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!!!!!

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

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 b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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