Shopped here again this week , covered xmas gifts and motherinlaws garden statue plus a few pets…read moresupplies. this truly is an amazin store, like a tardis from the outside you cant imagine what an emporium of items lie within. This local shop has been here on the circle for over 50 years to my knowledge the current owner is the 3rd generation of lennons to be providing such great service.In current ecnomic climate it is nice to see small family business still survive here on the circle. If you are local you should alredy know this shop, if you havent been lately , you should. we need more independent shops like ths where customer service is still above profits. Thanks you matthew and yoour team , i have been coming here for half a century and hope to continue to do so for a while longer.

Excellent, down to earth place to get a multitude of items at a reasonable price! Staff really…read morefriendly and easy going. Its exactly what you expect from a general indoor/outdoor market! Worth a gander I say! ;-)

I remember visiting Pacific Nurseries when I was younger and it was a small nursery selling good…read moreplants fairly cheaply, one of those places you come to pick up bedding plants. Been back now probably 8 years later and its now huge, permanent structure, bigger site and much more choice, still the same good quality and fair consistent pricing as I remember before. They have a cafe onsite as well now.

I love their meatballs with chips n cranberry. I have gone there just to eat lol but I always end…read moreup looking around the store snd buying something I didn't really need lol Great if you need some inspiration to brighten up your home. But back to the cafe. I was pleasantly surprised when I had dessert OMG! I love the tart I had, very nutty, wished I could remember what it was called cos I think they sell them in the food store bit. I did get a photo and trust me ....it was delicious!

Who loves a trip to IKEA? THIS GAL!…read more I am going to work on the idea that you haven't ever been to IKEA before and give you the full roundup of the fun that awaits you on your first trip... 1) Parking. Parking at IKEA is a nightmare, especially if you go on a weekend. As a top tip; get there for opening. You should be able to find a space relatively easily and don't have to play the "round and around" the car park game. 2) Confusion. Don't get confused! Yes, a lot of stuff is pre-laid out into rooms as little slices of an ideal home, but you can still get the goods which are on displayu... that just comes later! 3) Bags. I would thoroughly recommend taking yourself some large bags from home if you want to avoid buying their gigantic "builders sand" style carriers. If you are purchasing furniture (which is another battle we will come on to), it comes in a box which you can pop straight into your car. If you are buying bigs and pieces, take a bag or two with you. 4) Small Items/linen/kitchen goods. Right... Don't panic about not finding what you want when you are walking around the room layouts... Everything becomes clear when you get to the marketplace. These areas are split into bedroom, storage, kitchen, bathroom and other areas, so if you're looking for something from a particular room layout you can find it here. 5) Furniture (the biggie). After the marketplace is the warehouse. This can be really daunting but the staff will be happy to point you in the right direction if you have noted down the name of the item you want. Be warned, some of the boxes will be very heavy (remember to bend with your knees). Last but not least... Food! There is a cafe and fast food stand in this IKEA store where you can buy everything from cute Swedish cakes to hotdogs (for a bargain £1). If you have an IKEA family card, you can claim a free coffee and tea in the week too! In summary... A first trip to IKEA can be stressful, but the staff are helpful and the prices are great for the product choice. Take a good look around as you never know what you might find (it's impossible to do the whole store in less than an hour) and don't forget that you can visit their little food shop at the end! This stocks a great range of Cider, frozen food, snacks and cakes!

Whilst the sign says it's a cash and carry, don't worry it's open to everyone and so there is no…read moreneed to fret that you aren't a business owner. Based in an old Victorian building you enter through an old wooden gateway into what can only be described as a two bay parking space. To get into the shop you clamber a few high stone steps and traverse a rickety parquet floor that makes you sad it isn't fixed and set in place. You will be surrounded by old metal racking that is sadly not for sale and decommissioned shop fridges but when you finally get inside you'll be surrounded by an array of organised boxes of stock for a good rummage. From DIY necessities, kitchen equipment, a tupperware aisle, stationery and toys it at times is a time capsule of days gone by with the stock they have. Behind the counter are all the electrical goods and they even have a boxed walkmen. When bonfire night approaches this is the place to get your fireworks from. It's a bit of a treasure trove and I dar you to not buy at least one thing every time you visit. You'll discover all sorts of things you didn't know you needed in here.

