Princesses, Pizza And Pictures

Out for another prowl around a Midlands metropolis yesterday. To Birmingham. Despite living oop norf for the past 10 years, we've only been there twice, neither time making it any further than the Bullring shopping centre. I had no idea there were canals going right through it.

Popped into Pizza Express and parked ourselves at a window table to nose at people going past people-watch. Unfortunately we timed our arrival to within minutes of the end of the Disney on Ice show up the road, and the place was soon heaving with pastel taffeta as hordes of little girls in Princess frocks, clutching souvenir light-up wands, descended on the place with their families. There was even a dad dressed as Buzz Lightyear....

Afterwards, to walk off the chocolate fudge cake dessert to recover from the decibel damage, we had a bit of a poke around the city centre, admiring the tall, beautifully embellished old buildings, and some of the even taller shiny new ones. We will have to go back several more times to get to know our way round better. Charity shops next time!

An Unwise Amount Of Pretzels And Popcorn...

... can only mean that Strictly is back. The dodgy trailer that makes Anita Dobson look like Emily Bishop, the how-bad-can-Lulu-really-be, isn't Russell Grant just like Frankie Howerd... awesome stuff. Especially Nancy Dell'Olio being set-up with that lethal feather boa. Some wardrobe mistress might just be finding a horse's head in her bed shortly.

Earlier today we went out intending to find some cool breeze down by the river in a nearby city. We took the tree-lined pedestrian route to the centre, taking photos of leafery and buildings, marvelling that we were trampling over orange, crunchy leaves in a HEATWAVE, but its too humid and late for me to figure out how blogger have sabotaged the upload-the-pics thing, so no photos for now.

Next along, near the new-favourite caff, were some marvellous gospel-choiresque peeps singing their hearts out to raise money to replace the old folks' minibus that got trashed in the riots. I had to shoo the kids along as the 14 year old was being cranky and rude about how his eardrums were being affected, but they got some bus-building silver from me. Lunch and ice creams were about all we spent on - we steered clear of the hordes in the shops, and I stayed out of the charity shops but popped into a couple of air-conditioned emo boutiques so the kids could window-shop t-shirts. Then by mid-afternoon it was back for a siesta on the sofa with the papers. And a bit of Celeb Masterchef. Danny Goffey made some interesting cake, and multi-tasked brilliantly despite Greg and John's butting in. I was distracted by how nicely he speaks - being a rawkstar an' all, I thought he'd drawl but no. Very home counties.

So, the ebay photos are getting done tomorrow - as is pretty much everything else I've deferred and wriggled out of doing. Why do today what you can put off doing til the next day, or something... ;)

Today's Mission...

... was to come home with an

The 12 year old's been moaning that I haven't written about him lately.

So here is a bit all about him and his amazing pasta sauce that he's making at the moment. Hence the onion.  He made some earlier this week, but owing to the fail that was me sending him in with narrow-necked container for it, much of it remained on the school worktop. The sauce that made it home was lovely though.

*********

And here are some photos of today's Weekend Wanderings, in Derby. There would have been some more close-ups of this statue-infested building, but there was an outbreak of sibling scuffling and we had to move on sharpish. People were looking.

I liked this spirally thing. But not the traffic light

A lot of lamp posts 

A window display all about invention and stuff

Travels In Time

And another Saturday in a Much More Well-Appointed Retail Place than the one we live in. One in which crossing the city centre is a breeze of bodies sliding effortlessly past each other in the way it happens at Grand Central Station. In our town people are programmed on leylines and walk slap-bang into each other from the most random of angles. And usually don't even realise.

So, this city we went to doesn't even disappoint if you come home empty-handed. The marvellous architecture, the people-watching, and even the fact that we are getting better at not getting lost is a good day out in itself. And its training the kids brilliantly in how to get out and about when they're old enough to go there solo.

The train-journey-entertainment was the discovery that if you hold a 7-Up bottle just so you can project a little green dalek onto the table. There would have been a photo, and indeed there was, but my camera does not like the memory card from the 13 year old's camera and I have no idea where his connect-it-to-the-computer gubbins is.

In fact, I'm waiting for them to wake up. I've turned into someone who practically sleeps farmers' hours and no longer stay up til 1am - I'm going to bed these days about 11pm and getting up about 8. Yeah, in farmers' hours that's probably elevenses, but still. I am craving chocolate and there are unopened Easter eggs waiting for the choc fest to kick off. Just need some kids first...