This week's photo comes from my home city of Birmingham. One of the well known landmarks in the city are the canals. As I may have mentioned before the citizens of Birmingham will tell you there is more miles of canal than in Venice.
The canals were built to transport goods across the country. Birmingham was one of the major industrial centres of a booming Great Britain. Today, as the photo shows it is now used for more leisure pursuits.
Until the next post stay safe, stay healthy and keep smiling.
This week's poor was taken from the top viewing platform of the new Birmingham Central Library.
I was lucky that the weather was sunny even though it was cold. I managed to capture some stunning views of the Birmingham city skyline. I will share more in a later post.
Until the next post stay safe, stay healthy and keep on smiling.
This week's photo is my place of work, No.1 Hagley Road in Birmingham.
This building was the first place I worked in 1982. I returned here with my present employer in 2002. Tomorrow I will be working my last shift in this building. On Sunday I will be relocating along with my colleague to another office in Birmingham. I am going to miss the old place.
Until the next post stay safe, stay healthy and keep smiling.
After months of planning and counting down the days the day has finally arrived to leave. I think that everybody was starting to get sick of me talking about the trip. My team I suspect were glad to see the back of me for the next three weeks. The trip has been my only focus for 2013 and it may have cost me a few sleepless nights and lost nights out.
At 7:20pm I left for the bus to take me into Birmingham. My backpack weighed heavy but it felt good to have it on my back again. No problems with the bus and I was soon at Birmingham Central Coach Station. All I need now is the coach. It arrives but was told it had pulled into the wrong bay. So everybody waited for the coach to move bays. We were going to leave late.
Once loaded the coach eventually left station. At the first set of traffic lights the driver gets off the coach and starts to check the rear indicators. This is not a good sign. We carry on until the we reach the outskirts of Coventry. The driver stops the coach, the lights had gone. Now it was time to panic as I have a connecting coach to catch. If there was a problem why did the driver say something at Birmingham. Upon advice from the garage in Birmingham the driver reset the lights. Low and behold they start to work again. Off we move towards Coventry Bus Station. What else could go wrong now.
Coventry Bus Station was chaos. It looked like that too many passengers had been loaded in Birmingham. The gentleman who was travelling with his son quite rightly was angry and refused to leave the coach. I think the driver allowed somebody to travel who was booked on another service. Anyway good fortune arrived when a woman offered to leave the coach and get another service.
We left Coventry at 22:40 over an hour later than planned. At least the coach to Gatwick Airport runs every hour, so I should in with a chance of getting on a later service. We will have to wait for the next day.
Well the day has arrived, it is time to go home. I worked out that I will be spending nearly 36 hours travelling before I arrived home. This is going to take a lot out of me. Spent my final morning in Budapest eating breakfast, shopping for supplies and chilling out making sure my gadgets were fully charged.
At around 12pm it was time to go. The sun was shining and I was expecting no problems travelling today. I made my way to the coach station. Once there I thought I better make sure that the coaches to Vienna were running today. To my horror they had all been cancelled and if I wanted to travel then I would have to make my way to the railway station. When I asked about where I could find the railway station the reply was they did not know. I stunned at the apparent lack of help towards my situation. Next, I asked at the information desk. Again, they appeared reluctant to help. Eventually they produced a metro map with the stop for the railway station marked out. I only hope that I had enough money for a ticket otherwise I would be stuck.
Getting to the railway station was easy enough I just had to find the ticket office. I was relieved to find out that I could purchase a ticket. Must remember not to judge other countries railways by the UK’s. A train was about to leave the station. I managed to board it and as I was storing my rucksack the train pulled out of Budapest. At last I was on the road and would be in Vienna with time to spare.
I arrived into Vienna Westbanhof Station later in the afternoon. The best thing for me was to make my way to the coach station and check to see if the coach to London was running. After initially scaring me the staff confirmed that my coach was running. I explained the situation with the coaches to Vienna and the kindly refunded half my coach fare. As I had plenty of time to spare before I left Vienna I caught the U-bahn to St. Stephen’s Cathedral for one last look. Took the time to enjoy a Bratwurst and take one last photo.
