Shopping, Garden centres and Falconry.

The last few days have been pretty relaxed, although we went shopping at the "Bull ring" in Birmingham on boxing day. The picture doesn't quite show the craziness, in the shops it was packed and a little difficult to move. Most of the shops were a bit of a mess too, as people found it difficult returning items to where they found them. All a bit crazy. Didn't end up buying anything, just found things i want to get. Discovered later that more than 200,000 people had been through the mall that day.

Today (27th) we went in search of the original Hobbit's village. Houses in the rock face that inspired the idea for the Hobbit's shire. On the way we found a Garden Centre (Doesn't sound exciting i know) that will forever ruin other garden centres for me. "This way to Garden plants, Fencing, paving and Falconry". I mean clearly, what else do you put with paving and shrubs, but your falconry centre.

Anyway turned out to be an excellent little bird of prey sanctuary. Best of

all because they specialise in helping to return injured birds to the wild. Here are a few pictures for you.

After the invertible distraction of birds of prey we went hunting for the hobbits. We found the place in Kinver's edge. The photo is of Kinver village (sweetness of a little village).

Unfortunately we couldn't get up to the houses because of the ice (middle photo is as close as we got). But i took some pictures of the frozenness anyway.

Loved the tree in the middle of the clearing with a ring of snow/ice around it. I did also discover the perils of ice and gravity though, fortunately my eyebrow broke my fall. I was holding my camera at the time so the picture below is as i fell... Actually looks quite cool...