December fun...

Lots of fun had around here whenever we can, as you know, and the last few weeks have been no exception  - the month started with a trip to Birmingham for the Good Food Show. We've been up for this for the past few years now - it's always a good day out, we save a pound or two each per week against the cost of the goodies we come back with and see it as a good chance to treat ourselves to some tasty goodies, and also buy a few cheeky Christmas presents.  The tickets are kept budget-friendly too as we use Clubcard Vouchers for them - getting us into the show for £8 each. As usual we booked into our favourite Travelodge not far from the NEC - the staff are lovely and as it's a "takeover" rather than a purpose built budget hotel, the rooms are far larger than usual and MUCH posher!

Having checked in, the weekend started with a trip into Birmingham -

This is the iconic and unusual Selfridges Building, one of those you either love or hate I suspect. For me it goes along with the Gherkin & the Shard in London - fantastic! Every year I try to find a new angle for a photo - I think this year might have nailed it...

...I really like both of those shots. It won't stop me trying again next year though! Then time for a wander round the excellent Bullring Market - precisely what a traditional street market should be like, this - I won't dwell too long on it as I want to do another post all about it, so I'll whet your appetite with this...

...looks tempting, doesn't it? From there we had a wander round the German Christmas market - a mix of fairly authentic and unusual odds and ends, cheap tat, and copious numbers of stalls selling the sort of fizzy beer that we generally ignore. The key thing for us is the stall selling the glorious, colourful little wooden childrens toys with the "push-up" bases - when the base is pressed upwards the toy collapses onto itself, or can be made to nod its head, sit down, etc.

I routinely got given one of these each Christmas until I was about 10 or so - in fact I still have at least one - and MrEH and I have continued the tradition with our Niece & Nephew. They're great fun and so cheery! Shopping done, and stomachs lined, it was on to the business of the evening - a meet-up with some of the members of our team from the Great British Beer festival - fantastic to see everyone again and another meet is now being planned for ahead of the Festival next summer...

The Food show itself was excellent fun as ever - we came back loaded with masses of tasty treats many of which seem to be cheese-related - the "Cheese Bartering Stall" was particularly entertaining! We also saw a theatre show with the lovely James Martin - always nice!

The back to normality with work last week, until Wednesday morning when we got up to discover this...

...yes, that's barely an inch of snow, but was still (ridiculously) enough to ensure that our normal 10 - 15 minute journey from home to the motorway took 2 hours and 25 minutes instead.  We were unimpressed, especially when it became apparent that the cause of this level of chaos was the local authority failing to make any attempt at gritting the roads the night before - my rant on this subject on Twitter made the front page of the local paper the following day, which I found quite amusing! On the plus side, the cold weather and snow did mean we saw this rather lovely sunrise on the way to work the following day...

I also had a days work for a client in the City of London which made an interesting change. Not sure I would fancy doing the rush-hour travel on public transport on a daily basis, but as an occasional thing it is fine. it also means that I get the chance to see, and point the camera at, things like this...

...on the walk back to Liverpool Street - nice, eh? Good compensation for crowded trains and grumpy commuters, that is!

Robyn