Birmingham's Five Things.

My Five things about Birmingham...

(Please bare in mind that I do have quite a random thought process.)

1. The first thing I like about Birmingham is the buildings.

I live in quite a small town. The buildings are all Victorian terrances with a bit of Georgian thrown in here and there and the odd 1950's thing stuck up in the middle of it all.

Birmingham is a complete mish mash of styles from way back when to right now. I wish I could find a better photo to show you what I mean. I just love looking down a street and seeing what looks like a high victorian church next to a building like in this picture.

Old and new side by side. Great.

2. We have one in Cardiff. But this is actually the first book shops I've been into since I started writing Erotic Romance and actually saw something like the books I write on the shelf. I was very excited - the people with me were very patient.

They weren't my books on sale there, but maybe one day they could be, if you see what I mean.

They had a gay/lesbian section and an adult book section - neither of which I managed to locate when I went book shopping in Cardiff last. Very cool.

3. The Jewellery quarter. Hundreds of jewellery shops all in one place. Enough said.

It think the credit crunch has had an effect, there didn't seem to be quite as much on offer as there has been on pervious years I've visited, but still a lot of fun.

I bought... well, no jewellery at all. Didn't see anything I fancied - except a book that had a hole cut in the middle to fit a hip flask into it. I collect hip flasks, so it was something I had to add to my collection. I also bought a painted stone egg and a guilded wooden egg - I collect eggs too. I also collect apples, although I didn't see any there on this visit.

4. The Pen museum.

No trip is complete without taking in an obscure little museum. I'd visited this one before. It's fantastic. I made an old fashioned pen nib on the machines like the one in the photo.

(Yes, I am a big kid, lol.)

The last time I went there I got hooked on collecting old fashioned pens - quills, glass pens, anything like that. My handwriting is appalling with both hands (I'm ambidexterous) and I rarely do any writing that doesn't involve a key board and a computer, but they are very pretty on a shelf behind my desk.

5. And the fifth thing I liked about Birmingam - Just getting away from it all for the night.

I just does you good sometimes. Although, that said, I've been all to pot since I came back, and I'm blogging last Friday on a Monday, but still.

It was good :)