Birmingham

At last we have managed to get there. I think for me it is the first time in the city centre since 2013. Strange when I think we used to go there most weekends, and mid week sometimes too, back in the days when I/we lived in Edgbaston, Harborne, Erdington, Hamstead and Bromsgrove. We took the train from Stratford Parkway to Birmingham Moor Street. It worked well. £1 to park and just £10.80 off-peak return for two of us with a railcard discount. We even managed to get a pre-off-peak train as it was 4 minutes late so ran into the allowed off-peak time. Not that anyone checked our tickets though, either outward or return.

We took the opportunity to meet up with one of mrsfb's old college friends who travelled in on the bus from Streetly, and had lunch in the Edwardian Tea Room at the Museum and Art Gallery. The one disappointment was that the gallery is closed for major renovations until 2024, so we weren't able to see the Pre-Raphaelite collection. We did get to see the original Cold War Steve Benny's Babbies print and I took a photo of the list of names of people featured in it to help me identify everyone in my copy.

We then had a walk through to the canals via the ICC (nice to see the Conservatives being dismantled, if only!) and popped into an art shop and saw some super Bob Dylan prints. There were a couple of them I really loved, but I didn't have a spare £13k to buy one. The sales lady seemed to be a personal friend of the artist - 'when Bob decided to use us exclusively ....'.

We had time for a coffee and a cake before we got the return train. £8.60 for an eclair and Americano, which beats the £7.05 I paid in John Lewis a few years ago.

Regarding photos I was in particular looking for reflections for our next camera club competition. I got quite a few, but none are going to win any prizes. I liked the main blip which has reflections in the building and the bus but it didn't quite work the way I wanted. In the extra - it was good to say hello to Gormley's Iron:Man again.

One year ago:
(Not Very) Autumnal