Part of my Happiness List for July is Date Night – spending time with The Bloke for no other reason than just because. An opportunity presented itself recently to go out into Birmingham and do just that.

Those of you who have followed the blog for a long time will be aware of my obsession with the musical RENT. It has been something that has been a big part of our relationship – he has ‘No Day But Today’ engraved on the inside of his wedding ring, we walked back up the aisle to ‘I’ll Cover You’ after we got married, he even went along with it when I wanted to go and find Antony Rapp when we went to watch it in London in 2016 (read about the whole adventure here). While it’s our favourite show it’s rare that we get the chance to see it, so when an ad appeared on Facebook that there was a performance at the Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter that evening we booked tickets and decided to turn it into a pseudo-spontaneous date night. 

We’re really lucky in that we get to experience a lot of things in and around the city each month, particularly at the theatre, but it’s not that often that we go out and spend time together just for us, and we certainly don’t usually go anywhere on a Saturday night. Perhaps it’s because we’re both exhausted at the weekend and staying in is always fun, comfortable and far cheaper – we curl up on the couch, put on a film, overindulge on snacky treats, talk absolute nonsense at each other and then either one or both of us will fall asleep. I love it, but sometimes the FOMO takes hold.

For once, I decided to make an effort. I did my hair, put on a full face of make-up and booked us into Tierra Tacos, a little place near the theatre that I have been wanting to try for ages. One of the many things that I love about Birmingham is it’s food scene, offering anything and everything you could ever want, from Michelin starred gourmet cuisine to indie street dishes from all over the world. 

Tierra Tacos was awesome. We decided to order a mixture of small dishes – Pork Carnitas, Chicken Tinga and Beef Barbacoa, with a couple of sides of roasted potatoes and Truffle Cheese Hush Puppies. I also had a few passion fruit Frozen Margaritas and then finished it off with a Basque Blackened Cheesecake. Despite that sounding like a monumental amount of food it was just right, with a whole plethora of different flavours that worked beautifully together. I can see why it’s so popular – definitely somewhere I will be visiting again. 

RENT was great. It was performed by the graduating class of the Midlands Academy of Musical Theatre (winners of Drama School of the year in 2020), and despite the fact that it was a young cast and the space was super small, I loved it. There were a few performers in the group, in particular Alice Maitland in the role of Maureen, who was outstanding. While I don’t usually miss teaching generally, I miss working with young performers who have an incredible amount of talent.

It was such a nice evening – walking and talking nonsense, eating great food, enjoying the nice weather and watching our favourite show – it was a reminder that we need to do this more often!

What about you guys? Have you done anything spontaneous recently? Let me know in the comments below!

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