Catching up in Brum

Well I had a very sociable time the end of last week, and drank far too much coffee, meeting with Alex on Wednesday and Sarah on Thursday for lots of great catch up.

This obviously left Brian home alone, so he made best use of his time baking, mowing the lawn and going out running!

The birthday cake

After a lazy Friday we were back on the case on Saturday, with B doing another park run, another personal best! Before creating a baking extravaganza, a midnight ring birthday cake to take to a big family gathering on Sunday. It’s the cake I always used to have for my birthday and despite my birthday being before Becky’s apparently it was for her, melted mars bar topping and all! Becky is 15 next week so candles were out and we decided roses were in. 

Brians granddaughter Jenny with Oscar

More socialising in the evening as we went to meet ‘neighbours’ Jo and Mike (well 10 mins away) had a lovely evening with a HUGE Chinese take away. Saw the big ‘rock’ Jo is sporting chosen by Mike all on his own. Brave or what?

Brians niece Steph with Sam and Rory looked on by Oscar

Sunday was ‘Christmas in May’, after her first successful foray into ‘doing’ Christmas, which she was NEVER going to do and we missed, Fiona, B’s daughter, spotted a half price turkey and thought why not repeat the experience, well it wasn’t that painful after all with James doing the cooking! So along with the five of them we were joined by Denise and Paul and their ‘kids’ and Rory the new addition for a great day out. 12 of us in total was cozy in the dining room, as long as no one wanted to leave in a rush, it was fine, a stunning lunch cooked by James, turkey and all the trimmings, crackers and presents and trifle and cake. We were then allowed a brief respite before the rolls were put in for ‘tea’ after which we rolled to the car and groaned our way home!

James working alone like a madman cooking our 'Christmas' dinner

One of the rabbits (forgotten its name!)

It was good to see the house looking like a very comfortable home having only seen it as a work in progress last year, and to see Fiona and James so happy together. Little Rory was a star, sleeping through dinner so allowing both Steph and Sam to enjoy their food uninterrupted.

Jenny with Brians nephew Nick

We were introduced to Oscar, the cat and the rabbits we are sitting for in July, no worries with Oscar, though we may have to turn the radio up loud and go out occasionally so he doesn’t think he’s gone deaf! The rabbits are a little more scary, they just hop about the garden, digging their way into next door if not watched closely enough. Whether we stand any chance of getting them into their hutch overnight who can tell! Oh well, the hot tub will be installed by then so perhaps we’ll just have to lounge in that all evening watching them and keeping an eye out for foxes!

Brians eldest granddaughter Abbie taking a short break from her phone

 

Brian, James and Fiona discuss the garden and the patio ready for the hot tub

 

Brians daughter Fiona

 

Brians granddaughter Becky

 

Jackie serving up 12 'Christmas' dinners

 

Photo taken by Becky, clockwise: Brian, Jackie, Steph, Sam, James, Fiona, Abbie, Paul, Denise, Nick and Jenny

 

James taking a well deserved break

 

After lunch competition: wind up reindeer racing!

 

Jackie has a cuddle of Rory while talking to Sam, Fiona is still washing up!

 

Its all a bit much for Rory who needs a cool flannel to keep him cool

 

Sam and James' turn for reindeer racing, Fiona has a cuddle of Rory

 

The cake went quite well then!

Cats of Solihull and Birmingham and ‘The Package’!

Maggie cat (no,on the right!)

Solihull, Brians birth town and still feeling like home! I grew up in Castle Lane about 2 miles from the Land Rover factory, spent many a happy hour on bikes in Hobs Moat Woods and we’re now staying at Helens house looking after Maggie cat for a month, which is less than 2 miles away. It’s nostalgic, bringing fond memories of my childhood from nearly half a century ago and Jackie humours me with soothing words such as ‘yes dear’, ‘yes, you’ve mentioned that before’ and ‘no, it’s very interesting’, she is so understanding!

