Saturday 6th April 2019



We first visited Birmingham, on a hireboat, in 2004. Our preconceptions of the city were completely unfounded.  We thoroughly enjoyed the place and returned several times, always staying in the Mailbox hotel in a room overlooking Gas Street Basin. We always said that when we returned on our own boat, we would visit the market and buy food to cook ourselves.

The centre of Birmingham is centred on the Bullring and the Bullring can be seen for a long way even amongst the more modern, taller buildings. While is not to everybody’s taste, being of typical 1960’s construction, it is very iconic. 




We walked back into the city centre and called into a few shops before coming to the market. As with the “multi-cultural” markets we have visited in Leicester and Coventry, they are fascinating. The fish stalls could be in the Mediterranean with an array of fish species we have never seen or heard off. The Chinese fishmonger especially, where all the tags were in Chinese italics only and there were live eels for sale.


The meat counters, many of them Halal, sold cuts of meat that were either totally alien to us, or from our grandparent’s time. Sheep’s heads, cow’s feet, tripe and all manner of offal, chicken’s feet, pig’s tails. The list goes on and, while it was fascinating to see all this on display, some of it took a strong stomach just to look at. We bought some goat’s meat to turn into a curry.

In the outside market there was a stall selling duck eggs with a long queue, mainly of Chinese people. One family we saw filled a trolley bag with them. Apparently, they get so excited at the sight of a blue egg and not only clamour to buy them, but also photograph them. The eggs are enormous, all yolk and creamy.

The cost of food living, in a major city, is so cheap we have found. We bought a bowl of mixed vegetables, four large carrots and four onions for just £1.


We returned to the boat, this time along the proper route, saving on shoe leather, and sat in the front cratch enjoying peace and quiet in the heart of a city. It is very quiet here, unerringly so, at the weekend. The building we are moored next to is the National College for High Speed Rail and there is a locomotive in a glass fronted part of the building. With all the tools and lifting gear around it, it looks as though it is used by the students.


























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