Is Christmas over yet?

IT'S BLACK FRIDAY! Now that to me used to mean the last Friday of December before Christmas Day when staff other than shop workers and bars staff used to finish early and go out and get blasted.....sorry, i should rephrase that as the Gen Z woke brigade will think i mean people going out and getting shot our blown up, i mean they used to go out and get drunk celebrating the end of their working rota. These days it means idiots going out and buying stuff they don't really need just because it's cheap so i'm having it. That sculpture of a plastic gold sloth sat in a pink high back armchair is down from £2000 to £5.....I'M HAVING IT! That L shape sofa in illuminous lime green pleather (plastic leather) that seats 20 people is down from £20,000 to £2  would look lovely in my 10ft square 14th floor council flat living room....I'M HAVING IT! It's ridiculous! If these shops can sell these products at those prices now and still make a good profit can't you see your being ripped off the rest of the year? Ah well....your money.

I'ts our last trip of the year until our usual New Year get away and it's another trip to Birmingham for the Christmas market and a theatre night. Birmingham market is very good with lots going on and lots to see but before that it's our traditional breakfast getaway at Barkers.

Sian had a lovely eggs benedict and i had avocado with roasted vine tomatoes on toast mmmmm.

Perfect runny egg.

After breakfast we get on the coach and away we go. I have vowed that after this journey we are never using the coach to travel again which is a difficult thing to say as the difference in cost between a coach and train is vast, there are hardly any delays or cancellations with a coach compared to trains, the travel time is much quicker on a train which is good BUT on a coach there is no getting away from people around you where as on a train you can move seats or even carriage. We always book our seats on the coach and they're always the seats behind the disabled seat as they have the most leg room BUT across the way from us was a young woman and her boyfriend.  She sounded like she had the black plague coughing, hacking, snorting, sniffing and moaning "uuuggghhh, aggghhh, uggghhhh", they also sounded like truffle pigs constantly grazing, opening bags and packets stuffing their cheeks like hamsters and then washing it down with loud slurps of coke. I'm sure if they ever went to a restaurant they would just ram their heads into the plate of food forgetting cutlery and just gorge. That's not the worst thing though, to top it all off they were both watching a film off one phone without headphones. I swear to god i wanted to get their food bag, stick their heads together in it and suffocate them with they're cheese puffs blocking up their mouth and nose, it was so frustrating. Then sat behind us was some sort of manimal, half man half cat, he sounded like he was coughing up a fur ball and was fidgeting around so much over the two seats moving from one to the other, table up table down, then sat up then laid down, all that was left for him to do was go around in a circles, push up and down on the seat with his hands and settle down to lick his own balls, i mean it was insane. Sian and i have now both got ear pods so we can block out the inconsiderate people around us.

We get to our room, throw in the bags and go for a walk around the Bullring centre before we head back out later in the night.

Now then...i'm not a Christmas person, Sian is the opposite. I don't get excited by it, i think it's way over rated as your birthday is the most special day of the year as it's just yours and it's now starting way to early in the year BUT i do like the Christmas markets, food and drink. There is so much going on in Birmingham, i prefer it to Cardiff, London and Bristol as i've been to those 3 Christmas markets.

I've never seen a funfair ride like this before but how could you use it any other time of the year?

The usual self loving "We're the coolest, best, most beautiful serious couple in the world" selfie 😂

It was a bit chilly so a mulled wine we think good sir.

Every Christmas when we go to Birmingham Christmas market Sian always turns in to reindeer....strange.

We love a good old German sausage cooked on a charcoal grill, i have the currywurst which is German sausage cut up in a curry sauce but Sian goes all out traditional with a Bratwurst,

It looks like someone has surprised Sian shoving a sausage in her face.....stop it you lot, good god, you lot are in the gutter. 😉

It's getting very cold now and we need to head inside for beer so it's off to one of our locals Bacchus Bar.

It's been a long day with good food and a few drinkies so we head back to our room to get a good sleep ready for our full on day tomorrow as it's a gonna a be a bright sunny day with lots of walking. Nigh nigh now!

Up bright and early but not to early for a coffee and start our cultural day with a trip to the museum.

As you walk in to Birmingham museum you are met by am impressive statue of Lucifer. This statue is of Lucifer before his fall from the heavens and lost his wings and then became Satan. It's a beautiful thing to see.

Awww, we had to see the Ozzy exhibition. What a sad but wonderful thing to see. I've read his autobiography and he was a very simple, genuine and loving guy. Did you know his father in~law, Sharon's father never called him Ozzy or by his real name John he always called him vegetable, what a horrible guy.

I would love a pair of these but there was only 121 pairs made for family and friends attending the Black Sabbath concert.

Here's just a bit of the exhibition.

