“You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day, one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.” ~ Garden State
We went back to Leeds this weekend, back to the first UK city I called home, land of high-rises and scaffolding, strip clubs and cafe-bars, Greggs pasty shops and the Yorkshire Evening Post. Dolly likened it to fond memories of an ex-boyfriend - "You just get the good bits, the 'awww' moment - you can pick and choose and skip the crap that made you break up in the first place." Leeds and I broke up 18 months ago and I hadn't been back since, but this turned out to be rather a lovely reacquainting. The drive up was hor.rib.ble - 9 hours on the road, hot and cramped and gawking at the accidents (and oh my there were several, and bad ones). We finally pulled into the city around 7pm, (you know you're back in Yorkshire when every radio station is thumpin' drum 'n' bass!) parked the car, staggered into the Travelodge (only the finest!) and somehow managed to find our room.* We unpacked in a hurry and rang friends, demanding they meet us in the hotel bar - stat! - and then accompany us for dinner and a mutual exchange of gossip. They did, we did (boy howdy!), sake and Japanese food were abundant, and all was well. We ended the evening drunk as a parcel of skunks in Cafe Milo, hollering over the music and drinking gin and tonic, no ice. Dave & Chris - this one's for you guys!
The next morning I felt less-than-amazing, but managed to drag my sorry ass out of bed and into the shower by about 11am. The Dude (no hangover!) and I met an old friend from University at Brown's for breakfast (scrambled eggs and ciabatta with coffee). We particularly enjoyed sitting at the window and watching a trade union march wind by on the Headrow, taking particular glee in the rather old-school colonial surroundings in the restaurant whilst sniggering "the peasants are revolting!". Poor taste, yes, but sometimes needs must. (By the way, Leeds now has an Urban Outfitters so I might have to move back...). Our friend had brought a hereto-unknown-to-us (and rather fabulous, as it turns out) friend as his 'plus 1' for the wedding and after introductions the 4 of us set off to find the place, the Chevin Hotel & Spa in Otley. It was stunning! For once the sun was shining and the day went off without a hitch. I was glad that I decided not to have to much to drink at the party, and was very very glad for my hotel bed 9 hours later. Huge congratulations to my lovely friends L & J, and thank you for such a wonderful day.
The taxi ride back to our hotel was as entertaining as anything else, really - by chance, the route took us through Kirkstall and then parts of Burley, all areas that some or all of us (6 in the car on the way back) had lived in as students at Leeds University. We had a sweet little nostalgic moment, pointing out old haunts and laughing nervously at the abysmal standard of housing we had all endured.
On Sunday morning we packed and checked out. I was a more than a little interested to see how much parking was going to be - Friday evening to Sunday morning in an enclosed carpark - but it was happily only about £14, in the end. Before setting off back South, we decided to look for a petrol** station and ended up on Cardigan Road, right down from Poverty Aid, my favorite EVER charity shop in Leeds - luckily, it was closed. We had breakfast at Slips Deli (yes, deli sandwiches totally count as breakfast, especially these!) and headed off back down the road...
A mere 6 hours later, we arrived back at the Treehouse, having survived crushing boredom, a couple of springtime squalls and a particularly tense 20 minutes when the petrol light came on and we thought we might just run out of gas on the middle of frickin' nowhere (we didn't). A quick change of clothes and we were down at our local pub, playing pool and cheerfully listening to a woman massacre a chorus of "Wind Beneath My Wings".
Repeat after me: There's no place like home. ***
* I will leave out the long and winding rant about the pointlessness of having a key-card swipe in an elevator that is inside of a building that needs a key-card swipe to get through the front door. It's like a cheap and nasty Fort Knox in there.
** That's 'gas' for the North Americans. :-)
*** On Monday we went and saw Iron Man. I am pleased to report that Robert Downey Jr is a very handsome man and I enjoyed it immensely.
Dropping like flies...
I appear to have developed a penchant for shiny, big-budget TV shows with initials in the name and a cast full of (mostly) unfeasibly attractive people who have nailed the art of posing dramatically but who just can't seem to manage staying alive...
