Friday, 27 May 2016

Home for a couple of days - Tuesday 23rd to Thursday 26th May

On Monday afternoon we went a walk around Leeds initially to find the new John Lewis store but then realised that it was not yet completed and will be opening in a couple of months or so. It did look an impressive modern lattice style building. However the city has lovely old buildings like the City Market below.

Market

There is also the Town Hall which shows how wealthy the city has been in its past.

1621LeedsTownHall

The Corn Exchange is another building this time a round one with an unusual dome on the roof.

leeds_corn_exchange

We walked down to the entrance to Clarence Dock where there is supposed to be some more Visitor Mooring with electric and water laid on.

leedslock01

However, when you look inside the Dock the only moorings which are for visitors are those on the left hand side and  will only take 4 narrowboats as the Water Taxi to River Lock operates from the far end of the pontoon. The right hand side with the finger pontoons is given over to permanent moorings. What a great shame that they did not put finger pontoons in on the visitor side as it would have made Leeds a far more welcoming place like Liverpool. The far end of the Dock is a private area which was supposed to be for Trading Boats, like Paddington Basin, but has not yet taken off.

Clarence dock22

On Tuesday we caught the 10.10am train back to Birmingham as June had to attend a hospital appointment on the Wednesday which was going to take 3-4 hours and we had to get to the other side of the city.

Arriving home the garden had grown considerably since we left and it was only thanks to our neighbours that the grass was not two feet high. I still had to mow it 3 times to get it down to its correct level.

20160524_131421

20160524_181731

The pool and stream were also overgrown with weed and I had to deal with one of our oldest fish floating on the top.

20160524_181813

Whilst we were on our way home Graham and Carolann took the luxury bus to Harrogate to have Tea at Betty’s Tea Room something we had hoped to do had we not had to go home.

Wednesday morning saw me attending the dentist to repair a tooth I broke last week whilst eating breakfast cereal and in the afternoon June attending the hospital. We got home about 6 pm and later June went to visit one of our friends who is seriously ill.

Thursday we were up early and collecting prescriptions and then catching the train back to Leeds. We arrived back at 1pm and had coffee with Graham and Carolann before going into Leeds to stock up the fridge and store cupboard.

In the afternoon we had planned to leave Leeds and head down the river Aire but it was raining when we arrived and the sky looked very doubtful so decided to give it a miss and leave early in the morning. There had hardly been a boat moving whilst we had been away..

No comments:

Post a Comment