It was quite emotional seeing all that memorabilia and seeing a few concert clips including "Mama i'm coming home" but he will never be forgotten and lets not forget the first 7" single i ever bought with my own money was Black Sabbath "Paranoid" in 1975 when i was 7 from a record shop near where i lived in Cardiff called "The Playtme Shop". Reading that now it sounds like a dodgy shop with a dark back room but it was a great little shop, Airfix models on one side of the shop and vinyl records on the other side, that was it, i loved that shop. R.I.P. Ozzy.

After the museum we had a lovely walk around the outskirts of the city centre as it was a really sunny day. Time to visit Sabbath Bridge

Of course you have to do the traditional rock pose in front of it so Sian was happy to oblige as i hate having my picture taken, i blame that Freddie Mercury party we went to 😒

As we turned away from the bridge we saw a sign for a beer called "Black Sabbath". We were a bit thirsty so lets get ourselves in The Brasshouse.

Hmmmm, not impressed. As the poster shows the beer looks dark, a bit like a stout but it was just normal light coloured IPA and it didn't taste great and we wanted to steal the Sabbath glasses BUT.....it was served in normal glasses, we drank it anyway, HIC!

Time to head back to the room for a quick freshen up after being out walking for 5 hours and here's the next part of our cultural day, The Rep theatre to see "Sherlock Holmes and the 12 days of Christmas". This now 2 Christmases in row we have been to see new Christmas shows...perhaps i just like Christmas shows and not Christmas itself "Oh no you don't!", oh yes i bloody do.

When you walk around in the daytime you miss lots of things as most of the building look the same but when we walked around in the night time we spotted a bar called "The old Joint stock", never noticed it before in all our visits.

What a great find and it played proper music, indie/rock music not people pleasing shit. It also has it's own little theatre in a room at the back of the bar that stages plays, musicals, comedy nights and bands.

We really enjoyed in in here but no time to waste, a comedy play is afoot.

We head of to The Rep theatre and get some drinkies in. As we're sat there i have to say we were the only people in the bar seating area with hair (and for me myself that's a very lose description) that wasn't grey, also we were the only people who were drinking alcohol, it was very strange, never mind it's time to take our seats.

We had great seats only  rows from the stage and because it was a preview night all the tickets only cost £25 instead £40 ~ £60, we love a bargain.

It was a new comedy with a few songs written by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice so you have no preconceived concept of what the show will be like and i have to say we both thought it was really good, the acting was great, we enjoyed the storyline, the songs were good and we had a real good laugh and would recommend it to anyone. We do like a good show.

And before we knew it the 2 1/4 hour show was over and it was time to head out in to the cold. To finish off our night we decided to treat ourselves on the way home to a load of Popeye's chicken to eat back in the room, there is no better way to end a day and we deserve it as in 2 days we walked over 30,000 steps, no wonder we're so short.

And that was our weekend over, Sunday to Tuesday this time but it was amazing value, the 2 nights in a newly refurbished Travelodge next to the Bullring Centre and coach travel only cost us £120 all in, that's amazing for a 2 night stay in a city centre with travel.

One last thing to do.....we're in Birmingham....there's a Mr Pretzel stall.....IT'S PRETZEL BREAKFAST TIME! The next time we'll be having a Mr. Pretzel it will be in March in Calgary YAA~HOO!

And talking of next years vacations just have a look at this.

So...the Foo Fighters are touring next year and at the moment only playing at Anfield, Liverpool in the UK which for me is fine as Liverpool are my team but we've decided to go to Milan to see them and here is why. Look at these figures head to head, like for like in concert tickets and accommodation:~

Milan 

Return Coach to Manchester airport £70

Return Flight to Milan £258

One Bedroom Apt in Milan City centre,  5 nights, £502

Standing Foo Fighters tickets (Front of Stage) £90 each = £180

Total Price £930

Liverpool

Return Coach to Liverpool £70

One bedroom Apt in Liverpool city centre,  5 nights, £1,252

Standing Foo Fighters tickets (Anywhere on pitch) £196 each = £392

Total Price £1712

..........Wow, and your getting a vacation out of it in a sunny warm country. We've been to Milan before to see Imagine Dragons and we loved it. As i've said i have chosen the the same type Apt within the same distance from venue and the same concert tickets but Milan is £782 cheaper, this is why most of the time we will travel out of the UK to see a concert as it's so much cheaper and it's a vacation away. Why would you stay in the UK to see your favourite band with that difference? Also during our stay in Milan it's our anniversary and on the day of our anniversary Florence and the Machine are playing at the same venue as the Foo Fighters for just £62 a ticket. UK prices are just crazy when concerts are on.

And finally....It's Squidly time.

