Complete loss

We have now have a complete loss of service. I am posting this at my workplace (although I'm not actually at work per se). BT are still doing nothing about it.

Apologies again

I'd just like to apologise for yet another delay in posting to this blog. Our house and four others in our road have an almost complete loss of the use of our telephone lines. The internet connection is slow and very sporadic, involving a lot of browser refreshing, loss of work and loss of patience! Apparently the road needs to be dug up to replace some corroded or damaged cables. The fault was first reported on the 30th July and over a week later nothing has been done about it.

Aside from the fact that we may be missing some important phone calls, I can't post to my blog very easily at all! So, my apologies to you again - sorry for delays so soon after the last problems!

For those of you (Americans *ahem*) who are about to post 'you're on DIAL-UP?!' I want to say that no, I'm not. I don't know what you have over in the States, but using a telephone line for one's internet connection does not necessarily mean dial-up. Just thought I'd let you know, because someone on a forum I belong to was astonished when I told him about the problem and told me to 'get with the times'!

School Road

You may be forgiven for thinking this photo shows a lane in small village. In fact this is School Road, Moseley, running past a surgery (St. George's, not St. Georg's!), a florist, a hairdressers' shop and a tailor's, before reaching Cambridge Road Methodist Church on a small island with four other roads leading from it.

These long-established shops are some real gems in a country of chain stores and five-minute-wonder independent shops and are even more amazing given that they are in Birmingham. I hope they remain.

Cambridge Road: leaning lamppost

A lamppost leans rather precariously on Cambridge Road, Moseley!

Big Dickens Wood forest school

Tucked away in Big Dickens Wood, Dickens Heath is a 'forest school' belonging to, and built by, Tidbury Green School. The forest school is a small area of woodland marked out with blue rope and contains within the boundaries a fire place surrounded by log seats and fences made of logs and sticks from the wood. Around this there are materials suitable for building small shelters. The area is also used for physical education lessons. The school has given the local cubs permission to use it. May I point out that not only is this highly irregular in England in this day and age of over-zealous health and safety, this is downright astounding in Birmingham!*

*Actually it's Solihull, but it has a B postcode, so it's still astounding!

Tidbury Green wheat field

A field of wheat belonging to Tidbury Green Farm, Tidbury Green, Solihull. Nearby is Big Dickens Wood.

House extension

It's summer - the time when everyone seems to feel the need to enlarge their houses and so the air is filled with the noise of drills, saws and skip lorries. Here a workman delivers breeze blocks to an already doubled-in-size house in Moseley.

Highbury Park dog walker

A man walks his Dalmatian in Highbury Park, Kings Heath.

Highbury Park is the estate of Highbury Hall which was created and developed by the Chamberlain family from 1879 to 1914.

The grounds of Highbury Hall were twenty five acres and were landscaped by Edward Milner. Field boundaries were removed to create thirteen acres of parkland, although trees were retained and additional trees were planted.

The gardens followed the changing fashions. A new rose garden was planted in 1890, a 'Dutch' gardern with beds of bulbs edged with terracotta tiles and paths, with a surrounding holly hedge 1901 and an 'Italian' garden in 1902.

By 1903, the grounds extended to over 100 acres, some leased from Richard Cadbury.

Josheph Chamberlain died in 1914. Most of the grounds became a public park in 1930.

Highbury Park has entrances on Alcester Road, Shutlock Lane and Moor Green Lane.