Warley's is a bit of a crazy find. You have to walk through a haphazard parquet floored parking…read morearea just to get to the front door, and then once inside it is like a weird rabbit warren of amazing tat. That's not to say the stuff in here is junk - it's not - it's just you couldn't come here with a shopping list, you just have to trust they might have something you need and then wander. Things you can definitely rely on finding here: - Whitefurze storage containers in all sizes, and a range of other storage tubs and jars - GIANT (and I mean *massive*) pans and steel cooking implements - Clocks. Lots of clocks. And random picture frames all jumbled up in a giant cardboard box. - Walkman cassette players - still boxed. (!!!) - Household stuff - appliances (hairdryers, lamps etc.) and plug extension leads and laundry baskets and other miscellaneous domestic items. - Weird multipacks of stationery, like chalks and biros, and notepads and tape.

I must admit that until I moved over West Bromwich way, I'd never heard of Betel. Having swung by…read morethis shop a few times, I was very interested to learn that it deals mostly in furniture restored by people taken in by the Betel charity and taught, among other things, how to restore furniture. The amount of stuff in the shop on West Bromwich High Street is staggering. There are tables, bookcases, chairs, stools, footrests, wardrobes, chests of drawers, the lot. The prices of a lot of the stuff are quite high - we're talking £150 for a restored bookcase. Generally this is because it's proper old-school hand-carved stuff and not horrific 1970s cast-offs which line their aisles. Most of it's not particularly my taste (or in my price range) but the quality is fantastic and probably far better than you'd find in a lot of antique shops.

Homeware shops are my guilty pleasure. Ok one of them. Even if I'm not buying anything, I can't get…read moreenough of them, happy just roaming the aisles and coveting quirky (and often useless!) bits and pieces for an imagined dream house that I don't own yet. This is a particularly large outpost of Dunelm, with a staggering amount of choice for any room of your house, real or imagined. I had an actual purpose this visit - my mum and I had come to get clear plastic table covers for the marquee in my parent's back garden, that I was decorating for my sister's pre-wedding events. We managed to find the stuff on a roll and I approached a member of staff to help cut the right lengths. That's when it all went downhill. I've never felt more unwelcome as a customer. She sighed loudly upon hearing my request, saying, 'Oh if I'd known you wanted this cut, I wouldn't have come to help.' My mum and I exchanged a look, wondering if we'd misheard her. They even have a special over-sized desk with metre rulers set into the top and deep grooves to cut along to make her job easier. Yet she continued to huff and puff her way through the task whilst muttering how much she hated doing it. Yes she eventually cut the right lengths for us, but it was just uncomfortable - we even left her to the cutting for a while to browse the other aisles. Even when done she carried the pile to the till counters and complained to a colleague, 'I just had to cut 14 of these!'. Well excuse us for actually wanting to buy something from your shop. The price for the plastic sheeting was quite steep at £3 a metre but it turned out to be a wipe-clean godsend for all the spillages that ensued last week. Sadly it was the service that sticks in my mind; hopefully my next visit will be a bit more enjoyable!

To be a garden centre or a nursery or not to be a garden centre or a nursery? That is the question…read more It seems these days that many nurseries eventually diversify along the garden centre route - installing cafes, aquatics centres and farm shops. Fortunately, Hirons continues to buck the trend. This has always been and continues to be an actual functioning nursery providing high class garden and house plants to Birmingham families for years. Hirons retains its old fashioned feel, and hasn't changed since I used to visit here with my dad - who loves the place to bits incidentally. There's no smoke or mirrors here. You can see the staff getting there hands dirty, potting up the wonderful plants on old newspaper that they've actually grown on site. Garden centres have their place, but if you're a plant lover first and foremost this is the place for you. The staff at this family run firm really know their stuff, and you'll leave with unusual plants and specialist potting soil rather than a goldfish and a pot of homemade marmalade.

This nursery keeps gardening alive all year long. It has a lovely selection of Christmas trees in…read moreDecember and pleasant flower and veggie seeds in Spring. My favourite bit though is the drive. Each delivery the store receives causes a traffic back up because trucks really cannot fit through the gates but always try. Its an old business but remains a refreshing stop in the Perry Barr neighborhood.