Skip to main content

Every thing is illuminated... eventually and some Leeds Architecture

lions outside Leeds Town Hall
Have had to go to Leeds this week, family stuff... its a handsome city in spite of the monstrosities they have put up to house John Lewis and car parks...

one of the many stone statues that adorn the ornate victorian buildings
I wasn't terribly organised about coming to Leeds, but was able to stay at my son's flat while he's away in New York.   When I got there there was no electricity it was 10 o'clock at night and I was in a bit of a panic as because if no electricity - no wifi - and my phone was completely dead - and I didn't really know what to do with an electricity key ha ha especially an empty one!!! I didn't even know where the meters were in the building!!! the irony is that my son had said to use the flat and then said you know how to do the electric don't you and I of course had lied and rather blithely said oh yes...- what a joke - I ended up tramping the streets of city centre leeds with an empty useless electricity key to try and get it topped up and nowhere open.

not really sure what comment to make I think this is the new (hideous) multi story car park for John Lewis taken from bus so a bit blurred
In desperation to get assistance from my daughter I even tried to use a phone box!!

more tasteful modern building the Henry Moore Gallery 
I finally end up in a bar on my lonesome drinking a pint of ale - Ilkleys best beer so I could charge my phone and manage to ring my daughter and shout help me I'm stuck .. fortunately she explained that you get emergency electricity on these keys - expensive but necessary so eventually I was able to locate the meter in the spooky dark basement.   Thank goodness I'd some charge on my phone for a torch.. then I couldn't work out the key, starting to feel old and very tired - but eventually I was able to master this new fangled keep the lower classes in check technology and recharge in all senses of the word .. electric, phone, cup of tea, episode of Dexter on Netflix, nice sleep not on a futon...  ready to face another day of impending chaos.......



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...