Can’t say enough how beautifully I think the Icon Gallery fits in with what’s around it. Gorgeous.

Well, it’s that time of year again, and yesterday I hopped on the Midland Red went to Birmingham to visit the Christmas Market and enjoy the sights and sounds of the city at Christmas.

I love Birmingham as readers will know, an attachment I developed as a teenager, but I’ve spent my life working there, passing through, seeing gigs, going to pubs and cycling around it – after decades I still adore the place.

It was a grey day that brightened up as the day went on, and by the time I visited the new library at lunchtime, it was actually quite lovely, but cold. I went to the ‘Secret Garden’, the vertigionous balcony garden on level 7, which had been closed due to ice the year before. It’s stunning, and I must get up there one night when it’s dark.

I love the plumes of steam, particularly from the chimney on the Icon Gallery.

The clashing architectures, busy streets and bustling market were wonderful, and reinforced yet again why I love this place so much.

As ever, loads more of this stuff on my 365daysofbiking journal.

It’s very high here. I didn’t care much for the glass barrier.

Mime seems to be the new busking.

Can’t get used to seeing tram tracks in formerly busy streets like Stephenson Place.

The ‘new’ New Street: this is a public face next to the ramp. The quality of finish is appalling.

Still hate the Cube.

Tyseley Incineratior – I miss it these days.

The Post Office Tower looks sadly bare these days, stripped of it’s antenna.

Shrooms.

Give my regards to Broad Street.

The stallholder was polishing – yes polishing – these aubergines as I passed early doors.

The Icon Galley is the former school in Oozels Street. I love how well it fits into the cityscape.

The Mailbox, Gas Street, and beyond to Lee Bank; a sort of economic progression.

Great view of the canal by the NIA.

Brindley Place and beyond.

I loved how the sun caught the seam as it drifted from flues and vents.

Perspective is odd up here.

On the far horizon, Walsall, and beyond, Castlefort.

Duck eggs are lovely, but too fragile to cart around Birmingham!

The old Central Library – another Madin work – will be gone in the new year. The revolution eats it’s children. Sad.

Traditional German wooden toys always look a bit sinister to me, but I did like this chap. – this is how I imagine the Young David Evans.

Loved this ginger rag doll.

Alpha tower, one of the most elegant examples of modernist architecture I’ve ever seen.

High above the ferris wheel, and nearly as high as the Hyatt.

This is not a spot for those afeared of falling.

103 Colmore Row still dwarfs the city – due to be demolished, it’s a tour de force of Brutalism designed for Natwest by Birmingham architect John Madin and one of my favourite buildings.

Down there, the city lives and breathes.

How to you make a bull-cosy, and why, really?