The New Neighbour.

If you've been following my little blog for a while, please if you will, cast your minds back to March when I wrote about my days flat hunting with my friend N.

Remember it?

Remember how I described the flat (which I incidentally ended up choosing) was next door to a building site?

A deserted building site I should add.

Well, at the time, I asked the letting agent whether there was any plans to start work on the site within the near future (aka, within my tenancy period).

He assured me that there wasn't, and that the site had stood empty for the last 2 years due to funding issues.

Look who moved in today...

I'm Going to take this as a pretty big hint.

Either bob the builder is putting on a live show, or some building work is going to commence pretty soon.

It's going to be noisy, and messy and noisy and banging and drilling and digging and noisy...

Can you tell I'm not happy about this?

I don't get enough sleep as it is without this starting!

Rant over.

I shall continue when I have further details.

On a brighter note, I bought 2 goldfish today. I've decided to call them Belle and Sebastian, like the indie band.

I suppose they're my new flat mates?

If only I didn't have a new neighbour...

L x

Green.

6 weeks in to this little adventure and I really feel like I'm starting to find my feet in my new city.

It's been a turbulent ride so far, with homesickness and general house-hopelessness leaving me feeling rather lonely and a little lost at times. Nevertheless, things in the last week or so have really started to open my eyes to the possibilities I have in Leeds.

I think the turning point came last weekend when two of my best girlfriends came to stay, so I didn't have to jump on the train to Newcastle!

Them being there meant I spent my first weekend in Leeds, and I actually got to see something of it beyond the little "Z" shape I walk between the flat-work-gym/morrisons.

Also, my darling workmates have all suddenly turned alcoholic.

Well not quite...

But they're a social bunch, determined not to let me sit staring at my four walls of an evening, muttering sweet nothings to the goldfish.

For this, I am eternally grateful.

Now I've given it a chance, Leeds is actually pretty decent! I love the shops, the nightlife is brilliant and even the accent is growing on me!

I still haven't started drinking tea, but I feel it may only be a matter of time before one of my colleagues tried to convert me.

There is only one or two things that I'm still really missing about home, aside from the obvious friends and family of course!

The first, is a bath. 

I'm not trying to say I'm a scruff or anything, I swear I am washing! I have a lovely shower, just no bath!

I was bought a family of rubber ducks as a new home present before I moved, and they're yet to see some action!

Sometimes you just can't beat a lovely hot bubble bath at the end of a hard work day.

The second thing is green.

(The colour, this is not a euphemism for drugs).

Where I'm from (Newcastle end), I am ideally located 2 minutes from the beach, and about 10 minutes from the stunning Northumberland countryside.

There's trees and birds and trees... And green-ness everywhere!

Living in the city centre, with my delightful view of a building site surrounded by grey skyscrapers... It isn't quite as picturesque!

It's a funny thing, because I swear I didn't even notice the lack of colour when I first moved. It was one Friday, sat on the train, about 10 minutes out of Leeds heading towards York that my eyes, suddenly zoning in to the mass of green-ness that I realised, "there is no grass in Leeds".

This is not strictly true I'm sure, but from what I've seen so far, there's none!

So this week, I'm going to wander more! I'm going to find some green, and enjoy it! The weathers picking up, summers on the way, even city slickers have to find a bit of green to enjoy when the sun is shining right?

I'm still nowhere near city slicker accolade.

I'd probably describe myself as a country bumpkin, more at home with the woods than the tower blocks, but I'm getting there!

L x

G Day.

Dearest readers, if you've been following this blog for a while, then please cast your minds back to last weeks post where I let you in on my half baked plans to befriend some Leeds folk by joining a gym.

Reluctantly joining a gym I should add.

Well today was "G Day".

I had pottered along to the big fancy gym in the new shopping precinct on the Headrow after work on Tuesday and electronically signed myself up, but being a newbie, I had to book an induction before they would let me loose on any of the shiny machinery.

Sensible, but also a mortifying prospect.

The little confirmation email I received informed me it was to be a group induction, so I wouldn't be the only scared little unfit lamb being put up for the meathead slaughter.

Sadly when I went along to the gym tonight, the other lambs had obviously got cold feet, because I was the only one who turned up.

As I've been keeping this thing anonymous, I appreciate that if you find yourself reading this and you have no idea who I am, you have no idea what I look like. So let me paint a picture of myself.

I'm 5ft 6, a fairly slim size 10 (if a bit squishy round the edges), I've got unruly blonde hair which curls at the sight of a raindrop and I rocked up to the gym wearing my old Adidas cut offs which are a size too small, and my university alumni hoodie which is 3 sizes too big.

Pretty trampy.

I was met by a 6ft 5 (ish) giant of a man with shoulders as broad as my sofa and a beard which could rival Santa Claus'... Despite being brown. This man, Dave, was the personal trainer.

I was intimidated from the word hi.

Dave turned out to be a pretty canny bloke though, he didn't judge me as my face turned red from 5 minutes on the cross trainer and was very patient with me as I dubiously made my way around all of the shiny, dangerous gym machinery.

He didn't even laugh (too much) when I set the weight machine that works your upper arms (whatever it's called) on the wrong weight and couldn't even move the thing.

After an excruciating 45 minutes of Dave putting me through a gym master class of embarrassment, he asked if I had any more questions before he set me free to sweat in private.

I figured I might as well be honest and voice what I was really thinking...

"Is this a posers gym?"

In my previous post, I voiced my concerns about attempting to befriend meatheads and gym bunnies so I was somewhat relieved when he answered in the negative.

At that moment, 2 girls wearing so much fake tan it was genuinely difficult to tell their ethnicity walked past me, fake eyelashes, bright pink lipstick, the tightest Lycra leggings in existence and boobs pushed up to their chins. The works.

If you've seen the music video for that old Pink song 'stupid girls', you can probably picture the type.

As a little bead of sweat dripped off the end of my nose, I knew Dave had lied.

So I stayed for another half hour or so then made a swift exit, power walked up home and dived into the shower.

All in all, it wasn't the worst experience of my life, but even so, it's going to take me a gooooood while to become a gym loving exercise fanatic.

Just pass me the cake.

L x