Leeds is a bustling city in the heart of Yorkshire, it has a vibrant market and is packed full of young business people eagerly working away to earn a crust. It is our destination for today and the following pictures should give you an insight into what we got up to and, if you’ve never been there before, Leeds itself.
Arriving in Leeds, bright eyes and bushy tails are the order of the – somewhat grey and damp – day.
My son here standing next to the ‘barrel man’, the container he wields has a high volume capacity. However it would still not be up to the task of containing the volume of alcohol I will consume, when this week is finally over.
Little did Lord Byron know, all those years ago, that his descendants would one day turn their backs on poetry and romanticism. Instead they would open up one of Leeds’ foremost burger establishments:
It’s a bit like Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman, is Leeds. Even when it’s wet there’s still a lot to look at, and enjoy. This comment is in no way influenced by those two pointy buildings. Ahem.
It was the great philosopher, Archimedes, who famously said: ‘In Leeds you’re never more that ten feet away from a rat, or a man trying to sell you a mobile-phone cover’.
The beautiful, grand old entrance to Leeds’ indoor market. A truly wonderful building, unlike the one in my own home town that has been demolished and replaced with what is, effectively, a giant shoe box.
It even smells of shoes.
So, you’ve got your lottery money from the government, but you’re just not sure what to spend it on. Well how about…a giant horse on a stick?
AND IT’S GOT WINGS!
Another, in a long line, of traitorous child incidents. Even after I told him that it wasn’t a ‘real’ mummy he still preferred its company to mine.
The world-famous Leeds’ fruit and veg stall. The sellers speak their own language ‘pee for a tannnnnn, onddd daaaaay a baaaaggggg!’ they cry to us as we pass them ‘Errnning twooo, four a pahhhhhh’ echoes the stall owner adjacent to them. Learned scholars have said, it is slightly easier to crack the Enigma code, than it is to understand what they are talking about.
Here, as it is second-hand market day, is a second-hand market stall. Buyers have been know to haggle with vendors for upwards of eight-hours, in an attempt to get a 5-pence reduction, on a yellow Mills and Boon romance novel.
The mysterious ‘stall of boxes’. Nobody has yet managed to get through the throng of people surrounding this stall, and seen what is in the boxes. It is rumoured that whoever looks inside the boxes will begin melting, and then explode. A bit like at the end of Indiana Jones and The Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
A money-back-guarantee, always instills faith when inscribed upon a piece of tatty cardboard…
Now far be it from me, to question the ‘high quality’ of jewellery for £2…
My son, patience worn thin, says ‘Can we leave this place now?’.
Allegedly, Prime Minister David Cameron’s favourite stall in Leeds…
As up-to-the-minute as most of Leeds is, there’s still the odd outdated piece of yesteryear to be found. Look at this Dreamcast poster for example. I loved my Dreamcast, sigh…
Here we have a very ambitious noodle bar, with sights set in the stratosphere. Why rip off one global fast-food retailer, when you can rip off two?
One of my treasured views: an empty pram, with two coats bundled on top of it. This means my children are somebody else’s problem for a while (they were visiting their mum at work).
It never ceases to amaze me, no matter where we go, no matter the environment or weather, my son ALWAYS manages to find a balloon.
Dinner time, it ain’t the most nutritiously balanced, organically-sourced meal ever, but I don’t have a job and it was cheap!
Heading home…still bright-eyed and bushy tailed….?
