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!!!!!

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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