As I walked through the pedestrian only streets at the centre of Rugeley this morning, activity was just beginning. Traders were setting up market stalls, a group of ladies were sitting outside the wool shop with tables of woollen goods in front of them looking ready to knit, and Costa coffee was just opening. After picking up a sausage roll and orange juice from Gregg's I joined the canal towpath. A few kilometres later I turned off, crossing the railway to join the guidebook's route. This took me to the town of Uttoxeter through fields of grass, some ablaze with yellow buttercups, wheat, a healthy green, and hay, freshly cut and left in heaped lines to dry in the sun. After a cold overcast start the sun obliged and dried both the hay and the paths so there was rather less mud today. A mixture of single track roads, farm tracks and paths across or around fields, occasionally overgrown and little used in places, but easily passable. Stinging nettles only managed to attack me when I mistakenly followed the edge of the wrong field. One field had a sign warning of a bull in the field. I was not sure what I was meant to do about it. Wave a red cape? Instead I walked across the field at a steady pace, exuding (I hope) confidence. The bull stood up and looked at me, a ring in his nose and his eyes popping as he watched me leave, but took no further action. A reservoir was close to the route but there was no "right of way" across the dam, instead my way followed a small, sweetly flowing river.
My day's highlight was eating a smoked salmon, cream cheese, pepper and lime "croque monsieur" at a café in the village of Abbots Bromley. Not a dish they would serve in France but most enjoyable with a small salad with a mustard dressing! A sign said I was in the "Best Kept Village in Staffordshire", it's the second such village I have walked through with such a claim! I am now in Uttoxeter, a town of red brick buildings with a few supermarkets where I have been stocking up with supplies.
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