Morning walk of lusciousness!

We were up early again this morning, and decided to go for a walk
It was sunny and warm around 20C when we set off.
We began at the pub where we have our Saturday lunch, leaving the car in the car park, then setting off through the nearby village of Shenstone, to do a circular route, ending up where we began, to have lunch.
The first part goes down through the lovely village, past the railway station and then having traversed the road over the railway, we left the pavement to go through a five barred gate to descend down a steep path leading to a small bridge on our left which traversed a fast flowing stream called the Crane Brook.
The path at that point became level and meandered along, never far from the brook, through luscious vegetation with glorious birdsong everywhere. We meandered on by overhanging tree branches heavy with foliage, filled at times with shifting glints of sunlight. Large swathes of cow parsley and flowering bramble bushes bordered the path, yellow flag irises, and a field where local people had specially planted wild flowers which included Poppies and Cornflowers, with Ox-Eye daisies. Such a delight.
It was like a mini nature reserve,
At one point the stillness was punctuated by the sound of a lot of voices,
We stood back from the narrow path as a 50 strong walking group marched by at a fast pace. I asked someone which group it was, and he replied “It's a free internet group, you can just book on-line and come along,”.
Then noting my crutch he said “There should’ve been 60! So I’m glad the rest didn’t turn up! Thankyou for stopping”
Several people said Thankyou to me for stepping back off the path with Stephen, but it really didn’t matter,
The whole group marched past very quickly and we last saw them marching in a long line over a field in the distance, I wondered if they actually noticed their surroundings.
Shortly after this a young man on his own appeared. We thought maybe he had been left behind by the others or missed the start. He stopped and asked us if we knew where the Roman Wall Society walk began, and had we seen anybody! We did explain the only others we had seen were an internet group.,
It was obviously not the group which had passed us at a fast pace!
We could not help him, so he set off again musing that he had started at the wrong point.
I amused myself by thinking we could have been passed by a cohort of walkers all dressed like Roman soldiers!.
After all the excitement we were once again enveloped in peace and the beauty of the surroundings,
There is actually a Roman settlement site in the area.
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/wall-roman-site/history/
Having arrived back at the place when we began, we had our usual pub lunch. I had a coffee first.
It was the first time I’ve done a circular walk without a coffee stop halfway round, I was quite pleased with myself. But certainly needed the sit down!
I left the crutch in the car, having first changed my shoes, to walk into the pub. It felt good!
Small steps, but important.
I’ll include a few more photos in extras,