Sentimental Journey

A couple of weeks ago I was at a study week-end in Birmingham and drove over to Moseley, a suburb where I used to live between the ages of 22 and 30, an important time in anyone’s life. First I was a postgraduate student and then I worked at the Museum and Art Gallery as an assistant keeper. Some of the shops and restaurants were the same – the Jade Garden Chinese restaurant, the wholefood shop, but something seemed to be missing and I realised there weren’t any book shops. There used to be two – Smith’s (now an estate agent) and a independent one, that stocked more alternative stuff (now a CD shop). They were an important part of my life there – must have spent hours in the alternative one, hesitating about which book to buy, when money was tight. From the time I left home to go to university until we moved here to Derbyshire I’ve always lived within walking distance of a book shop – and that’s something I still feel the lack of. More about that another day.