Things I'd forgot I didn't know I'd forgot about!

Rag Market Birmingham

So another week here in the fair city of Birmingham.  Carrying on from last week and my blag confidence I have been finding (getting lost!) some more fantastic goings on here.  Concrete has always been my first love and I have travelled some of the globe finding it at it's best - like here for example in Russia.

Mother MotherLand Volgograd

But as I am visiting this city a new I have started to look up a little bit more and see the beauty of all the concrete I grew up with and maybe missed the first time around.

An old friend returned to me has to be the Signal Box at New Street Station, this building is brutalist cute!

No trip down the memory lane of concrete would be complete without a Bank Holiday trip to Spaghetti, the sun was shining and so off I set with a phone low on battery and a bus ticket back from Witton (Cemetry still there!). It's been a while since I have been down to Spaghetti not on the back of a motorbike so seeing the world from a different angle was fantastic. The great thing about Birmingham for me at the moment (except for not being relegated) is the Bill Drummond exhibition and constant goings on at Eastside Project so I was able to take in part of that by being under Spaghetti searching for concrete angles.

So after a lovely day out along the canal it ended as all good stories should in The Red Lion with a pint of mild.

Until next time!

Suppose I had better get started!

Jewellery Quarter

Well as the song goes "it's so good to be back home again", but hey I haven't lived here for 28 years so now I'm back is it really home?

I left Birmingham in 1987 as a snarling know it all Goth and I returned around 8 weeks ago as a middle aged woman who stitches for a living - yes indeed times have definitely changed!  Don't get me wrong I have been back to visit my family in the intervening years so the new Bullring is not a shock to me, nor is the new Bull although I am wondering where the old one from the side of the Bullring went.  The geography is familiar but as for everything else - a complete mystery.

Every day is like a trip down memory lane except it's all bigger shinier and to my mind cleaner. As I get my bearings (thank you Oasis for still being there) I start to look for old haunts, did you know Costermongers is not there now? And by looking for old haunts I'm starting to find new ones, I'm enjoying myself discovering my home town anew!

Now it's not all sweetness and light I am finding it difficult to adapt to a city that actually sleeps, Matthew Nation of Provide in Digbeth explains it better than I can here, but I am really finding living here exciting.  There is so much to see and discover and rediscover.  I managed to find The Lamp in Digbeth today, well actually I was lost and then stumbled on it and got some sort of flash back which enabled me to make out I knew where I was, I'm calling it blag confidence.

So over the next I don't know how long I am going to be blogging about the things I have found which to you seasoned professionals will be rather boring but will help me with my blag confidence no end!

See you in a bit

Tina

P.S. Where is the Science Museum?!!