Life in a northern town

I've enjoyed a few days away from the boat this week. I've done a lot of sailing recently and so a break has been nice.

I actually had a pleasant day in Leeds yesterday.

For those of you who dont know, Leeds is a large city in the north of England where I always thought you shouldn't go because you might get your head kicked in by an out of work miner.

But I was wrong, and the city centre is excellent. When I was standing around looking a bit lost, a lady actually came up to me and said "Y'alrigh luv"? Instinctively I reached for the mace spray but she really was just trying to help. She thought I was lost.

But they do have a different language, and as it was invented by people and not computers, I guess it reflects the creativity of the human race, and I think that's good. Anyway no one uses the word "the" and I think "owt" means "anything" and "nowt" means "nothing" but I'm not sure.

In the camping shop the assistant was genuinely interested in what I was going to do with my purchase.. I thought I'd pulled, but she actually seemed to be that nice to everyone..

So it's true that people are friendlier up North, the only down side is that because they all drive such small cars parking anything over three foot long is impossible. Anyway I couldnt park the Grand Cherrokee so I paid a complete stranger to drive around in it until I was done.

And the house prices are so cheap! Which I think is good. Its a bloody stupid world where each of us generally have a requirement for a house, and also for food, but if food goes up in price we are all pissed off, however if houses do, we bloody rejoice! I'm alright Jack eh?

The drive back was hell, and to keep myself awake I managed to hold my breath for 2min 15 seconds, carve a small image of buddah into my wrist with the top of a coke can and pretend I was at dinner with Penelope Cruz by setting the satalite navigation voice to Spanish.

Today it's too windy to sail, so its the gym for me later..Back to southern reality where saying hello is considered a birth defect.

The CST mast worked really well at the weekend, I could definately tell the difference, Thierry Martinez is coming over on Saturday. Hopefully the weather will be good.

James Boyd sent me the above photo. "Nowt" wrong with that setup.