1) Up and at ‘em! We faced a fairly early start by train to today’s destination: Birmingham and its Museum of the Jewellery Quarter. I confess I was feeling a few affer effects of the splendid wines we’d enjoyed over dinner at the Cross the previous evening.
2) The view of Birmingham from the train as we arrived was spacious, modern, and industrial. As we left the station and proceeded to the museum, that changed to an atmosphere that was gritty, antique, decaying, and industrial.
3) This view I took in at quickening speed and with mounting impatience. While Etiquetteer is giving me the Hairy Eyeball for Referring to Bodily Function, it’s necessary to mention that I was afflicted by an Angry Ounce. In short . . . .Daddy had to pee real bad. And none of the intersections we crossed were ever the turn to the museum!
Me thinking about jewelry. :-)
4) Now in planning for the trip, Paul had mentioned going to a jewelry museum, and I thought “Fabulous! Enormous glittering gemstones and innovative design!” Well . . . as it turned out, not quite. The museum is actually based on the workshop and office of Smith & Pepper, a venerable old firm mostly known for its gold snake bracelets. The place is exactly as they left it in 1981 when they walked out, locked the doors, and never came back. Imagine!
5) As soon as the tickets had been bought I bolted for the men’s room, and then had to bolt for the start of the guided tour. At least I wasn’t the last one to join the group.
Jewelers’ smocks hung at the workroom entrance.
6) The tour was fascinating, actually - zero regrets about the absence of egg-sized emeralds or other Important Jewels. First the office, where jewelry was given its final touches and where all the accounting and things got done, and then the workroom floor, where the jewelers worked. Smith and Pepper actually made gold buttons for uniforms, and we were all shown how the stamps and other presses worked. Everyone on the tour was given a tiny brass Scottie dog and a button stamp with a Roman head on it as samples.
7) I then had to take care of another Angry Ounce - most frustratining! - after which I resumed touring the museum’s galleries of 19th- and 20th-century British jewelry. I am consternated that I don’t seem to have any photos of the jewelry.
8) After one final visit to the men’s room - Christian made a point of commenting on this unusual frequency - and bypassing the shop which didn’t look compelling, we set out to see a bit of his very old neighborhood. An interesting mix of dereliction and up-and-coming edginess.
9) Before embarking for home, we stopped at a delightful little wine bar near the station to be refreshed. Christian and Paul had been there before, and we enjoyed tapas and a bottle of 2012 syrah. It was also a wine store, and I was pleased to find a bottle of that stimulating rioja we’d enjoyed the night I arrived in Kenilworth.
10) We dined in that night - those boys took such good care of me! - and watched a 2017 film I hadn’t seen, God’s Own Country, daring, original, emotionally brutal. And it reminded me how many different, and difficult, choices actors make when creating and inhabiting a character.