The Return & Birmingham Botanical Gardens

 

On Wednesday I caught the train to Birmingham to meet up with my friend Nikki. She'd messaged me to tell me that her train had been delayed so I popped into Accessorize and got my ears pierced for a second time, something I'd been meaning to do for ages. 

Reunited with Nikki we walked from New Street station up to the leafy suburb of Harborne, a pleasant two-mile stroll away. 

We loved this egg, part of an Easter trail in the city, which celebrated our region's marvellously multicultural identity as well as some local celebs (including historian Dr Carl Chinn, Duran Duran, ELO's Jeff Lynn, Lenny Henry and Julie Walters). 

And for those of you put off by the media tales of mountains of rubbish and rats the size of cats, yes the Birmingham bin dispute is real but the city centre (and Harborne) are spotless. 

Our destination? Birmingham's Botanical Gardens. We'd not been since January, 2022 so a visit was well overdue.  

The Botanical Gardens, which opened in 1832, are home to over 7000 varieties of plants. We explored the Victorian glasshouses and basked in the deliciously humid Tropical House, established in 1852, before venturing into the Subtropical House which opened in 1871.

We sat outside in the sunshine, sipping cups of jasmine tea and sharing a giant Sicilian lemon, raisin and oat cookie before wandering the grounds, an area encompassing 15 acres where we walked across lush lawns, down twisting, shrub-lined paths and sighed with delight at the blossom-laden trees.

We walked back into the city and had lunch at Brummie institution, The Indian Brewery, as usual ordering our regular Chaart Attacks and pints of Indian Summer pale ale. 

I'm wearing my trusty Anokhi maxi dress, an All About Audrey shirred cotton blouse, a second-hand suede coat with a vintage fringed bag and cowboy boots.  

Nikki's wearing a Naked Generation mid dress over her vintage Levi's, second-hand desert boots, a to-die-for vintage carpet bag and a Suzani duster. 

Our lovely server, Soocha, has just completed his Masters at Aston University. To his amazement, I've visited the region of Southern India where he's from, Coorg, somewhere not on the radar of most Westerners. You might remember the blog post I wrote about my visit HERE - ten years ago!!

Keen to avoid the rush hour madness, we headed back to New Street station and, as usual, several people stopped to complement us on how we were dressed. Both trains were on time and we hurriedly embraced before heading to our respective platforms. 

Thanks for a bostin' day out, Bab...see you soon!

Jon met me at Walsall station and we headed to Walsall Light where we had tickets for the premiere of The Return which was being live screened from The British Museum with a Q&A session afterwards. The Return tells the story of Odysseus' return to his kingdom, the island of Ithaca, having been away for twenty years, ten years spent fighting in the Trojan War and the other ten getting into all manner of epic adventures aboard The Odyssey. While some kids grow up with a bible, my childhood was spent devouring The Iliad & the Odyssey and rewatching Jason & The Argonauts during every school holiday.

Last seen together in The English Patient, Ralph Fiennes is Odysseus with Juliette Binoche playing Penelope. The Return was filmed in one of our favourite places in the world, Paleokastritsa on Corfu's north-west coast. Ralph stayed in Paleo when he was making the film and ate at Spiros, one of our regular tavernas, we missed him by a week!

The film was incredible, it was fascinating to see Odysseus portrayed as a vulnerable human being, tormented with guilt following his long absence from Ithaca and haunted by the horrors of war as opposed to the witty & wily Homerian hero we're used to. What was also incredible was Ralph's physique, which he discussed in the Q&A session afterwards. Wanting a sinewy, Bronze Age fisherman's body as opposed to a bulked up comic-book superhero look, 62-year old Fiennes spent five months abstaining from alcohol, eating only boiled food, hauling ropes and swimming. I'm not sure about giving up booze or eating boiled food but I can do the swimming!

Enjoy your weekend (it was 24°C here yesterday...yippee!) & see you soon!