It has been getting fairly cool (downright cold?)
in my room as of late. The air outside has been getting consistently more
chilly by the day. When I returned from being out for my walk early last evening
and opened the door to my room, I noticed immediately a sort of coziness to the
atmosphere that I had not felt before – kind of like when the sun streams in
through the window and the heat is trapped inside. Hhm, I thought. Then happening
by the radiator, I sensed heat and touched it to see if there was some
connection. Yes!! Oh, boy, and just in the nick of time to save me. Noice!
Did a wee bit of shopping with Leah in the a.m. She
needed to go to the bank and I was intent on ferreting out the crème developer I
needed in order to thwart the burgeoning spread of grey in my crazy hair. It
was her turn with the car so we headed over to the Northfield Shopping Center,
several miles southwest of us in the Northfield area of town. (Speaking of
neighborhoods within Birmingham, I have mentioned that I am in the Selly Park
section of Selly Oak, as is Leah. Some others include Edgbaston, Highgate,
Aston, Handsworth, Harborne (where we go to church), Longbridge, Yardley Wood,
Balsall Heath, Acocks Green, Wythall, and Hollywood – to name a few.) Yeah,
went to some highbrow shops and picked up some crucial loot – as portrayed in
the photos below. (I thought it was funny when we turned into one shop and Leah referred to it as "the plastic shoe store" - ShoeZone - you know, like Payless Shoes that we have back home.
Once when we were walking along the street, between stores, we came across this guy who was collecting for a charity – in this case for single fathers, actually, of all things. I asked him if he was a single father, and he said he was. As always, hearing my accent (me?), he asked if I was American or Canadian, and then from where in the states did I come. When I said Utah, he said, oh, where the Osmonds are from. I knew that Donny and Marie had been really big with members of the church, but hadn’t realized that they were also celebrities among the British population at large. Anyway, he was a lot of fun and we had a good time talking with him. I was waiting for Leah who had popped briefly into a particular store when I saw this “noice” Harley and decided I needed a picture of it. The same man was standing nearby and I asked him if he’d want to be immortalized. Picture his good humor below.
Once when we were walking along the street, between stores, we came across this guy who was collecting for a charity – in this case for single fathers, actually, of all things. I asked him if he was a single father, and he said he was. As always, hearing my accent (me?), he asked if I was American or Canadian, and then from where in the states did I come. When I said Utah, he said, oh, where the Osmonds are from. I knew that Donny and Marie had been really big with members of the church, but hadn’t realized that they were also celebrities among the British population at large. Anyway, he was a lot of fun and we had a good time talking with him. I was waiting for Leah who had popped briefly into a particular store when I saw this “noice” Harley and decided I needed a picture of it. The same man was standing nearby and I asked him if he’d want to be immortalized. Picture his good humor below.
Got to know Phil - as opposed to Philip - the younger
a little more today. He is from Carnoustie (the “ou” sounds like it does in the
word “should,” with the accent on the first syllable), way up on the eastern
seaboard, across from Dundee. His mum is a secondary school teacher of
classics, Latin and Greek, and her work is in a place called Dollar, that takes
95 minutes to get there – and that’s just one way! Guestimations are that Dollar
derives
its name from Doilleir, an Irish and Scots Gaelic word meaning
dark and gloomy, or from various words in Pictish: 'Dol' (field) + 'Ar'
(arable) or Dol (valley) + Ar (high). Another thought is that it
comes from Dolar, ‘haugh
place’ (cf Welsh dôl ‘meadow’). The
major attraction in town is the five hundred year-old Castle Campbell, lowland seat of the Duke of Argyll, where Mary, Queen of Scots, once lived in the 16th century.
It is well past midnight and I can
hear quite distinctly, coming through my closed windows, the bass vibration of dance
music as well as the rise and fall of a passel of voices. Students have been amassing all week to begin their university studies on Monday. I suppose for new
students, orientation sessions have also been in the works. Tonight there’s a lively shindig being raged somewhere up on campus; the celebration continues . . . as for me and my house, we're for bed.
* That’s Brummie (Brumeze?) talk for “nice.” Brum is the affectionate slang term for Birmingham. Brummie is the characteristic twang/dialect of died-in-the-wool Birminghamites.
* That’s Brummie (Brumeze?) talk for “nice.” Brum is the affectionate slang term for Birmingham. Brummie is the characteristic twang/dialect of died-in-the-wool Birminghamites.
Photos_
1- hoity-toity establishment (equivalent to MacFrugals)
2- booty
3- a character (Leah said, Debbie, you could have
gotten yourself a date. You know, I never even thought of that. He was a nice guy - too bad. Neither of us were fast enough on our feet.)