Final photo of St Stephen’s Cathedral
Finally the time to leave Vienna had arrived and the coach pulled out of the station. My heart felt heavy and sad. To comfort myself I listened to some comedy on the i-pod and started to read up on the places I would be visiting in September. Always have something to look forward to.
The coach journey itself was unspectacular and I slept through a lot of it. I did arrive back into London almost an hour earlier than expected. Took the opportunity to have something hot to eat before boarding the coach back to Birmingham. I had forgotten that today was St. Patrick’s Day. As soon as I arrived back in Birmingham I was confronted with the sight of drunken people who were looking for a fight. During my trip I had not witnessed any anti-social behaviour. Was I glad to be home?
Until the next post stay safe, stay healthy and keep smiling.
Well the day has finally arrived, I am about to leave for my trip. Since Christmas this has been the only thing on my mind. I am so ready for it to begin. I managed to get some sleep the night before. It meant missing the Man. U and Real Madrid game but I was not that bothered. I heard that United had lost and Fergie was not happy. Nothing new there.
The taxi came and dropped me to the coach station. So far, so good. While I was waiting for my coach I could see the departure getting later and later. This was beginning to concern me. After all I had a connection to catch. After a few more minutes I asked the information desk if they knew what the problem was with the coach. I was told the coach was held up in traffic congestion. At 2am I found that hard to believe. Then the coach suddenly appeared.
The journey to London went smoothly enough. I had enough time before check-in to buy a sandwich. Again check-in was not a problem and soon we were on the road. While on the coach I sensed that something was not right but I could put my finger on it right away.
Soon the coach was going through France and Belgium then it hit me. The coach does not have any seat belts. I was amazed as surely it would not legal to be on the road without them, especially in the UK.
The rest of the day went smoothly enough. Apart from getting stuck in the traffic in Antwerp. I thought a one-way traffic system allowed traffic to run smoothly. The coach found itself stuck between two trams.
Anyway tomorrow I will be in Vienna so I should try and get some sleep.
Until the next post stay safe, stay healthy and keep smiling.
This week’s photo is of the Gas Street Basin in Birmingham.
The area is located in the centre of the city. It is a hub where the canal boats dock. The basin is also home some of the most popular bars and restaurants in Birmingham.
Until the next post stay safe, stay healthy and keep smiling.
I woke up on Friday thinking that I would struggle to find inspiration for the next blog posting. Then I opened the curtains and then it hit me. Snow had come to the UK.
With snow comes everything else and being the UK everything comes to a grinding halt. The schools shut and it seemed that a lot of people did not make it to work. It is estimated that snow costs the UK economy £500m per day.
Then I had my own personal experience of going to work. Yes, I managed to get to work (shift was 14:00 – 22:00) I could see the carnage on the roads. As normal there were no signs of gritting vehicles or snow ploughs. This meant that other vehicles were moving slowly. Coupled with the temperature falling below zero I could see the ice forming on the roads. This particularly affected local public transport especially the buses. There were plenty of people who were late for work because of this. I managed to get to work on time by catching the train. At the time they were not affected by the snow.
I could see people struggling and I felt embarrassed. I speak to people who deal with snow though out the winter and they must laugh at our inability to cope. Then you see the scenes at Heathrow Airport with all the cancelled flights. Not a good advert for the UK. It is hard to believe that six months ago we successfully organised the Olympics and Paralympics. A bit of snow and we grind to a halt. The problem is that the UK is that it is difficult to predict when we will get snow. It usually only falls once during the winter and then it last for a week at most.
As for my own experience of the day, it was mixed. The local buses stopped running at 19:00 which while bad news I still could catch the train. They were still running but I noticed that they were beginning to get delayed. I had no real choice but leave work early. I managed to get home safely but the journey took nearly 90 minutes.
However, snow is not all bad. It does allow the chance to take advantage of possible photo opportunities.
Until the next post, stay safe, stay healthy and keep smiling.
This week’s photo is of the construction of a stall in the Birmingham German Christmas Market.
An annual event since 2001 the Christmas Market celebrates Birmingham’s links with its twin city of Frankfurt. Situated from Centenary Square to New Street there are nearly 200 stalls that sell arts, crafts, food and drink. It is always popular with citizens and visitors alike. The market closes on 22 December.
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