Going to the Games.

 Today was a shopping day with added benefits in the evening.

This is our mooring on the Ashted/Digbeth Arm. It is very quiet, even in term time when the local Engineering academy are working.

We walked into town and did the rounds of the shops. The girls were enjoying touching/feeling etc rather than on line and I enjoyed people watching as they did so. I needed some walking shoes and we ended up in Sports Direct. In the end I bought a pair of walking shoes and a pair of sandals. Not only that but each of the girls bought a pair of sandals each too. We walked back to the boat to drop off our parcels before heading out to Smithfield where the basketball and Beach Volleyball is taking place. It is on a big site just down the hill from the Bull Ring Centre

It was very busy with plenty of food and drink retails going on, plus lots of other things too.

We had good seats and all in all it was a good evening. The first game we watched was a men's The Gambia and St Kitts, and then two women's games, England v Solomon Islands and Cyprus v   and TobagoTrinidad. The England Game just started after the result of the England football was known at Wembley so there was lots of cheering and celebrations. The England girls won easily but the the last game was closer with the Cyprus team being victors. The MC's did their best to get everybody going. There were volunteers raking the sand and a dance team strutting their stuff when ever there was a break.

There are only two in a team and the gild with her back to the camera is in the England duo. I think she is indicating to the server where she should serve. I think this means that it should go down the middle!!

The session finished just before 22:00 and we headed home. This is the volleyball court. There are hundreds of volunteers and police so everything goes smoothly. I'm not sure what they all do mind.

#This is the Basket Ball court and they finished after us.

All in all it was quite a good evening and well worth going too and be part of the whole thing.

St Philips in the Bull Ring stands above the Smithfield site and is lit up for the Games.

It got quite cold sitting in the open air so it was nice to warm up on the walk back to the boat around the Bull Ring centre. It was also nice to have a chocolate when we got back to the boat, before heading to bed.

I FORGOT TO WISH ALL OUR READERS A VERY HAPPY

YORKSHIRE DAY

AND ESPECIALLY THE EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE

The green and blue represent the sea and the coast and the white rose is rotated so that it is upside down compared with the normal Yorkshire rose.