Hobs Moat Woods, scene of many childhood adventures

Sooty Cat

I have to throw in a few facts about Solihull, some of which people, such as my sister Denise and up to 10 minutes ago, me, didn’t know. It is located 9 miles (14.5km) southest of Birmingham and, although appearing to be part of Birmingham’s urban sprawl, it is actually a separate County Borough with a population (in 2011) of 206,674. It comprises of Solihull Town (pop 97,943), Shirley (pop 35,689), North Solihull (Castle Bromwich, Chelmsley Wood and Kingshust), pop 48,900, Meriden and Bickenhill (pop 24,142). Historically part of Warwickshire, but now in the county of West Midlands, it was voted in November 2013 by the uSwitch Quality of Life Index as the ‘best place to live’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solihull) and is relatively affluent, characterised by ‘above average levels of income and home ownership and a high proportion of residents (50%) classified as belonging to the Prosperous Suburbs socio- demographic classification’ (http://www.solihull.gov.uk/Portals/0/KeyStats/SolihullPeopleandPlace.pdf). More than 85% of residents describe their ethnic group as ‘white British’, which is higher than the England average of 80%, but its population is aging, with 19.1% of the population over the age of 65, compared with the England average of 16.3%.

Maggie cat guarding the jigsaw

All this is very interesting, but not as interesting to Maggie cat as when Jackie, and occasionally me, try to do a jigsaw puzzle on the dining table. Feeling neglected she jumps onto the table and lies across the jigsaw, covering as much of it as her body will allow and swipes her paw as we approach with a piece. At one point she even got her mouth round Jackies wrist and frequently growls and beats her tail on the jigsaw. She is a lovely cat and is very friendly despite this, she just doesn’t like us doing jigsaws!

Sooty relaxing in between us

Our first weekend here (last weekend) was split between Solihull with Maggie cat and Hall Green, Birmingham with Sooty cat. We looked after Sooty cat last year and have arranged to look after her again in June, but Abigail had a wedding to go to (not her own!) so needed us for last weekend as well. We split it, one night with Sooty, one with Maggie, which worked out well, but meant we were going from one to the other and having to take overnight stuff with us as we travelled. Both cats seemed quite happy as they spent quite a bit of time with us on the bed during the night, always sleeping just where we want to put a leg or an arm, at one point Sooty jumping on me in the middle of the night!

Sooty demanding attention

Since then though we’ve been able to settle in with Maggie cat in Solihull and the time has been spent with me trying to get fit by running round the local park and taking part in the nationally organised Park Runs on Saturday morning (26 min 15 sec for 5km so far!),a  visit to our Financial Advisor in Leamington Spa (‘keep doing what you’re doing, it’s all looking good’ he told us!) and some ‘catch up’ visits by Jackie to our good friend Alex and her old work colleague Sarah.

One other meeting we’ve had this week is to deliver ‘The Package’ at a rendezvous in Solihull! This completes the circle following our visit to Sumatra in March when we stayed with Mery and Abdi in Berastagi (http://brianandjackiecross.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/berastagi-volcanos.html and http://brianandjackiecross.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/samosir-island.html). We’d booked a few nights at their Homestay in the town in order to climb Sibayak volcano and see dawn next to its smoking crater. When we arrived Mery, asking where we were from, got all excited when we said ‘near Birmingham’, she said her sister lives there, in Castle Bromwich, and would we deliver a package to her. ‘No problem’ we said, but as we got near to the time to board a plane and answer the question ‘are you carrying anything for anyone else’ got us feeling nervous, so we opened it to find a bar of chocolate, a big lump of palm sugar and some tea bags (at least that’s what it looked like!).

Delivering 'The Package' to Karol and Andy in Solihull

A few emails and a couple of months later we met up with Karol (who is not Mery’s sister it transpired, only her friend), Andy her English husband and their child (who’s name I can’t now remember) in Starbucks on Solihull High Street. ‘You’ll recognise her as the Indonesian with the baby’ Andy had said in one of his emails and, indeed that was exactly the case. Very friendly nice family, we spent a good hour exchanging stories and intend to converse in the future as their knowledge of Indonesia and the places to visit in Indonesia are, of course extensive and the little bit of conversation and the photos Andy showed us makes us want to book a flight back out there now!

‘The Package’ was delivered safely and, although we knew it was completely harmless (honestly, your honour!), it became a bit of a standing joke that ‘the drug squad’ might pounce on us as we handed it over. As it happened, the only drug was in the Starbucks coffee cup – and very nice it was too!

I’m going to be very daring and post this now without Jackie proof reading it first, her fault for being out with her friend, so don’t let on if you find any spelling mistakes or bad grammar!