Amateur Ramblings

Instaview: February & March Lunchtime Walks

It's been a while. Again.

Here are a selection of the products of some of my lunchtime walks in February and March 2012, starting with one of my favourite #lookupleeds images, taken in the underused Grand Arcade:

Not strictly a lunchtime walk; this is the end of one of the remaining back to back terraces in East End Park one sunny morning:

More not-taken-on-a-lunchtime, here's a handful of snaps one sunny evening shortly after the clocks when forward. The first two were taken from the ninth-floor canteen in my office block, while the third is the view looking back up Eastgate towards the eveing sun:

The end of the Brotherton Wing of the Leeds General Infirmary always looks a little like a cruise ship to me:

This is one end of the tunnel that takes the A58(M) Leeds Inner Ring Road underneath the LGI:

Solo M/Cs Only:

And here's the view of what becomes of the A58(M) - the A64 to Scarborough starts here as the York Road:

Here is a wall, in Stanningley. I waited here at a bus stop for 45 minutes hoping for a bus to take me back home across the city. The service is supposedly every 20 minutes. Can you tell I was bored:

Shop wall, East End Park:

The Corn Exchange's magnificent:

Finally, here are the lifts at the House of Fraser department store:

Blaques

Yonbeek (Olly) asked me if he could use my perpetually-almost comprehensive pictures of all of the blue plaques in the Leeds postcode area for a university project he was doing. I said yes.

Now he has completed his website. Take a look here.

Ox Fam

Ox is for Oxford, Fam is for family. Ox Fam. Geddit?

Anyway, so we went recently to Oxford to surprise Gemma's cousin Laura who recently turned 18. Gemma's mum and sister also went, travelling down after us and almost managing to arrive after midnight.

We stopped, as usual, at her parents spacious home, and with the sun out we were able to enjoy the garden.

We got to stay an extra day, and on the Bank Holiday Monday we went for a walk, via South Park...

...to Magdalen College, where Bernard currently works. We got to walk through the private grounds, before having a look round some of the buildings, including his room, and the chapel.

By the way, the surprise was well executed, with me and Olive detaining Laura in a children's park on Cowley Road just long enough for her family and friends to muster themselves in the kitchen.

A Lucky Escape!

So, we've had our house on the market for a little over twelve months. During that time we've had minimal interest. As you most likely know, the UK housing market has been pretty much broken for the last few years.

We were originally with Jane Earl, an Internet-based estate agent who charged a much lower (though up-front) fee than would a traditional agent. Turns out she charged too little, as she announced at the end of last year that she would need to wind up the business due to financial losses. Honourably, she arranged to continue our online listing through another company, Emove.

We had only recently talked about that fact that, despite our twelve months being up, our house was still showing online. Then Gemma had an email from one Beth Rodwell, head of Property Sales at Emove:

Hi Gemma,

Your agreement with Jane Earl expired on 29.03.2012 therefore we have now fulfilled our initial commitment to you. Would you like to renew your listing with us for a further 12 months for a reduced fee of £199?

I have someone who would like to view.

Kind regards,

Beth Rodwell

Mmm. What a pleasant email. It's no-nonsense, to the point, and will you look at that, Beth has only garnered some interest in our house. But blast it to the moon, we must renew our contract before we get to meet the interested party. Gemma replied:

Beth,

We will not be renewing the service at this time, but as we paid for 12 months with the estate agency and had no viewings in that time we would be very grateful if you could send the clients our way.

Gemma

Beth soon wrote back:

Gemma,

I am afraid I cannot do that. Infact we should have removed your listing on 29.03.2012 and if we had of done then we would not have generated the 2 viewing enquiries that we had today. You may have paid Jane Earl a listing fee and had no viewings up until now, however that is neither their fault nor ours, it is down general market conditions. The market has picked up now and I am confident that we can sell your property for you.

We have offered you a service for FREE over the last 4-5 months and we have manually generated you weekly reports and handled a few viewing enquiries which uses the time of our administration charges. I am afraid that unless you are willing to re-list with us at the extremely discounted rate offered then I will have to remove your listing with immediate effect. If you chose to instruct a local agent and you attract the same viewers or any viewer through them I can assure you that you will pay a lot more than £199 for a sale.

