Birthday in Brum

We celebrated my birthday a day early this year due to everyone working my actual birthday. We decided to visit Birmingham for a spot of shopping, somewhere nice for lunch and of course, my birthday wouldn't be complete without a NT trip ;)

We spent an hour exploring the Bull Ring, picking up some bargains on the way, new shoes for spud, a new dress and some CD's for the birthday girl!

We opted for Jamie's Italian for lunch and we weren't disappointed, especially with our lovely waiter! Each of us thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and yummy mocktails!

We navigated away across the city quite easily, and made our way to NT Back to Backs. This is an unusual property, a court of back to back houses. Each house is prepared in the era of some of its past residents, starting from 1840 and ending in 1960. We particularly enjoyed the fact that it was a 'hands on' property, meaning Louie could really interact and get stuck in.

Walking back to the car park, Louie found a park to let off some steam (in his gorgeous new orange shoes!) and so concludes our birthday trip!

The King Richard III Cortége

Today we were lucky enough to have the remains of King Richard III travel through our little village on its way from neighbouring Market Bosworth (and Bosworth Field) to its final resting place at Leicester Cathedral.

It was a special day in the history of Leicester so of course we were ready to celebrate! We visited our local farmers market in Bosworth for our monthly breakfast of Pick's breakfast rolls and stocked up from our favourite butcher. Thanks to my new love affair with Ocado, it was only a little shop at the farmers market this month.
We enjoyed all of the festivities, with the beautiful decorations all around the village. There were people in medieval dress and music playing through loud speakers, it was lovely and atmospheric and made for a lovely morning.

 In the afternoon, we made our way to the local village green for the medieval party. We saw birds of prey (not ready for their photo finish unfortunately!), ladies spinning wool the old fashioned way and Louie even sweet talked a gentleman in to letting him have a go at archery as I wasn't able. It was lovely to have all of this literally on our doorstep. The village was decorated beautifully and it was evident that everyone had made such a wonderful effort.

 We retreated home to keep up to date with where the cortége was on the TV before nipping to the end of the street to watch him drive past! Unfortunately we were expecting a bit more of a spectacle, everyone did seem a little dissapointed but at least we were there for this momentus day in history.

The Workhouse

It was a cold and rainy day today, but we didn't let it stop us from heading out for the day. We picked a new place today, and it it was a pretty perfect choice really, seeing as it kept us inside for most of our trip!

Last term, Louie was learning about 'the old days' at school, so it did seem like a perfect fit. He practised the old fashioned ways of washing and was quite astounded at the ways the paupers lived in the Workhouse. I'm sure it seems like a twisted fairytale, far far away from what we are used to in the here and now.

We peered through all of the windows, thankful for the shelter. The rain didn't let up for our entire trip!

It was a nice way to end the Half Term break, for Louie anyway. Back to school tomorrow and back into our routines we go. Until Easter.