Since her Christmas hat pisture she has taken it on herself to add to her hat collection and being as the weather is getting colder she's gone for a bobble hat with a Ficaria Verna flower on top, she's such a fashion icon now.

And that's it folks until after our New Year trip so until next time.......

Sian, Squidly and I wish you a great, merry, joyful, happy Christmas and have a wonderful New year.

Bath time....... I mean it's time for our trip to Bath.

 Sooo.......Halloween is over even though the houses leading to our close had been decorated with all kinds of crap and tat related to Halloween since the last week of September, ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! This is the truth, one fo those houses today has started to put their outside Christmas decorations up, IDIOTS! and one day after Halloween the Christmas adverts have started and by now (07/11/25) i am already bored of Christmas, in fact we saw the first Christmas display for Lindt chocolate in Morrisons in that Christmas month of August...i kid you not. But there is one little furry fun bundle who is already in the Christmas spirit......she does look "BA~HUMBUG" though. 

That is not funny Squidly, way to early.

So it's off to Bath we go and for the first time in all our holidays and trips away we had bad weather BOOOOOO! We can't really complain can we.

We arrived on the Friday, stepped off the train and went to our apartment to drop of the bag and get straight out as it was dry and sunny. We step off the train, walk 2 minutes away from the station and we're at the apartment...that was quick. What a great little apartment and the best located accommodation we've ever stayed in, it was a great find.

Nice little living room

Bedroom with en~suite

Very nice bathroom

View from the living room

And view from the kitchen.

No time to relax as we need to find a pub and get some drinkies in before Greg Davies at The Forum.

Neither of us had been to Bath before and were looking forward to a little snoop around, see the sights and have some nice food but that is Saturdays day out, so for today it's just a little walk around and then get ready for the gig. The little walk turned in to over 5 miles and we didn't really walk that far as we found a great little pub, a proper pub with good music.

The Sam Weller's, it only had 11 tables inside, old style pub decor, cosy, no frills and good tunes, what more do you need.

The thing is it's so small it was really difficult to get a picture of the inside but here's the main bar..

And here's the back bar

Very small indeed but very cosy.

We sat in there for a little while and would have stayed longer but we needed to get ready for Greg Davies gig "Full fat legend". We've seen him before on the "Magnificent Beast" tour and it was the first comedy gig we've seen that we laughed for the whole of the gig so we were really looking forward to tonight.

Very impressive decor inside

The theatre is a great little theatre and with great views from anywhere you sit as its a smaller theatre with steep seating, we had a couple of beers and settled in.

Greg did not let us down....we were weak with laughter and had to wipe the tears away many times and my cheeks were aching from smiling so much. Sian was laughing so hard i thought she was going to wee herself, i'm sure the ladies of around our age can understand that feeling. Greg is just naturally funny he makes it look effortless and we loved every second of it. Still wanting the night to continue we made our way back to Sam Weller's for a night cap before heading back to get some rest before our walk around Bath.

Nigh nigh Bath!

Today is Oliver day! Yay!

Now you may be wondering what Oliver Day is....well....I've always wanted to do a cockney type of dance around the crescent in Bath like in the film "Oliver", i think it was the song "Who will buy" so it was our mission to find the crescent for me to take the mickey out of that scene.

First it's a little bit of a walk about then get some food to fuel my dance moves then a bit of a pub crawl.

At this point we didn't realise we were in the middle of the perfect storm and i don't mean the weather. All day it was sunny then raining, sunny then raining, it was like this almost every half an hour which was a little bit of a pain BUT that was nothing compared to the amount of people in Bath on the Saturday. We had another Greg Davies gig which was 1600 people, Oktoberfest village in Royal Victoria Park 1000 people and the local Premiership Rugby derby Bath v Bristol, 3rd versus 4th in the league 18,000 people, all 3 events were sold out and that's without idiot tourists like us so i'm maybe thinking 23,000 people in a small city centre and that's without all the locals, uuuggghhhhh!

Sian is always very positive in these moments in time and keeps me from stressing and triggering my anxiety, Sian is very patient with me and calms me, the poor girl having to put up with my weird brain. 

After walking around the outskirts of the centre we look for somewhere for brunch and find a lovely little cafe called "Wild".

If it wasn't for the outside decor you could miss it.

It is such a little cosy place maybe sits 30 people at most and when we were there there were  people queueing outside waiting to come in as the food is that good.

And here's our lovely yummy scrummy food, mmmmmmm, Sian had the bacon one, i had the avacado one.

Nice and fed for the day it's time to make our way to The Royal Crescent to film my good ol' knees up......Ah, i never thought of that.....tourists, bloody millions of them, i am not happy, they've scuppered my dance extravaganza, my gift to the world, my audition tape for Strictly Come Dancing, lets be fair, i'm not a celebrity but then again none of the Z listers on there are either. With my plans derailed Sian gave us a song instead while i looked like a simple village idiot video bombing her performance as i haven't a clue with lyrics.

