Jewelry junket.

We were off early this morning to get to the Jewelers as soon as possible to choose a stone! We had taken in a ring from my mother to have a sapphire removed and a diamond put in it's place. We were also having some ear rings and a pendant made from some other bits and pieces from her. The jewelers were very good and got in a few suitable diamonds for us to look at. The most expensive was almost £2000!! We didn't select that one!!! They asked us to come back in the afternoon and the work would be completed. We had another walk round the Jewelry Quarter.

Just one of the many nice sights on the way.

We headed from their into town as we wanted to go to the indoor and outdoor market. We walked past University College Birmingham and picked up some bread and pastries. On the way down from the Bull Ring you see the back of Selfridge's building

Selfridge's certainly stands out.

Just in the area of the above photo I was surprised to find this statue of Lord Nelson. You can't get much further from the sea than Birmingham but it seems that the people of the City really took to him after he visited the town. In fact this statue was the first one raised to the great victor of Trafalgar in the country. It was also paid for mainly by many many small directions of the working folk so demonstrating their love of the hero.

After lunch we walked back to the Jewelers via a different route to see more of the sights. Here we saw a cast iron urinal by the Jewelry Quarter station. These are getting rarer and rarer these days.

Many of the beautiful buildings that housed jewelry workshops have great detail on them to make them stand out. I loved this lamp and sign above a door.

St Paul's is a lovely old church with numbered box pews still. They hold free organ recitals on Thursday lunchtimes. The east window looked really dark. It seems in the late 1700's the art of making stain glass had been lost and so they painted oxides on glass and heated it. The picture was fantastic but it is nowhere near as transparent as a normal stained glass window.

We called into the Shakespeare pub and had a drink to celebrate our purchases. I had three 1/3rd pints to try three different beers. The cheapest would have been a pint at £3-75, but it was a nice pub and we were celebrating.

On the way back to the boat we passed round the back of the 'new' library and you get a different view. In the park young lads were taking turns to to do back flips and spins and turns in the air. I have no idea how you would learn to do that. In another part of the park, on a bench, was another face of the city as two older blokes were supping from cans of lager. At least the park is being used.

We are now waiting for Amy and Joe to arrive at new Street to join us for the weekend. We have big plans so I expect that we will be knackered by the end of it. But looking forward to it.