city

. . . and you’re welcome to it.

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I had the misfortune on Friday to visit Leeds City Centre. K*** had a hospital appointment and I went along for the ride. Actually, I went along in case I had to move the car if the appointment went too long. To think that less than ten years ago I was working in the City centre every day, I was a little shocked.

I used to be proud to say I lived in Leeds, but the whole place is beginning to look like a huge building site. I passed two of the offices I worked in whilst working for Leeds City Council. They are now being ‘transformed’ into ‘luxury City Centre apartments. These dwellings will not be for the everyday people of Leeds to help solve the housing crisis. No, these places will probably be second homes for people working in the centre.

K*** is often asking me to go to Leeds. Have a meal and see a show, but I cannot face it. You cannot walk up any street without seeing a sleeping bag in a disused shop doorway. Forever being asked if you have any spare change. As for driving there, I would not have a clue! Many of the roads I used nine years ago have either been pedestrianised or just closed.

Thankfully, the appointment did not take as long as we thought it might, and we were able to leave quickly. However, I am going to have to take K*** to the hospital in July, so I’m going to have to get my head around it

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We needed some food items, and K*** decided to go to a nearby Tesco. We wandered around and I thought it would be nice to get some chocolate biscuits.

This caught my eye. It seems that the said KitKat is now made from recycled plastic! Obviously, it refers to the packaging, but the position of the wording has not been thought out too well.

Only if I have to . . .

/ Tony / 3 Comments

I had to go to Leeds today. Mrs H was having some treatment for her bad foot. She would have normally gone on her own, but she wasn’t allowed to drive for four hours after the treatment, so I was the chauffeur. Since taking early retirement (or voluntary redundancy to give its proper title) in 2016, I have only been to the City centre once. We went to see a film and a meal and I hated it. There were people of all ages sitting in doorways of shops that had closed. Sat in sleeping bags with bottles of cheap wine at their side. All seemed to have some kind of dog with them, which I assume was for security, but it may have been to expose the compassionate nature of the gullible passer-by. I said then that I would only go back to Leeds if I had no choice.

When you work in a place, you do not tend to see the actual area. You move from place to place to fulfil your tasks, without stopping to ‘take in the view’ so to speak. On this occasion and the previous visit, I was able to take in what was happening in the City. It was not pleasant. Today we parked up near the Leeds General Infirmary. Mrs H was having some treatment at the Nu****ld hospital on Leighton Street.

Next to where I was parked, is a homeless shelter, which has been there for over 50 years. It has always been the same. Frequented by alcohol and drug dependents, it is not a particularly salubrious area, but it serves a purpose. When I worked at the hospital, the place catered for around 7 or 8 people. Now, as I understand it there are in excess of 30 people that use the shelter, and a lot of them spill out onto the streets outside. I saw at least 4 young people today, at 09:30 drinking beer. Not cheap supermarket beer, but quality stuff. Although I don’t know or appreciate their circumstances, it does make one feel more than a little uneasy.

OMG ! Is it still only Monday ?

/ Tony / Leave a comment

As Mondays go, today was no different. So this is not going to take long. Getting into work was fine, even with the detour. I’ve just about got that cracked I think. Nothing special happened today, just lots of silly little jobs that seemed to take all day. It will be a big printing day tomorrow. The faces that were pulled, when they saw me putting the other pages out. Talk about ‘a face that launched a thousand ships’… some of the faces today could have sank a few. It pays the wages, and it’s the job we do.

We came all the way from the City centre on the new link road tonight. That was good. It saved having to go through ’chav town’. I think I’ll try it next Monday after I drop the eldest off. I won’t drive in all the way, as I’m not sure how I would get up to the drop off point if I went that way.

I got the first comment on my blog today !!! It turned out to be sodding spam, from a Catering company. Would you credit it.

No word from my old colleague yet. Mind you, it did take him nearly three months to answer my FR mail, so who knows.

The jury is still out on Twitter. On one hand, I think it is great seeing what the famous are doing, and even getting the odd message from one or two of them. Had a message from Blake and a few from Julie Moore. But then conversely, is there any point to it. It seems to be very rare that a ‘celeb’ will follow anyone not famous. So I still don’t know, but then again it is not harming anyone.