Countdown to South America

Sunday Tea Club. A good photo of everyone but me! LtoR: Pete, Crystal, Manu, Paul (he was new to us - Pete's friend), Helen, Ian, Brian, Jackie & Rueben

The back to normal life has been full on, as expected. Two weeks to get everything together before going away, so buying walking shoes, warm fleece lined trousers, sandals , day sack, amongst other things… We also popped into Waterstones in Redditch to buy a new South America guide book, they politely asked, “when are you going?” Expecting something vague they were most surprised at 6 days time! After a long chat we left them with the blog address, so if you are reading “Hello!” We’ve done quite a lot of planning and bits and pieces here and there have been booked for the first couple of months of the trip.

In the little Chinese restaurant in the Chinese Quarter of Birmingham where we can only go with Crystal as she speaks and orders in Mandarin and, magically, beautiful dishes appear that we can all share. It's nothing like we would eat at a Chinese takeaway, proper Chinese food here and all washed down with Chinese tea (hence the Tea Club in the name). That's apart from the beer we drink in pubs before and after of course 

We’ve probably caught up with everyone, including the financial advisor, who I have left a cheque with, how terribly quaint is that? All in preparation for the sale of Latimer Road to go through (fingers crossed everyone that it goes through before the budget), so the funds can be invested. I do feel very virtuous as we also took him a Christmas shoebox, before he has even announced they are collecting this year! We finally got the questions from the buyers solicitor, so we whipped through them and sent them back to our solicitor, just mentioning that we would only be available on the phone till we left Spain. “Would you like to come and sign the contract and land registry forms then? I’m in all day!” Last year when we sold Birmingham Road we did that online, so hadn’t even thought about it! That could have been a disaster!

Out for a local walk with Brian's sister Denise and Paul on a sunny but cold day

We’ve seen Jonathan and Lucy in Bury St Edmunds when we went to support my Godmother, Margaret, at the funeral of her husband of 49 years, Ron. It was expected, but it’s still hard.

After walk meal and wine - of course!

We had a lovely Sunday Tea club, they are always lovely, but this one even more so as we weren’t sure we were going to be able to fit one in.

She forgot to mention the Aurora Borealis that appeared over Alvechurch and  much of the UK on 8th October. We were alerted to it after our friend Tim posted a photo on our WhatsApp group. On with the coats and out we went. This was a photo over the local field at about 8:30pm, which we thought was fabulous. Not long after this it seemed to fade away and we thought that was it, but....

We’ve had a short walk, and long lunch with Denise and Paul, they were not quite feeling up to par after their trip to Spain, but whatever it was we didn’t catch it so that’s fine.

This was about 10:30pm from our front door step looking across the roofs of the houses opposite. We even knocked the neighbours to get them out to see it. We had a proper party out there snapping photos. Apparently the best show was around 12:30am, according to other people, but we'd gone to bed by then, very happy with what we'd seen

We had a good walk with John, Brian and Giles. The walk from Kings Sutton to Banbury that we did with John and Keith in the Summer. Brian obviously felt a bit miffed that he had only done it when the canal and river were overflowing in to each other, so wanted to try again. Strangely after all the rain we’ve had, the canal and river were overflowing into each other and we all got wet feet! Great day as ever though with much laughter and silliness, including Brian sending Tim a picture of a locomotive, with its number asking him “where are we?” He’s normally quick with this with his train info sites, this time he was very quick, see if you can see why?! The photo is a few photos below...

Out with Brian (another Brian), John and Giles for a Tuesday walk (and pub crawl!)

We had Alex and Rob over for a meal and are thrilled that they are going to be coming to stay while work is going on in their house. It’s good for us and the house, and it’s good for them, to be able to leave tools out and to be dust free is so much better at the end of a day working on the house!

It was a very pleasant (and non rainy) day, but a bit boggy in places along the canal. This was one of the worst bits

We saw Abi and had lots of chat, as ever, and although it’s not good for her that her car is poorly, at least we can offer her our car rather than leave it sitting it on the drive. She’s coming to collect it today , and will then come and then back tomorrow to take us to the airport!

