A Trip Back Home To Leeds

A trip back home to Leeds was just what the doctor ordered over the summer holidays. Literally, my GP advised it and not one to refuse medical advice, I was off!

After almost 8 long weeks of entertaining my kids during the summer holidays (including some isolation time from school) and pregnant, no less (I was lucky to be able to reduce my working hours to just 1 day a week) it was definitely time for some TLC from family and friends back home, up North.

Extending our stay from 7 to 10 days (that’s how needed it was), we enjoyed a combo of lazy days in my folks’ beautiful home, overlooking fields of haystacks and a reservoir enveloped by thick forrest, eating, napping, building LEGO and watching old Kardashian eps, with nostalgic days out playing in parks and playgrounds I loved as a child and enjoying riverside walks in Ilkley and Leeds alike.

We dined and dined and dined at relatives’ delicious cafes and restaurants respectively in Manchester (Cafe on the Lane in Cheadle and Kosmos in Fallowfield) and then stayed too late watching movies on Netflix or seeing old and dear friends, the kind you can always be your monstrous self with, forgetting the fatigue of pregnancy in all the excitement until the baby would kick me forcibly to remind me of her presence and that bed was calling!

Being around people who’ve known me most of my life provides a special kind of warmth, a magic even.

A recipricol blanket of unconditional love wraps around you all as you speak in shorthand and rapidly, never wanting the meet-up to end.

From the Greek dishes and marble cake my Mum lovingly prepared to meals out at my Dad’s dreamy Italian restaurant Giorgio’s in Headingley and trips down memory lane at Tropical World in Roundhay, I retraced my youth and took in the ever-changing city of Leeds. Polished and new and improved, shopping centres have expanded, al fresco gyms have been added to parks, Roundhay park and plush shopping centres and restaurants crowd every corner.

Leeds is a fully fledged contender to London now and it makes me feel proud.

Like a polygamous wife with two loves, if only I could divide my time indefinitely between Leeds and Windsor. Perhaps one day.