on the way to Starbucks in New Street Birmingham

In In Merton House I had to take the stairs down one floor, because the postman gave me a letter for number 24 when I live in flat 29 - they were much much cleaner than 5 years ago - but the kids steal the emergency exit signs so a stencilled sprayed on one would be better

when they dug the foundations for the Bullring there was archeology - here a tannery in Edgebaston Street - but just imagine the smell in the parsonage opposite


who stole the lead panel off the church?

a funerial black and silver for christmas decorations this year


I planned to take the lift up two floors in the glass tower to the right

behind the glass bricks

but it was out of order


so I had to go back in past the black plastic christmas tree and use the lift in Debenhams



which actually was better as I came out quickly to the bridge from the 1950ies





the second bridge and I could see the ROTUNDA is getting its new skin

my inner child was really tempted by these big boxes of crayons

15 minutes to go and I turned right

towards New Street

the back of the old bank is pretty unchanged

the street is over shadowed giving a victorian feeling
Hudson's bookshop used to be the best in the midlands, and in the arcade the newspaper kiosk was good for magazines

you see Birmingham is on a steep hillside but by darting in and out of shops you get carried up in lifts or on escalators


the New Street entrance to the bank but the mahogany interior is long gone.


New Street getting cleaned up

she told me that she got five pounds an hour for standing holding the sign