One way to the UK?

Well, Friday night I arrived into Snow Hill Station in Birmingham, jumped into a taxi and headed towards the Cadbury Factory, where Aunty Gill (Dad’s cousin) was having her 50th birthday party! Unfortunately the party wasn’t inside the actual factory but across the road in the ‘suites’ they hire out for events. I got dropped off, and called Aunty Gill who sent out cousin Fiona to collect me and take me inside the meet the relatives already there! Well it was an interesting event because obviously I’m related to them, but have never met any of them before and I had so many names to remember! I met Aunty Gill and Uncle Chris, their daughters Fiona and Louise, Great Aunty Mary (my Grandma Walton’s sister) who looks SO similar to Grandma… but a little shorter and with whiter hair, and acts the same as grandma with certain mannerisms etc! I also met Aunty Pat and Uncle John (who have two older boys), Uncle Roy and my cousin Mark (cousin Laura I speak to on email but unfortunately she is currently in Europe and so wasn’t at the party!) and I met Chris’s sister Elaine and her partner Clive and also Uncle Bill, but I will have to clarify how he is related to the family. Quite a character too – 91 years old and still driving and he just bought a computer as he wants to get hooked up to the internet! The other cousin of Dad’s on this side of the family is Uncle Brian who lives in Australia with my cousin Natalie, who looks like Louise! So I had fun at the party meeting the family members, and also other friend’s of Aunty Gill’s and chatted most of the night away to Aunty Pat and Great Aunty Mary! We left the venue, arms laden with Gill’s presents at about 0100 and headed home – where I met Skye the Collie and Millie the cat. Skye liked me but Millie was a bit weary! Anyway I slept well and woke up when Mara messaged me in the morning saying that she has missed her train to Birmingham and would have to wait an hour for the next one! I got up and told Uncle Chris this, so that we all got to sleep in a bit more (instead of being at the station for 0900 pickup).

Saturday, cousin Fiona took Mara and I into the city of Birmingham after breakfast, and we saw all the sights including the ‘floozie in the jacuzzi’ haha which is a big statue of a naked lady in a fountain infront of the city council offices etc. We also went window shopping in ‘The Bull Ring’ precinct and bought some stationary in Selfridges – the shop in Birmingham looks like something from the space age, all covered with huge silver disks on the outside! We also went to a new part of town ‘the Mail Box’ (shopping centre in the old Royal Mail building) and walked along the canals. Oh and we saw the Birmingham beaches!!! FLyBMI (airline) has two ‘beaches’ set up in the city area, just netted off areas with sand and deck chairs and water misters and a beach soccer/volleyball area etc! Great idea – London should do the same!!!

Saturday night Aunty Gill hosted a family BBQ and it was so nice to have the steak, and there was salmon and a lot of drinks and chapmagne and the biggest bowl of nicest tasting strawberries ever!!! Oh and a really sickly chocolate tart and cream to go with them so we were so well fed over the weekend! Mara and I piked it about midnight to go to sleep. Sunday we took Skye for a walk up to the Lickey’s (mountain) to see a view over Birmingham, then returned for Sunday Dinner – full roast with all the trimmings! Thanks so much again Aunty Gill!

Running out of internet time (yeah, not posting from work for once!) but travel plans are going well and I’ll post again tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.