And some piccies, it is a great looking place but i'd be so cheesed off with all the tourists like ourselves just roaming around my street singing songs from Oliver and dancing like a chimney sweep. Would chimney sweeps really dance and sing? Surely their lungs would have been knackered by the soot so a good old choreographed shoe shuffle and song would have been totally out of the question.

Robbie Williams did a concert in the crescent a few months ago.

We left the crescent with my head bowed in sadness Sian Cheered me up with those words "Lets go for a drink" HOORAH!.

We continued to wander around Bath to find a pub that we had been told was a rock bar called The Bell Inn. Along the way we saw that they were celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday. Now i may be talking out of turn here about the great author but no one lives to be 250, she died at the age of 42. With that in mind, once someone dies then that's the age they finished at, 42, so it should be "We're celebrating Jane Austen's Birthday" not "We're celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday" and with Jane being a pen master and wordsmith i think she would agree with me. For some weird reason Bath seems to have attracted all the literary greats Keats, Mary Shelley,  Byron, Dr. Seuss. My favourite book out of those historic literary giants is "Green eggs and ham". Hear me out, read this powerful statement, "I do not like these green eggs and ham, i do not like them, Sam i am" WOW, brings a tear to your eye.

Do not get the 250th thing at all, ah well.

And just as we get to do a bit of sight seeing the heavens opened, BUGGER!

We wander and wander looking for this bar and in the end we found it right on the edge of the city centre. It had a roaring log fire going and good tunes playing, we like it already.

It was way to full to take pictures of the bar so these are off the net.

Then there were some guys in very strange attire with these strange metal looking blades. These gents were called "The Northgate Rappers" who are a traditional sword dancing team. Now then, they weren't swords, they were pieces of flat flexible metal with a handle on either end but i think they could have still done some damage. Just as we got in the music got turned off, a guy started shouting an announcement of the dancers and a penny whistle player started to play.

It was quite entertaining if we're being honest and quite complex as they couldn't let go of the blades handles for the duration of the dance. It was like Lord of the dance but with the jeopardy of cutting one of your team mates heads off.

Not only did we have an exhibition of the local dance group we had a second dance group from London call "The Thrale rappers" who did a very similar dance but with a cockney accent.

The dance originates from the industrial north of England, obviously to much time on their hands to be dancing with swords.

It was still quite early so we went off to find a bar called "The Dark Horse" to visit in the evening that is supposedly the 3rd best bar in the UK and in the top 10 in the world. 

I have  problem with these types of lists, even when Oceanic was No. 1 for the whole of Greece on Tripadvisor, it was good yes but i had a problem with it. Not everyone in the world has visited every bar in the world and only if this ever happened can there be a voted list of "Best bar in.....", so what i'm trying to say is these lists are b****cks. 

We found it....just, it was just a sign outside a stairwell going underground. Off back to the apartment to chill before we head out and the rain is now chucking it down.

7pm and the rain has stopped and it's dark outside so we make our way out on a pub crawl. We thought we'd start with The Dark Horse. As we approached the stairwell the doorman welcomed us and was very polite, this is where the good vibes stopped, "Hi guys have you booked a table" , we hadn't, "Ah right, the next available table is 11.30pm". What the f**k, it's just a bar, but then i thought back to Oceanic and how almost every single night i had to turn customers away due to being full. Never mind, we got Sam Wellers. No we haven't, its full, in fact every bar was packed out on to the streets......remember at the beginning of this update....the perfect storm, this is why the bars are full to bursting, we had walked around for an hour and found nowhere to have a drink so unfortunately we made our way back to the apartment but we had had a great day and walked again an absurd amount of miles, think it was 14 miles.

The sign of the Dark Horse, book a table or your just stood by a stairwell.

 

And that was it, our weekend was over. Our weekends go way to fast as we do so much, i don't think we could ever just chill, we like doing so many things and love being around each other and out, we hate staying in. 

So there you have it, that's Bath. "Where next?" i here you cry, well it's back to Birmingham for the Christmas market and a Christmas play at The Rep. This will now be our 4th visit to Birmingham this year and 3 have involved the theatre......remember....."Only fools and Horses ~ the Musical", "The Shark is Broken" and this time "Sherlock Holmes and the 12 days of Christmas" it's a musical comedy with songs written by Tim Rice and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, we were also up there to fly to Paris from Birmingham airport (What a dump) the airport not Paris.

So until next time.....

Serve All, Love All, Peace All......Kevlar, Mrs.P. & Squidly Out!