Thunder Road

The graveyard is never more alive than after a rainstorm, when the birds begin to chatter, and the emerging sun pierces the trees to light up a thousand diamond droplets cascading from drenched leaves onto decaying tombstones. My own injured blackbird chick died just after sunrise this morning, which wasn't the most auspicious start to the weekend, but I'm busy celebrating life; I've survived another year on this spherical madhouse of a planet, and have a birthday coming up, so where better to start the party than amidst the bustling stillness of the old churchyard?

For the second year running, I'm staying in Harborne for the weekend with Alastair (pictured) and Tom, and the graveyard is a handy short cut for us to get to our first port of call: a haunted pub called The Bell. This corner of Harborne still feels exactly like the rural village it once was - despite being nothing more nowadays than an enclave in the fume-filled West Midland conurbation - with cottages lining the boundary of the cricket pitch, a bowling green behind every boozer, and the constant sense that someone's going to drag you away from your pint of mild to solve a locked room mystery in the nearby vicarage. Then it's on to Harborne High Street, where the old rustic architecture sits side by side with many a grotesquely Birminghamised building; we visit the tranquil New Inn and the trendy Plough before heading back down the main road, serenading the city with impromptu Bruce Springsteen karaoke.

Back at Harborne Hall, there's plenty of chance to set the world to rights over a couple more ales and a sausage roll or two. Just like old times. It'll be that walk through the damp, sunlit graveyard that sticks with me though; a rite of passage I should go through each year, just to find that pleasant evening warmth after the thunder has passed.