Recalled and written two days later.
1) My hosts prepared me for a day trip to Birmingham by showing me the last episode of Joe Lycett’s United States of Birmingham the night before. This turned out to be rather helpful.
2) Bad Train Karma has followed me on this leg of the journey, unfortunately, and we ended up passing a lot of time on the platform at Tile Hill. But eventually the next train came, and we found four seats together for a quick trip to Birmingham New Street.
Sauciness!
2a) On arrival, it was decided that a pint was in order — it was just about noon — and we repaired to the Bacchus Bar, a subterranean location decorated with some saucy murals, for liquid refreshment and good conversation.
3) Next stop, the cathedral, with its stunning stained glass by Edward Burne-Jones. The windows survived WWII because they’d been prudently removed. Masterpieces.
4) The Birmingham Museum is in the last half of a major restoration/renovation/reimagination, so not everything we wanted to see was on view. One very thoughtful exhibition covered the sometimes uncomfortable issue of provenance of things in the museum’s collection. Again, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know until you see it.
Queen Victoria reimagined.
4a) Birmingham has indeed had a very interesting and lively history. For me it was fun to see troops of young schoolchildren marched through to learn about where they live.
4b) The second-floor galleries, right out of the 19th century with enormous ceilings and wonderful file floors, featured art of all centuries, but I was particuarly drawn to a Pisarro landscape and a bust by Gordon Herickx, of whom I had never heard.
This is not T.E. Lawrence, but a novelist named John Hampson.
5) By then it was time for lunch, for which we chose a nearby Indian restaurant called Dishoom where my hosts had been before. I loved the atmosphere of the place just walking in and, while the menu was a lot of information to process, the resulting lunch was lively and delicious.
The rooftop secret garden of the Birmingham Library.
6) After that we drifted, first up to the secret garden atop the large and lacy Birmingham Library (my old acrophobia kept me from venturing near the edge), the war memorial, a street carnival complete with roller coaster and carousel, and then a stroll down the canals to an old stable and a nearby al fresco pub. Under a shaded picnic table I enjoyed a gin and lemon slush, perfect under the circumstances.
7) Refreshed, we continued along the canals. Birmingham is an architectural jumble of all periods and styles, with its successes and failures like other cities.
8) Our ramble ended in the Wellington Hotel pub, and then a train back home. After so much walking, we enjoyed a light dinner and a very interesting program about conservation work at National Trust properties. This episode was about work done on the homes of three writers, including Lamb House of Henry James; that pleased me so much since he appears in Chasing Beauty, which I still haven’t finished.
Part of the War Memorial.