Kings Sutton to Banbury and here we are at the famous Banbury Cross

We had Monday Club last night, the usual curry at Diwans. The tone for the night was set by Tim showing everyone the “where am I” message from last Tuesday! Obviously we’ve been packing today, not walking with John and Brian, we received a similar “where am I” photo from them however. I guess this will run and run!

Followed by a few beers at the historic Ye Olde Reine Deer Inn, selling the most amazing pint of Hooky beer. It was so good we had to keep trying it to make sure the quality was as good right through the barrel! Apparently Oliver Cromwell had visited this building in his day (1645?) and there's an original room in here you can visit

We spent the weekend with Helen, Ian and Monty dog. Friday was spent catching up on Tony and Nicky who we spent lockdown with. Tony has had a brain bleed which obviously is never good, we were pleased to hear that they could see a visible improvement between their arrival on Saturday and their leaving on Thursday. Saturday we were very lucky with the weather, it was really quite nice once it had stopped throwing it down, so after joining the street litter pick and a light lunch to soak up the remainder of Friday’s alcohol we walked into Birmingham, via the Old Moseley Arms, the Craven Arms and the Shakespeare for a pint in each. Back to the house to take Monty for a walk (ok, a pint and game of pool in the allotment bar) before going out to eat. Fabulous. Home on Sunday in time to chill, catch up on Strictly and up the Pub for Sunday Club.

Here it is, The Globe Room at the back of the pub. The notice says it dates back to 1570

I’m really sorry if we’ve missed anyone, we’ll see you in the New Year xx

This is the photo I sent to Tim. He's such a train buff and this is an old diesel class 66 that I was sure he'd be interested in and would know where we are from the train number. So when I asked him 'where are we?' can you spot my mistake. It was only when he replied within a minute 'Banbury' that I had another look at the photo and saw my error. He thought it must be a trick question!

But the day wasn't finished, time for another beer at the Good Intent in Birmingham in between changing trains to get home

It seems as though all we've done just recently is drink beer and last weekend was no exception. We spent the weekend at Ian and Helen's and, on Saturday after a morning's litter pick volunteer in their local area we walked through Cannon Hill Park in Moseley on a bright and sunny day to Birmingham City Centre, stopping at a few pubs on the way (there's a trend here!)

This was our second stop (the first being the Old Moseley Arms), at the Craven Arms a fabulous Black Country Ale pub serving great hand pulled beer in an amazing original listed building. It's as wonderful inside as outside

Walking into the centre and this is overlooking Gas Street basin a particularly nice area around the renovated canal system with fabulous pubs and eating establishments now very popular

Our third pub there below the rainbow. It's the Shakespeare, the black fronted lower part of the building on the left, another traditional pub

And here I did take a photo inside of the beautiful, historic building 

Back to Ian and Helen's house to take Monty dog out over the park...

Which involved a visit to the Pavillion, their local (and members only) allotment pub. They seemed to know everyone in there, it's run by volunteers and full of very friendly locals. A great atmosphere except Jackie and I lost to Ian and Helen at pool! It did get to the last ball though, Ian just had a lucky final shot!

We had Sunday breakfast at Ian and Helen's then came back to Alvechurch. However, the drinking didn't stop as we had to have a final night with Sunday Club (not to be confused with Sunday Tea Club which is an entirely different group of people!). Here we are in our local Weighbridge Inn LtoR: Keith, Posh, Jackie, Paul, Brian and John (yes, the same Brian and  John we were out drinking with on Tuesday!)

And look, on the way home, Brian, not only a train buff but also an astronomy buff pointed out the planet Jupiter just below the full moon

And here is a screenshot of that same night sky from a new app I've downloaded on my phone that Brian recommended I have for when we go to the Atacama desert in Chile next month. It's called Stellarium and you point your camera at the sky and it shows you all the stars, their names and the constellations. How fabulous is that! 

Here's a final photo from last nights Monday Club meeting. Yes, another club, we even have a Wednesday club, but that's another story. We'd already been to the Old Moseley Inn (us for the second time this week) and now we're in Diwan Balti restaurant, our favourite Indian restaurant. Peoples faces are a bit strange as everyone had mouths full of food, but LtoR: Bill, Fiona, Jackie, Tim, Mark and Brian. Tim is the one I'd sent the Banbury photo with the Class 66 train on last Tuesday asking him where I was.