Leeds Gardens
This is another little post to just report on and remind about the little things that you can do so close to your home.
In Leeds we are very lucky to have lots of exciting pockets of beauty in the city, if you can find them.
For a random thing to do a few weeks ago we decided to go to Horsforth, a small town contiguous with Leeds. For all that it’s half an hour away on the bus I have actually never been.
I have it on good authority, from us being there that I may have missed the boat, certainly in terms of there being loads of good charity shops, though the ones there were not to shabby, and I bought a certain amount of sheet music for the clarinet, and the Bowed Psaltery – a medieval instrument we have a strange desire to one day buy.
But perhaps Horsforth’s best kept secret is the Japanese Gardens in Horsforth Hall Park.
After sampling these Eastern delights, we decided to engage in Eastern delights of another kind, realising that the Horsforth Bus goes through Leeds to somewhere very different – Harehills.
Harehills has a (possibly not unreasonable at times) bad reputation, as a trouble spot, and it is the case that there’s a certain amount of trouble, a lot of poverty and a melting pot of cultures which can flare. But Oh My God the food is good. Anyway, I digress.
We planned to visit another Garden – The Specialist Gardens at Roundhay but after buying a tonne of food, and 2 metres of vinyl tablecloth with robins on, this seemed a large faff.
However, a couple of months later we made it.
These gardens are: The Coronation Garden which is home to winning entries to the Chelsea Flower Show, The Monet Garden based on gardens planted by the impressionist at Giverny in France and The Alhambra Garden, which is based upon one of the worlds most famous gardens, the 13th century garden at Alhambra, Spain.
We also had a little walk round the park itself. This also involved spending a certain amount of money which we should not have, in the art gallery. This always happens. I now need to find a home for 8 Greetings Cards, which when we chose 4 we really liked to frame, the helpful lady in the shop pointed out that buying all 8 was the same price…
There’s always so much to see, so close, if you look.