Digbeth Day Afternoon

The Warehouse photo by Rainer Ebert

Digbeth may be short on green leafy spaces but, like the rest of Birmingham, there is quick and easy access to the canals, so when I get a touch of the blues I can bike them away. My favourite route is a circular one, joining the Digbeth Branch Canal on Fazeley Street, carrying on into The Grand Union Canal until I hit under Spaggetti Junction. After a quick giggle at the ‘beach’ I turn back towards town on the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal, either re-joining the Digbeth Branch Canal when I hit Aston to end up where I started or carrying on into the city centre. Which is what I did Friday night to catch Blade Runner at my local cinema The Electric’s first showing on their new second screen.

Whilst I was in there some thug fiddled with my brakes so they faced the sky rather than the floor. Nice one. So yesterday morning I had to wheel it to the bike shop to be repaired.

On Your Bike on Bradford Street is the nearest, but I’ve found they can be a tad elitist. When I took my old boneshaker there for a service I got told by a rather dour Australian that my bike wasn’t worth spending any money on and I should just buy a new one, so it seems that unless you own quite a high-end mountain bike machine, they may not want to touch it. However Antonio, who owns a gorgeous Gary Fisher, assures me they’re very good.

Sprocket’s Cycles on Allison Street is a different story. They love doing up old battered bikes to sell secondhand and were always willing to tweak my old 70′s German town bike. So when I found myself after a newer model, I bought a shiny Dawes hybrid through them.

Sprocket’s is a tenant of the Friends of the Earth Warehouse, a gorgeous large red-brick building. It somehow seems idyllically back in time and whenever I go there I always feel like I’m in some middle England village rather than industrial Digbeth. The Warehouse is also home to CND West Midlands, whole food store the One Earth Shop and vegetarian restaurant the Warehouse Cafe.

The Warehouse Cafe is large, taking up the whole upper floor of The Warehouse. It has a very wholesome-hippy feel to it, with bare wooden floorboards and matching furniture, art to view and buy on the walls and copies of The Good News on the tables. Their food is quite simple but good and I can never resist a spot of lunch in there after dropping the bike off for fixing. I keep meaning to make Sunday lunch with all the trimmings there and perhaps one day I will.

But not today. Today I paid a visit to a rather drowned-out Sunday Flea market at The Custard Factory, walking away with a ‘vintage’ brolly to save me from the rain and a box of pretty cupcakes from Wonderleague for dinner. Not quite as healthy as The Warehouse Cafe’s organic fare, but tasty all the same.