I have had such a busy busy day……Got up this morning and went straight out the house to catch the bus to Wolverhampton to meet Al, and from there a train to Birmingham…..My mission for the day…to prove to Mr Eccles that there is another side to Brum besides the heavily commercialised “Shopping Centres”. To show him the Birmingham I usually experiance alone with a good book!!
1st stop…The Selfridges building….Ok so I know slap bang in the middle of the Bullring so not where you’d expect me to go to prove my point BUT It is really nice around there…especially if you go down towards the church and the rag markets, There’s that really cool water sculpture and in the summer (obviously not today as it was wet and windy) there are deck chairs out and random people sitting around drinking coffee and/or reading or just chillin’.
2nd stop…Oasis…and not the high street chain either, but the 5 storey MAD shop of Priory Square..wanted to show Al that Birmingham is not just a town full of the same old high street “clones”.
Then… through St Peters square to Starbucks, ok so that is a High Street clone, BUT It was the one tucked away in the corner of Victoria Square and we only ran in to pick up Vanilla Lattes and chocolate chip shortbread to take round to our next stop…
Central Library…or rather the steps outside of…Drinking aforementioned coffee and watching the big screen T.V. thats been erected there and people watching..one of my favourite past times.
Coffee finished I took him round to Centinery Square to view the photography exhibition they have on there…This month its animals in the wild…Last month it was “The Earth from the Air” (that was my favourite as I have seen it before BUT seeing the pics that BIG was awesome), Its always good to check out as there is ALWAYS some brilliant photographs on show…Oh, then we rode the BIG wheel, that was great as although I’ve often said I was going to ride it I never actually got round to doing it.
After the wheel I took him down towards Brindley Place and the canal….its real pretty round there and even though its the middle of autumn and freezing cold the flowers are still in bloom around there and it seems a million miles away from the hussle and bustle.
From there it was back towards the ICC the back way past all the back street cafes and resturants, finally cutting back through Centinary Square past the library and onto Victoria Square where they were holding this years “Birminghams Festival of Storytellers” in a marquee outside the civic buildings. I really wanted to go in so we did, and spent the next hour watching a variety of storytellers and poets, It was really interesting, and it was really fun sitting in there when the rain really started to come down, listening to it hit the roof virtually in rhythm to the poets…

By the time they had finished thier session I was really cold and tired so we decided to head into the malestom of the city centre as everyone usually knows it for food nad the train home!
It was a long, FUN, day but…Mission Accomplished…Al saw a side to Birmingham that he’d never experienced before, and had to eat his word about it being a “horrible crowded” city, I got to take LOTS of photos (some of which can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/essitam ) and it got me out the house for a while…

…My day didn’t end there, When I got home I discovered a message for me saying my stepsister has given birth to a little girl…..after what seems like the worlds longest labour (she started contracting 3 weeks ago poor sod) may I welcome my new niece “Sophie” into the world!
CONGRATULATION GEMMA!!!!