![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
To Bournville and Coventry
Dec. 21st, 2013 09:44 pmUp early to finish off the last of the sorting out before heading off St Davids to catch the train up to Birmingham. The first part of the journey was somewhat chaotic, thanks to a malfunctioning carriage computer that reported all the seats as available even when they were booked — one poor couple spent five minutes trying & failing to persuade a recalcitrant traveller that he was indeed sitting in a seat they'd reserved — I managed to find somewhere to sit and the journey was pretty uneventful.
With an hour to spare in Birmingham, I escaped New Street via the much-improved station concourse and the new exit onto Stephenson Street and pottered around the centre for a while. The streets were packed with shoppers taking advantage of the last few days of the German market and the less said about the crowds in the Bullring the better. Back at the station, searching for my platform, I walked past a group of three father christmases accompanying a fully-grown Christ — either a very committed costume or the start of the Second Coming — before eventually catching my train to Bournville, where I arrived just as my parents were pulling up outside the station.
Reunited, we went to lunch with S&D — beetroot, rocket, and goat's cheese salad to start; I had veg for the main course while the carnivores also went for ribs; with frangipane to finish. We had a nice afternoon catching up — it was the first time I'd seen pater since his trips to Hong Kong & Kyoto and by good fortune he hadn't thought to bring his enormous portfolio of photos with him — before heading back to Coventry just as the bad weather started to kick in.
With an hour to spare in Birmingham, I escaped New Street via the much-improved station concourse and the new exit onto Stephenson Street and pottered around the centre for a while. The streets were packed with shoppers taking advantage of the last few days of the German market and the less said about the crowds in the Bullring the better. Back at the station, searching for my platform, I walked past a group of three father christmases accompanying a fully-grown Christ — either a very committed costume or the start of the Second Coming — before eventually catching my train to Bournville, where I arrived just as my parents were pulling up outside the station.
Reunited, we went to lunch with S&D — beetroot, rocket, and goat's cheese salad to start; I had veg for the main course while the carnivores also went for ribs; with frangipane to finish. We had a nice afternoon catching up — it was the first time I'd seen pater since his trips to Hong Kong & Kyoto and by good fortune he hadn't thought to bring his enormous portfolio of photos with him — before heading back to Coventry just as the bad weather started to kick in.
