2012 in review

As another year draws to a close, minds inevitably turn backwards to cast a critical glance over the successes, highlights and happenings of the preceding 12 months. It's also, of course, an opportunity to identify those things that remain on the 'to do' list.

For me, blogging was stuck obstinately on the 'to do', rather than the 'done' list, so here's a quick catch up of 2012, to bring my adventures back in Britain up-to-date.

Monasterio de piedra
(Zaragoza, Spain)

January - the year opens in Zaragoza with a bicycle ride and a visit to magical cascadas (waterfalls)

February - snow fell and out came the black and white film to capture Birmingham's spellbinding industrial past

March - David Hockney takes me back to Saltaire and reminds me of the perennial beauty of the English countryside

April - spring blossomed and Birmingham burst into bloom

May - Brunel's mighty feats of engineering made themselves felt in marvellous Bristol

June - the heat of summer in blazing Spain 

Meet the parents at
Lincoln Cathedral

July - graduation time, family time and another dislocated knee!

August - a welcome return to the Jewellery Quarter

September - getting back on the horse (or learning to drive again)

October - turning 30 in Paris

November - a return to the eternal city

December - Birmingham is at its most magical at Christmas-time

Birmingham: I love you best at Christmas

I love Birmingham. The city has been my home for 11 years now (minus a brief sojourn in 2010/11) and, though I say this quietly, has to be one of the UK's most under-rated places. Or perhaps it's just a well-kept secret.

Birmingham has some wonderful architecture, fantastic museums and great places to go. It also has a brilliant atmosphere. But it really comes into its own at Christmas-time.

Birmingham Town Hall looking festive

Come November, Victoria Square and New Street begin to get taken over. Wooden huts begin to appear, and evening strolls are spent dodging cranes that are lifting lights into place.

Then, before you know it, the city is swarming with people wrapped up tightly against the cold, clutching huge flagons of beer, negotiating the crowds while attempting to eat grilled sausages, chocolate-covered waffles or giant pretzels, or huddling together over a paper cup of hot mulled cider/wine/Pimms/apple juice.

I'm talking, of course, of the Frankfurt Christmas Market. By happy coincidence, the market has also been in Birmingham for 11 years, and is one of the country's most popular outdoor Christmas markets.

I love it because of the truly happy atmosphere the market brings, as if Birmingham has become a kind of magical wonderland for the season, full of twinkling lights, delicious smells and goodwill.

Elsewhere, you can hear angelic voices coming from St Philip's cathedral, and marvel at the giant bauble-shaped lights (or as I like to think of them, Strictly Come Dancing-esque glitterballs!)

Excuse me while I practise the tango

So if you've never been to Birmingham for Christmas, make sure you put it in your diary now. And I can definitely recommend the winter Pimms. Just don't tell everyone...

Birmingham's Frankfurt Christmas Market runs from around mid-November to Christmas Eve, and is open every day from 10am until 9pm. You'll find it in Victoria Square, Chamberlain Square, Centenary Square and New Street, all very central.

Turning 30 in Paris - part 2

Sunday

The momentous day dawned with bright sunshine and clear blue skies.

We took advantage of the 'Paris breathes' programme and hired one of the city bikes for a ride down to the Eiffel Tower, taking the riverside road which had been specially closed to traffic (sadly not in honour of my special day, but rather so local residents and tourists alike can enjoy a day off from the usual chaos of traffic).

On a gorgeous day like that was, there is simply no other way to travel.

After dropping-off our bikes, we headed straight to the Place du Trocadéro, reputed to be the best vantage point for viewing the Eiffel Tower in all its glory. Crossing the river and heading up the sweeping steps leading to the Palais de Chaillot, we discovered that 'The Rough Guide to Paris' was indeed correct - this was the view of the tower that all the postcard photographers come to capture.

Soon, we joined the queue for climbing the Eiffel, taking the stairs up to the second floor - at a height of 128 metres. The view was as breathtaking as one would imagine: we looked out over the Jardins du Trocadéro, from which we had admired the tower earlier that morning, towards the futuristic-looking Arc de la Defense which designates Paris' business district.

A little more to the right and we could make out the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées stretching away to the east, and up on the brow of Montmartre in the distance, Sacré-Cœur. Directly below us, the Seine flowed, its length punctuated by bridges all the way to Notre-Dame and beyond. Turning and facing the other direction, we looked out onto the Champ de Mars, and the military academy behind it.

