A Cure for Homesickness

Le Mal Du Pays Rene Magritte (The lions always make me think of Leeds Town Hal)l

While I love living up here in windy damp Northumberland I do get occasional waves of nostalgia and homesickness which have to be addressed from time to time. I have to go 'home' and catch up with everyone and remind myself that variety is the spice of life and I'm not missing too much by living up north.. also if I lived in Leeds then I would probably have to get a proper job!!!! no more larking about student life - and most people I love in Leeds are busy and probably don't notice I'm not around as much as I lament that they are 2 hours away ha ha ...

Last week we had a flying visit to Leeds - to do just that - catching up with family and friends negating the most recent bout of homesickness by spending a night near where I used to live... and being reminded of students.. noise.. traffic..mess.. I think the area is improving.. but its student changeover time so bins are overflowing, gardens and yards full of discarded furniture, potato mashers, other random stuff and decaying carpets.. The plus side is some people are very wasteful or lazy as some of the discarded stuff is perfectly usable and I have to summon massive will power to resist my skip diving tendencies and not end up with yet more stuff... fortunately Dr Fred keeps me in hand and my daughter is there to rescue any real bargains. On a serious note it just is becoming quite alarming at the blatant disregard for sustainable futures.. Last year my daughter practically refurnished her living room with Ikea furniture which was mostly less then a year old... All picked up from discarded rubbish piles within two or three streets from where she lives.

So...pleasant times with family and pals in Leeds. I love my sons city centre flat it is so convenient for fabric rescuing, art galleries and shops although I didn't do much of that this time round - though I did buy some lovely hand made paper to draw on..we had a meal and drinks with friends and the next morning we had breakfast in LS6 - a student cafe/bar hang out that seems over priced for tasty but minuscule portions - (guess they are counting on hangovers) - was lovely to spend time with an old friend (as in lifetime rather then age - although we are allegedly knocking on a bit) her family and my family as well... we go back a long way - countless dramas, good times, lots of laughing, bad times, terrible times, tears, hugs, sunny days spent hanging out in the garden with paddling pools and face paint - we never got so far as imagining we would one day 30 odd years on be sat with our own grandchildren on our laps.. time flies... Breakfast was followed by a lazy pleasant meander through the local park our thoughts with people who would like to be there but couldn't - the sun shone for us and it stayed dry -

No longer homesick, I just want all my friends to move up north to join my life here - not too much to ask... but then maybe the cuddles with grand children and meets with friends might stop feeling so special and realistically I'm only a couple of hours away and the there is no beach in Leeds!!!!!

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

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