkably interesting and pleasant urban walk with a lot of different parks, nature reserves, and a walk way well protected by a hedge along one of the main roads. 

The lunch was great as well - probably the largest gathering we've managed. Definitely an awesome amount of lived experience around the table, which the newest member of the group really appreciated. Reckoned he'd quadrupled the number of T1s he'd ever met before and whilst the majority round that table were using more tech than both he and I do, we worked out we were on the same basic regimes, based at the same hospital, had similar not such good experiences in the last few months, and don't live far apart - there may be a mini-meet in our futures as we didn't work this out until the end of the gathering and I'm always willing to support people new to this as others did for me.

In the end, I decided to walk a bit more than the 15 miles I did before lunch as it turned out into an absolutely glorious late afternoon and early evening. Which is how I managed over 20 miles in a day, for the first time in over 6 years.