You know you're middle aged when...

Hope that you've had a lovely Christmas as we are now in the 'phoney' period between Christmas and New Year. Christmas is sort of over, many are off work until the New Year, whilst others are already back to normal.

Anyway, I've got various things I could be doing but yesterday I headed to some shops. I didn't need anything specific - but there were some items that if I came across in a sale I'd buy.

Before long I found myself in John Lewis looking at some nice towels in the sale. This is it, middle age is finally here as not only did I find myself buying said towels - but was actually quite pleased with the purchase...

Peace & Quiet at Christmas

A very happy Christmas to one and all.

It's a wonderful crisp morning and for the first time in many years I'm in Birmingham when Santa delivers his presents. A few years ago on Christmas Day I headed in to central London, on my way somewhere, to see how busy it was, and, if quiet, to take some photos of quiet London streets. It was busier than I thought and to have a re-read of that post see here.

This morning, with lovely clear skies, I do the same in the centre of Birmingham. It's lot quieter than central London, but there are still more people milling around than I expect, including some tourist taking the odd photo.

The old and the new - St Martins Church and Selfridges

A quiet Bull Ring - will be very different in 24 hours!

The now iconic addition to Birmingham's skyline

Birmingham Cathedral - spot the Bishop competition

More of the changing Brummie skyline.

The Christmas Bells

Back in Birmingham for a few days over Christmas and head to one of the more unusual Christmas traditions in south Birmingham - the Bournville Village Green Carol Service.

Bournville - the 'village' created by the Cadbury's in the late 19th century - has a primary school, indeed it's the one I attended. For reasons never entirely clear, the school has a bell tower complete with a carillon of bells. This means that rather than merely play chimes on the hour, there is a sort of keyboard and full tunes can be played on the large clock bells. Each Christmas Eve a couple of thousand gather to sing carols on Bournville Green as the tunes are played on the bells in the school bell tower. There are also traditional Christmas readings.

It does become semi amusing as the laws of physics kick in. The Green is one side of the main road through Bournville, the school the other. The Green is fairly large. Sound travels at 330m per second. Result - rarely are the bells and the singing in time - indeed this year during the first carol the singing managed to be both ahead and behind the music!

Still, its a decent, and well timed, service lasting 45 minutes. The prayers by the local vicar are good as they contain relevant and local prayers for both the future of Cadbury's - a massive local employer current under rumours of takeover by Kraft - and for the injured servicemen and women who end up being treated at the local Selly Oak Hospital.

Overall it's one of those wonderfully strange quirks that you occasionally come across in Britain - and not a bad way to start Christmas.

Website of the week

Just to prove anything can be improved with Muppets...