I'm a bit miffed that since buying my new camera the weather has been vile!

While in Birmingham city centre running some errands and even after seeing it many times over more than two years now, this beast still catches my eye regularly, hence its appearance as the first shot uploaded to my new year's thing. I'm not going to call it a PAD or a PESO or anything else because frankly I have no idea where I'm going with this. I'm just excited to have a camera that I can carry around with me that's capable of excellence even when I am not.

It's funny - I never saw myself becoming a resident of "Britain's Second City" (and technically I'm outside the city really) but I am very appreciative of its charms. It's much more compact than London, just as diverse and has some fabulous hidden gems.

We fell out of love with Cornwall for a variety of reasons so we decided to up sticks and move back "up country". Cornwall was exhilerating, wild, charming and an amazing adventure but at the end of the day there were too many downsides and not enough upsides to remain.

Why Birmingham? No reason other than finding a house that we both loved that was in walking distance of a town centre, public transport and the house itself was mouldable to our needs. We jumped in and two and a half years later we're still glad we made the move. We have better access to so much more of the world now and that's something to rejoice.