This is England

After arriving to a gloomy city which seemed to specialise in a particular type of architecture called 'rows of utilitarian and depressing looking houses', I have to admit I was a little worried about Leeds. It seemed more This is England than Harry Potter, if you know what I mean. I hate it when reality impinges on my dreamy idea of Britain, formed during 3 impossibly sunny weeks in 2006.

After traipsing about Leeds for a couple of days looking for a place to live and trying to convince myself that my threshold for tolerating disgusting carpet is really quite high, I got off the bus in an area I hadn't yet been in and saw this:

It may just look like a flowerbed but for me it was a sign from the universe saying: ‘Zoe, this is where you need to live’ (not specifically in the flowerbed, but in the general vicinity of the flowerbed).

So as of Friday I am now living in Headingley. It’s apparently a bit of a student area not unlike Newtown, except instead of faded shopfronts and too many frozen yoghurt stores, there are old stone buildings all along the street and a preponderance of op shops (50p will get you a charming hand painted mug that doesn’t quite sit on the level).

 

Op shop necessities

So far there hasn’t been too much in the way of culture shock except I walked past a sign today that said ‘Smile – it’s not going to rain until Thursday!’ and I did a horrified double take when I saw this advertised in a shop window:

 

This nightmare is titled 'cheeseburger pizza'

I am also coming to terms with the university campus being populated with people born in the 90s’ – I know this, because they tease their hair and wear scrunchies without any sense of irony.

Other highlights include three days in a row of sunshine, discovering a cute local cafe and a visit to the Kirkstall Abbey market with new friends, followed by drinking tea and eating homemade apple pie in a sunny backyard. There has also been lots of reading of Pedagogy and getting frustrated by English bureaucracy, but let's focus on the positives: