Only Smarties have the answer...

Finally, a day comes by when I have something scheduled, hooray! Despite this, I find myself more bored than usual - which is odd. One of my housemates from university has been staying with his sister in Birmingham so we finally got round to meeting up. It was nice to go into town again as I don't get down there as much as I'd like to really. It always seems somewhat alien to me and I often find myself lost or very disoriented and end up walking round in circles to find my way around. I was all prepared for the big journey, had my correct change ready for the bus and had checked the timetables online. The exact fare system is something that visitors to the area find most peculiar. Although it is often funny to see people handing over a five pound note to pay the fare and receiving a completely vacant look from the driver, almost as if to say 'what's that?', like they have never seen paper money before. So I arrived at the bus stop five minutes early, so as not to miss it, only to find that the online timetable is wrong and that the bus isn't due for another 15 minutes. 20 minutes later, I was on my way.

I had planned to arrive slightly early so that I had time to grab some food before meeting up but when I sent my friend a text, he was already waiting for me 10 minutes across town. This turned out to be less of a problem that I had imagined and the afternoon turned into a pleasant dining experience in the food court of the Pallasades. The time passed quickly and we then decided to go for a mooch around the enormous HMV, probably one of the biggest record shops I have ever been in, spanning 4 levels!

Hoping to get a bike ride in sometime in the next couple of days, whilst the weather is still nice, I need to have another look at my bike though as the back wheel is making a scratchy kind of noise and I think I might have got some grit in with the bearings when I took it apart to clean it. A bit ironic really, making it more dirty when trying to clean it, oh well - such is life.