Due to the large volume of visitors (it being a sunny Sunday in half-term) the very top of the tower was periodically being closed, so we left that for a return visit...

Back down on tierra firma, we decided to once again rejoin the Seine, this time in a guided tour by boat. As the sun went down on a perfect day, our guide told us about the palaces, museums and galleries lining the river and the stories that lay behind them.

We returned to the Eiffel with just ten minutes of my twenties left, so what else to do but to head back to the Trocadéro for one last light show to celebrate.

Then it was back on the bike in search of the perfect birthday meal: French onion soup, steak, and crème brulee, all washed down with a nice glass of French red wine.

Turning 30 in Paris

As milestones go, entering your 30s is a big one, so I figured what better way to mark the occasion than in true style and elegance, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world: Paris.

Friday 

I couldn't quite believe I'd never made it to Paris before now, being just a short hop away on the Eurostar. While the Eurostar may not be as luxurious as it perhaps once was, particularly compared with the new high-speed rail links in Spain (the Ave), leaving St Pancras International in the heart of London and pulling into the centre of Paris just a couple of hours later is still pretty exciting.

Having located our hotel, (with the assistance of a passing man in a beret!), how else could we spend our first evening, other than strolling along the Seine. As night fell, we rounded the river's meanders, being treated to the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and drinking in the city's sumptuous architecture.

The Louvre by night

Saturday

Notre Dame

Saturday morning brought a bitterly cold breeze and we huddled amongst the crowds in Notre Dame to warm-up. Back outside, we began to see why Paris has such a reputation for romance - although we may have been shivering alongside the Seine, its myriad of elegant bridges make it simply beautiful to look at.

That afternoon we took some respite away from the river and joined the throngs promenading along the Champs-Élysées.

Passing the Opera House, the Place de la Concorde and onwards to the Arc de Triomph, I began to feel rather mind-blown at the sheer audacity of all these magnificent buildings. With every corner you turn, you are greeted with another expression of the endless quest for beauty and a spectacular show of wealth of splendour. In some small way, I started to understand why heads did roll...

At the Arc de Triomph, we took the opportunity to climb to the top of the gate for an almost unrivalled panoramic view of the city and the Eiffel Tower now right there beside us. Luck was on our side, as we had arrived just as dusk was falling and five minutes before the first light-show of the night. Taking our positions, we watched the tower change from its golden illumination to thousands of sparkling silvery-purple lights - the tower's special treat for five minutes on the hour after dark.

Never short of a panorama in Paris

Spring bursts

Seeing David Hockney's 'A Bigger Picture' exhibition reminded me of the joys of the English springtime. I had forgotten how the world slowly starts to creep into life again after the bleak bare earth of winter, with the landscape changing on an almost daily basis.

We're lucky in Birmingham that planners throughout the city's history have sought to neutralise its manufacturing industry with green spaces, making for an extremely verdant city. While in Chile, Carlos and I both missed Birmingham's tree-lined streets and the dose of naturaleza they provide.

Oozells Square, Birmingham

My favourite place to go to at this time of year is Oozells Square, whose springtime secret I discovered by accident a few of years ago when cutting through from Brindleyplace to Broad Street. The square's zen-style central space is lined either side by a dense row of cherry trees, which burst into pink bloom each March.

Springtime at St. Paul's

Elsewhere, however urban a route you take through the city, you're accompanied by happy yellow heads of daffodils, delicate blossom falling and green buds sprouting overhead. A truly happy time.

Oozells Square is located just off Broad Street; turn down Oozells Street (next to Flares...) and/or follow signs to the Ikon gallery. While you're there, make sure you take in the brilliant Ikon and its even more brilliant tapas restaurant (Cafe Ikon) for some seriously good food. The cherry blossom is best viewed in March.

An english springtime

A couple of Fridays ago I braved the big smoke and took a trip down to London to see David Hockney's 'A Bigger Picture' exhibition at the Royal Academy.

You can't have failed to notice that the Olympic Games come to London this year, and to ensure those of us who aren't really that interested in sport aren't left out, the Games are accompanied by a Cultural Olympiad - a programme of events in the arts, of which the Royal Academy show is one of the flagship projects.

