Day 5-Birmingham: Exhaustion, Black Country Museum, Brummies, Merry-go-round, Shopping, Frankie & Benny’s

May 24, 2025

Today, we couldn’t decide between driving to Stonehenge or doing something more local and since Adam seemed to be very tired from all the driving he was doing and I was still feeling meh from the migraine, we opted for local sights. We visited the Black County Living Museum and it actually turned out to be pretty interesting. It didn’t hurt that one of my favorite series’, Peaky Blinders, was filmed here or at least some major parts of it were. This was immersion into the Brummie culture. To borrow from the website, this is an open air museum that tells the story of one of the very first industrialized landscapes in Britain. The shops were as they once were and people were in character for the time. There is a coal mine you can explore, a fish and chip shop and a pub. So many cool historical things to see here including a canal. Old fixtures and buses and cars throughout and a horse and buggy clomping down the cobblestone streets. We experienced the small living quarters during the time and even sat in on a school lesson at the infant school. We didn’t stay there long because well..it was school and who wants to sit in a class if even a pretend one. There was a small carnival with old games, wooden swings and a wooden merry-go-round which SL had to ride because she always has. For the first time, David was not there to ride with her but Adam was, and I still got to stand and wave as they went by like I have done so many times since she was too small to hold herself on a horse alone. It wasn’t crowded and the walking was easy. It was a good laid-back day. We all enjoyed the gift shop and especially the Peaky Blinders stuff. It started to drizzle as we were leaving and on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Frankie and Benny’s for dinner (Italian American).