Down by the Valley Gardens

[nineveh_uk]

I am back from a long weekend in Harrogate with my sisters in celebration of the fact that I have a significant birthday approaching.* I am feeling surprisingly less tired than I might have expected, probably helped by the fact that despite the time of year the trains were civilised so the journeys weren't tiring, even if last minute ticket purchase when I decided that driving wasn't a good idea made them expensive. There is something to be said for enforced sitting down and reading. Middle Sister had donated her work-flights-earned Air Miles to the cause so we had a very nice hotel and I had a bath this morning just because it was there. There was some delicious food, entertaining theatre, and large amounts of nostalgia.

Yesterday involved a walk to Harlow Carr, which we didn't actually go into because this is not really the time of year for a rather expensive garden, but spent much time in its excellent bookshop. My sisters bought various Christmas presents, I bought some lavender-flavoured white chocolate. We took it in terms to comment on the qualities of various cornus in the absence of our mother. Alas, we didn't eat at Betty's because it isn't the time of year you can do that without booking or lots of time, but I had a sausage roll and curd tart, and purchased biscuits of gratitude for a couple of colleagues who have been particularly helpful with big stressful project.**

The main event of the weekend was West Yorkshire Playhouse's production of Strictly Ballroom, which had opened on Wednesday and was enormous fun. Bring on the sequins! On the way back to the station we observed that the long-awaited John Lewis has finally arrived. Honestly, we'd been promised the bloody thing for decades, and then it turns up after my parents leave. The building is genuinely impressive, though; we even admired the car park. It looks like origami done in stone, and yet is strangely in keeping with the buildings around it. Also noted on the way to and from the theatre was the extraordinary extent to which the people of Leeds have embraced the Christmas jumper.

*According to my student self by this point in life I am supposed to have re-read Ulysses and have published a novel. I have decided that the former was a whim, not an obligation, and the second delayed by circumstances beyond my control.

**Technically they were just doing their jobs, but with an unfailing good humour and helpfulness that meant that at least I didn't also have to stress about the photocopying because I could fling it in someone's direction with ten minutes to spare. Material acknowledgement feels warranted.

Comments

[white_hart]

That sounds like a lovely weekend. I'm glad the trains worked well.

And I think that showing appreciation for people doing their jobs in a good-humoured and helpful way is definitely a good thing to do now and again.

[lilliburlero]

I appreciate your post title.

When I was a student I thought publishing a book of poems was terribly important, but a few years later I'd realised that publishing a book a poems that anyone might actually want to read was much, much more important, yet virtually impossible to do, so when I did, aetat. 34, it wasn't much of event, all told. Novels are different though because people do legit. want to read novels.

Anyway, happy approaching birthday!

[pensnest]

Strictly Ballroom is on in this country! Awesome. I hope it will be touring everywhere. Back in 2014 we were very luckily touring the Sydney Opera House while a promo for the show, due to open in Oz quite soon, was being shot on the terrace there. The place was full of sequinned people dancing, and it was delightful. Sadly, we'd come back to England before the show opened, though I dare say there wasn't a ticket to be had in any case.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

*25?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Does this mean you won't be in God's Own Country for Christmas, then?

If you happen to be, and find yourself at a loose end, I'll be around between the 23rd and the 29th.

It always amuses me to think of people visiting my old home town in order to have fun! But I suspect that's the best way to get fun out of it. That and reading the bulletins of the Harrogate Civic Society - cast iron lamp posts! Inappropriate signage! Paiting of stone walls! - never fails to put my own problems in perspective.

[shark-hat.livejournal.com]

It's never the time of year when you can get in to the Harlow Carr Betty's without lots of time as far as I've ever experienced- it seems to be a double whammy of both being too small and having far too few staff for the number of tables.

It'll be interesting to see if the centre of gravity of Leeds's shops is pulled towards John Lewis now. One of the entrances gives out directly on the market, so with luck people will pop in there for a bargain after spending lots of money in the posh shops in the arcade around the JL and keep it going... (the posh shop that tempts me most is a tea emporium - I have to keep a grip on myself like in bookshops- "no! I've already got lots of things I haven't read/drunk yet!").