Of red clay and steel

On my first visit to England as I was driving away from the airport with the wonderful man who would become my husband, out of the corner of my eye I saw something that made my jaw drop and caused me to chuckle a bit wryly.  I had traveled thousands of miles, crossed the vast ocean to a strange new country and what should my wondering eye behold but a field of red clay.  Deep rich orange red soil such a familiar site in my Birmingham Alabama home where people did everything from dye clothes with it to eat it is also a common feature halfway cross the world.  It made perfect sense when I thought about it.  Our Birmingham is the sister city to the one in UK as both are steel towns.  Where there is steel there must be iron ore and iron ore concentrated in soil gives us that beautiful red clay that I have always thought of as being a strictly southern thing.  I later discovered that this area of the UK is also as loaded with limestone as my dear home state.  Sometimes the world really is a strange and small place for all its vastness.