Battle lines were drawn up

So out time was almost up.  Great pity as I have really enjoyed being in a city,  such a novelty.  Birmingham is such a good place to visit because everything is very close to the centre and the canals.
The weather was very wet again so I suggested we went to look in Harvey Nicholls for luggage for this trip to New Zealand in January.  At the Mailbox there is great improvements going on, so great are these improvements that they have closed all access onto the Mailbox, we had to walk three sides of a square then to enter via the underground car park.  Reader you can imagine what David was like.....?   He didn't really want to go there anyway let alone a Commando Course to gain entry.  
No luggage dept in there after all that.  Marvellous.
So we walked northwards to the cathedral.  Now  you couldn't help noticing that there was a small army of Police on duty, with big packs on each hip and long intimidating baton truncheons.  I asked a group of four the way to the Cathedral and they all looked blank, (Sue, two got out their phones and found the way for me!!!!)  None of them were from this area all drafted in to Police the March that was happening that lunchtime. YIKES.

On one side was the EDL and the BNP on the other were people from the other side of the political spectrum.  We spotted three GREENS to add to the mixture.  I asked the Police Persons who were the Goodies and who were the Baddies.  No answer was forthcoming, they weren't completely sure who they all were anyway.  All I knew was that I didn't want to get caught in the middle.
The Cathedral was lovely.  
  

Bit blurry, not sure why.

We didn't stay too long as we were the wrong side of the 
Maginot Line.  We made a dash for it and got through making our way past the Library and Symphony Hall and round past Gas Street Basin back into the Mailbox where we had tickets to a tour of The BBC Studios.  
This was good fun.  We got to meet Nick Owen and see the studio where The Archers is recorded, some members of the tour even recorded a play and made all the sound effects.  On very corner around the studios were examples of some dresses that have been used for 'Strictly Come Dancing', well some of them were almost dresses.

Nick Owen being a bit stiff, this was due to him being made of cardboard.

The Archers sound effect props

On the way back from there we popped into a Tapas Bar for a drink, later some tapas, later still some more tapas, much much later after almond tart and Spanish doughnuts to dip into melted chocolate we went home to the boat for the last night.

Arty Farty shot of The Cube from my seat at the Tapas place

Too late home to get the local news so not sure there was a battle after all.

No supper.