Birmingham & Bosworth

In the continuing quest to purchase a car I travelled 60 miles west to Birmingham last weekend. My flatmates Raf and Neiva also came along for the ride.

As it turned out the car was a bit of bomb so we decided to enjoy the sunshine and headed to Birmingham city centre for a quick look around. The city centre was quite nice and looks like a great place to shop. Unlike Nottingham which is absolutely jam packed with people on the weekend.

Strangely we found an area of the main square where a large amount of sand had been dumped and people were sitting on deck chairs watching some kind if free concert. This seems to be a common British summer event as the very same thing was set up in the Nottingham market square. I guess after living on the eastern coast of Australia it's easy to take our beaches for granted. But still, it was kind of weird.

Next stop was the Cadbury chocolate factory which turned out to be pretty interesting. And you get quite a bit of free chocolate - woot! They've set the place up as a kind of theme park and obviously play on the whole Willy Wonka thing. But it wasn't completely lame, other than a horrible little ride at the end of the factory tour. I had to drag Neiva away so that she wouldn't buy a photo of us in this dinky little plastic car and me with a wtf expression on my face. Man I dodged a bullet there, could have been some serious laughs at my expense had that made it online.

On the way back to Notts we stopped of at Bosworth Field. This was where the final battle of the War of the Roses was fought between the Tudor king Henry and Richard III. Richard assembled his army in Nottingham and vastly outnumbered the Tudor forces. The battlefield itself is great as it has little plaques around it that describe the events and often mention important things that happened right where you're standing. As it turns out Richard III was killed in battle and his forces routed and the Tudors became the new rulers of a united England for centuries to come.

If you've ever seen the first episode of Black Adder where he kills his uncle Richard the king by accident, this was the battle he was fighting in.

Overall it was a really nice day and the weather was fantastic.

This weekend I'm heading north to York.