Last weekend we went to the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. I was quite impressed with the place actually, except you will end up going slightly mad after about 3 hours. Every single shop is a Jewellery shop, so you walk from one window, to another and another – all crammed with sparkling great diamonds which wouldn’t look out of place on the queens hat.
“Ohhhhhh.. I like that one”, said Em, “..and that one.. and .. that one… and that one there…”
We’re looking for wedding rings. I ended up getting mine, but Em couldn’t find a wedding ring she like. She found lots and lots and lots and lots of engagement rings, all huge great rocks costing about the same price as my car generally. Despite the immense selection she couldn’t find one she liked, so we left. At this point I was all ready for driving back home, especially after looking at most of the prices, however I was “convinced” by my better half to go into the city centre. In no time we were in the Bull Ring and parked in that car-park across the road with the bendy-bridge into Selfridges. We stopped and had a coffee and a doughnut in Krispy Kreme. As we queued up I’ll admit I wasn’t in the best of moods. I really didn’t want to be in Selfridges, especially after walking around the Jewellery Quarter and semi-panicking at the prices but trying valiantly not to show it. That, coupled with the fact that the entire CoolSmartPhone server was falling over and I needed to get back to fix it, meant that I was a stressing a little too. But then we moved forward in the Krispy Kreme queue and some dude filling boxes said, “Would you like a free doughnut?”..
..”Well yes”..
It was bloody gorgeous. Hell knows what they’d put on it but it tasted fantastic. After a coffee and another doughnut I was set, and we spent a few more hours shopping, then went for a meal. Once we’d eaten that we went to the Chinese Quarter – the Arcadian Centre, which I have to admit, looks the business. It’s right next to the Hippodrome and the whole area – the Bull Ring – the Arcadian and the walk to the Hippodrome by 51 Degrees North – is fantastic and looks excellent at night time. The Arcadian in particular feels almost like it should be somewhere else – you’d hardly know you were in the centre of Brum.
So congratulations Birmingham and to whoever redesigned it.
Picture right – The Arcadian at night from birminghamuk.com