Kind regards,

Beth Rodwell

What was wrong with us, thinking that Beth worked for some kind of charity? How selfish of us! And how mean it was to suspect, even for one moment, that Beth might be inventing some interest to entice us into renewing with her company. We are bad people, and I just had to let Beth know how sorry I was:

Hi Beth.

Tom here, Gemma's partner. Gemma kindly forwarded me your email, as I wanted the opportunity to reply.

Thank you everso for clarifying the position regarding the two viewing enquiries you say you have had. I agree this interest is a clear sign that the property market is now picking up. I guess I have been foolish to have listened to the general predictions of a fall in UK house prices of between 2% and 12% in 2012. I am sad that we will now never get to meet these potential buyers; it is such a shame that they foolishly timed their interest badly.

I was sorry to learn that you suffered the inconvenience (not to mention the expense) of having to deal with the two recent enquiries, especially as you did us the favour of forgetting to remove our listing at the end of March. This is on top of the cost of the weekly reports, not to mention the 'other viewing enquiries' (we recall only one enquiry, but no viewing came of this; our failing memories must be to blame for our failure to recollect the other buyers you sent our way). This is particularly troubling to my conscience because, as you note in your email, you have generously offered us a service for FREE (your caps) over the last few months. Who says philanthropy is dead? Not I. We regret the disappointment our custom has clearly caused, and I apologise for your decision to take on the remainder of the Jane Earl contract. Why, we didn't even ask you to take us under your wing! I just know that you did it out of the goodness of your collective hearts.

You are correct; if we sold our house through a local estate agent we would for sure pay significantly more than the £199 fee you have proposed. I suppose we must find crumbs of comfort in the fact that the local estate agent will charge their fee only if they successfully sell the property.

Whilst tempted by your kind invitation (Gemma thought it to be a tad passive-aggressive, but I wouldn't hear of it), I feel that we cannot accept the offer to renew for another period of twelve months. We have been such poor customers that I would not wish for a second to jeopardise your company's prosperity. I fear that if we were to renew, you would surely be calling in the receivers within a few short months.

Thank you once again for all of your hard work.

Tom Smith.

I can only hope that we can be forgiven, but I fear that we are surely going to hell.

Abbey Habit

It seems hard to remember that we had a spell of really quite reasonable weather at the end of March. We both took the day of on Gemma's birthday and drove up to the Dales, soon arriving at Jervaulx Abbey. Here we enjoyed a picnic, surrounded by the crumbled remains of the 12th century monastery, itself nestled within a setting best described as being like the kind of country roads with which postman Pat would be familiar.

We drove home across the Dales. We stopped to let some farmers and their dogs heard a few score sheep from one field to another, and spotted the smoke of a fire drifting over the top of one of the hills, before pausing at Kettlewell for a cup of tea and a paddle in the chilly Wharf.

Back home that evening, I sketched a reminder of the day for Olive as she enjoyed a much-needed bath.

Wild West

The newly developed and much anticipated City Park opened in Bradford a couple of weeks ago. We went there with the Viponds. I didn't see the 'tallest fountain in any UK city' (a fairly qualified boast, that), and the vast throngs obscured and indeed paddled in the mirror pools. After straining and ultimately failing to hear the brass band, we repaired to the relative calm of the Media Museum.

We stayed over, and the next day they took us to a lovely little spot called St. Ives, near Bingley. We'd not heard of it before, but it was a beautiful area on top of a hill to have a spot of lunch and a stroll, followed by a go on the park (for the kids) and a go on the ice creams (all).

Found Postcard: Wales

Message:

Hi all. Having a nice relaxing time away. Weather has been fine but windy. Orville the Duck was part of the entertainment the other night great eh! See you all soon & don't work too hard. Love Lou, John & Thomas -x-.

Dated 17th October 2003

Found Postcard: Maldives

No message or date.

Found Postcard: Gran Canaria

Message:

Luv xxx. Hi guys I am writing this sat in the schorching (sic) sunshine it has been over 102°F. I have only been here for one night and have already vowed never to drink again!! And just to make you all jelous (sic) I have been diving through a hoop while you can splash in puddles.

Date illegible.

Found Postcard: Prague

Message:

Hi! We got wrecked last night & Emma was singing Leeds United songs in a pub; & banging out table [sic]!! We like Prague as beer is cheap, the stew is good, oh, & the buildings are also nice. Bye, bye x.

Undated