Beautiful Birmingham

I was born in Birmingham. I lived there for the first five years of my life, went away but came back at the age of fourteen, after which I lived and worked in and around the city for the next twenty five years, give or take the occasional year or so off in foreign places like the Outer Hebrides or Cornwall. I still visit the city but rarely now, and yesterday I was reminded of why.
Birmingham was never a particularly attractive city, but always seems to have felt bad about it. Consequently, every so often it undertakes a complete makeover. I remember the city centre before the iconic Rotunda building and the Bull Ring Centre, before Spaghetti Junction, before the motorways. All of the houses I ever lived in in the city, both as a child and as an adult, have been demolished. There are some places that haven't changed at all, of course, but it's hard, very hard, to find them.
Today is the sixtieth birthday of a good friend of ours. She's having a party – not that she knows it yet – and her children have summoned old friends from as far away as Cornwall and Germany to help her celebrate. So yesterday we embarked on the long trek up the motorway, to stay with Ron's brother for the weekend and go to the ball. All went well until we tried to escape from the M6, straight into some roadworks and a diversion. Very diverting. It was strange – we were recognising the names of roads, but not anything else. A big church was still where it used to be, but now with a mosque next door. Aston Villa football ground has been rebuilt ten times the size, eating up one of the houses I used to live in. We passed the pub where Ron and I met, now semi derelict and half hidden by broken boards; apparently one may not demolish a listed building, but it's OK to let it fall down...
We got back on track eventually, of course, and found Ron's brother in his local only half an hour late. They were actually playing The Time Warp as we walked in. And now it's raining; nothing's changed after all.

Ty's Birthday - Swimming in Seaton

I have just realised, as we were taking our late night stroll along the top of the coombe, that yesterday, Sunday, was Ty's ninth birthday. He spent most of it bravely struggling upstream along storm swollen rivers and trying to clear Seaton Valley of fallen tree trunks, mostly by bringing them to me and asking me to throw them for him.


Most of the British Isles has been suffering from what I have heard described as 'the worst storm of the year' but what should better be thought of as the first good storm of this winter season. Extremely strong gales and heavy rain started in our little south west corner, as usual. It was bad enough on Friday night for the Tamar bridge to be closed to most traffic, causing all kinds of chaos on the roads and me to miss what had promised to be a good night out in Tavistock. Saturday was still wild and passed with an absolutely minimum of outdoor activity, but by Sunday morning it was calm and dry - even sunny at times, and Seaton Valley beckoned.

Very pleasant it was too. Soggy underfoot; the river had obviously been over the path in several places, although it was back within its banks (just) by the time we got there. When the Council created the Otter Trail through the valley as an extension of the country park they put in sections of duckboards here and there, but as it was a new path it was mostly guesswork, and there are some places which need then and don't have them, as well as places where by common usage the duckboards are bypassed as unnecessary. There are a couple of places this week where they are also quite broken by fallen trees.
I had a new phone a month or so ago, and it has a nice simple camera. As a result, I have taken more unplanned snapshots in the past few weeks than in the previous twenty years or so. It doesn't take pictures very quickly, though. I have one picture of a lovely empty bit of riverbank which had a dog right in the middle of the frame when I pressed the button. I also have a couple of blurs which should have been dog shaking tree trunk. Ah, well, I am sure my technique will improve...
We finished our walk in proper style with a Rattler at the Copley, which has a bit of new roof where a very large old willow lost its grip on Friday night. As twilight fell the wind rose again, but the worst of the storm seems to be over for a few days now.