And flagship it seemed to be, judging by the numbers; I arrived mid-morning to an already full gallery, and settled down to an hour's queuing and amused people watching. Not wishing to be stereotypical, but it seems that the Royal Academy's appeal has not filtered down to the unwashed masses, despite the supposed universal nature of the Cultural Olympiad. I felt somewhat incongruous among my retired art critic companions.

David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture

Once inside though, amid jostling for position in the crowded salons, I was rewarded with a luxurious collection of paintings of the English countryside, without being disappointed by all the hype.

Hockney has made as his focus in this exhibition, the capturing of a particular scene as the seasons progress. This idea culminates in the pièce de résistance; a set of paintings of the coming of spring, produced on an iPad, which chart the movement from January's bare branches, through the first blooms of March, to the vivid florals of May.

Accompanying this was a giant size video installation, which filmed a drive through a stretch of country road in Yorkshire from several different cameras attached to the bonnet and doors of a car.

The hawthorn blossom room was especially beautiful, seizing a fleeting moment of the seasons where hedgerows burst into a fluffy white down.

And it was a also lovely to visit some paintings of this area of Yorkshire which I remember first seeing a couple of decades back as a small child in Saltaire in Bradford - one of those childhood trips that has a lasting effect and influence on the person you become.

To see the paintings for yourself, head over to www.hockneypictures.com, or visit the Royal Academy of Arts before 9th April 2012. It's well worth a visit.

Birmingham in black and white

Right on cue this week, snow fell. It's been an extremely mild winter so far, but like clockwork, the week of the end of January / start of February arrived and it snowed. Casting my mind back, it's snowed during this week more or less ever year since I moved to Birmingham - which is now 10 years ago.

We live on a student estate, so six inches of snow meant just one thing for our neighbours: snowball fights! Sadly then, the freshly driven snow didn't enjoy its pristine condition for long. However, down on the canal early this morning, I did manage to find myself in the middle of an extremely atmospheric scene.

Fog hung gently around the factories and gas works, as the sun struggled to push the cobwebs away. Virgin snow lay on the canal side, while sinister-looking branches formed as the ice on the water's surface began to splinter.

With each black and white photo I took, I pictured myself in bygone times. Down at this level, with the black locks and ironworks standing proud against the white of a world covered by snow, it's easy to imagine that not much has changed since the construction of this stretch of the Birmingham and Fazeley in the late 1700s.

View photo gallery on Flickr.

Science and Fiction

Last week's commute was accompanied by H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine', a book I've been intending to read for more years than I can remember. My closing impression of the novel was its huge influence over the science fiction genre that followed it - particularly Doctor Who; I found between its pages the shape and movement of the TARDIS, the colour of the time vortex and plenty of Saturday tea-time aliens. So much for an original TV show!

But it's my opening impression that really fired my imagination. The story begins with a group of well-heeled professional men gathered after a satisfying dinner in an opulent house, waxing-lyrical over scientific possibilities. Immediately a vision came to mind of Matthew Boulton's Lunar Society meeting in Birmingham's Soho House.

The Lunar Society was a club for some of the brightest minds in science, philosophy and learning of the 18th and early 19th Centuries. This power-house of industrial revolutionary thought came together in Boulton's home to discuss ideas and conduct experiments on electricity, geology and meteorology, amongst other topics.

Matthew Boulton himself was one of the leading figures of Britain's industrial age. In today's world he would probably be called a marketing guru or entrepreneur, being the business brains behind inventions by business partner James Watt, as well as innovating with a host of manufacturing processes.

Soho House

He acquired Soho House in what is now an inner-city suburb (Handsworth), but was then nearer countryside, and founded an estate which included the most modern and possibly the largest factory of its day. Now only part of the house remains, but it has been lovingly restored to its former Georgian splendour, and filled with artefacts belonging to Boulton and Birmingham's scientific heritage.

We enjoyed an excellent guided tour of the house thanks to Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, which managed to pack into 45 minutes facts about the house and its features, the work of Boulton and the Lunar Society, and the personal life of the man. I walked out of the grand doors into the sunny garden completely inspired, and proud of the legacy of my adopted city,

So while the Lunar Society never did invent a time-machine, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to fancy that they could have done, just as Wells later envisaged!

Soho House is sadly only open in the spring and summer but is definitely worth the wait. Public transport is the metro to Soho Benson Road plus a short walk, or buses 74 and 79 down Soho Road. Soho House museum has also just received funding for a new exhibition and more refurbishment work - excellent news.