Hope everyone has a great weekend.
Arilx
The life and adventures of a mildly dotty old bird.
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
Arilx
From my all too short time spent in Birmingham my impressions are that this city does Victorian and Modern architecture fabulously. If you're looking for ancient stone or timbered buildings stretching back many hundreds of years then you're going to be sorely disappointed because they didn't call this place 'the city of 1000 trades' or 'the terracotta city' for nothing. From the little bit of reading I'd done beforehand this was what I'd surmised and I wasn't far wrong. However, there is nothing like freely exploring on foot and nothing prepares you for what you might find. I don't restrict myself to a favourite type or era, but judge alone on each individual building. Brum's cityscape is exciting in a way like Oslo and parts of Cardiff are with the new builds that have gone up. As we strolled past I captured a few to give you a taste. The library and Selfridges are famous landmarks and probably familiar to many. Others I regret I don't have a name for, but here goes!
Mr GBT looked slight aghast at the long list of things I'd written down for our then upcoming trip to the Midlands....'we're only going for two full days' he reminded me. Laughing, I explained that was only a wish list and I only hoped our time there might permit us to see some of them yet if it came down to it I only had two wants.
The twelve metre 'Green Man' sculpture adorns the exterior of the old custard factory in Digbeth. He was created by Tawny Grey in 2002 and unveiled by the Druids at the Summer Solstice. I feel it's highly unlikely that I shall ever see one of that stature again. Seeing photos of him was one thing, but physically standing next to him I really got to experience the impact of this sculpture.
I was fortunate to have been able to cross these off my 'wants' list.
Arilx
Being a soul who could win an Olympic Gold if overthinking was ever included as a sport, one thing which really helps me to slow down and become absorbed is doing a puzzle. I sit down and next time I look up an hour has gone....that's if the four legged attention seeking one doesn't interfere😆
After laying low for a few months Horsham's spoof artist Aloicious Shaftspole has been up to his tricks again. A 'what three words' hint appeared on his social media, so I downloaded the app to see what mayhem he's been creating this time. Having found the spot it took some hunting down to solve the mystery. Fortunately being an avid reader of signs on benches and a snouty old bird stood me in good stead👀😁
Hidden away on a tatty bench in a dark corner of the park was my quarry....there has been much talk of the rodent problem🐀 People keep chucking their food in the bushes and littering despite all the best efforts of an amazing team of volunteers who give up their time to try and keep on top of it all. I enjoy the way he gently pokes fun at the residents of the town.
Hope everyone has a good weekend. This will be my last post for a few days as we're breaking free from Sussex and are off for a spot of adventuring in another part of the country.
Arilx
'What on earth is a gulch?' I asked Mr GBT as we diligently followed the instructions for our latest waddle. Turns out it's a deep narrow ditch with a stream at the bottom.....in fact exactly what we'd just crossed over. Not that exciting perhaps, but it's another new word to add to my repertoire along with 'fenny' which was last weekend's walking revelation. There are many things you can learn, see and discover on any new walk it seems. Last Sunday I wanted to enjoy the dry weather, but not travel far....the quickest solution was to pick the new Fancy Free walk a scant three miles up the road. It's surrounded by new housing estates yet somehow we found ourselves within a few minutes in the middle of the countryside and hardly saw a soul. It might not be far from GBT, but it was all completely new to me [bar the pub that is😁] so perhaps you'd like to join me on my ramble whilst I ramble about it.
This first one of the garage door was a tad disturbing....one had to wonder what an earth was in there. 👀 I have my own personal theory.
There's little in the way of what I would call vaguely interesting shareable news this week so instead here's 'The Fam' as TYM calls us. Most unusually for us we were all free at lunchtime on Easter Saturday and it was such lovely warm weather it seemed a shame to stay inside. I needed to pick up something which one of the less local dancers had left behind at the farm we'd danced at recently, so we combined the trips. A delicious pint of cider and one of their veggie burgers was greatly appreciated by me. The cows have got their calves with the, but are currently still in the barns because we've had 110% above the average rainfall in Sussex and the fields are too wet for them to go out to pasture yet. They were mooing loudly at the farmer and telling him exactly what they thought of the new hay he'd had to buy in for them. Unlike us they were not enjoying their victuals!
Hope you have a great weekend.
Arilx
Look at these beautiful cast iron panels. The design is called 'Floral Adamish' and is one of three which the company Walter Macfarl...