Leeds Vs Harpenden: The Backlash

Certain people, who shall remain nameless, have informed me that there are plenty of good things about Harpenden. So, I apologise, and in response to their request I am going to include some of the things I really like about Harpenden, rather than only the silly pretentious stuff i talked about last time.

So, Harpenden is actually quite nice. It is a pretty town (though i refer to it as a village) with lots of trees. It is about a 30minute train journey from central london, which is why lots of commuters live there. Driving to town is not advisable in the morning as there are several bottle necks on both sides due to the station, and the three secondary schools all within about 10 minutes of each other. The schools, according to statistics (and the local parents) are pretty good. I went to Roundwood Park (clearly the best!) for 7 years, even though it was the furthest away from my house. The other two schools were nearer to me, one only 5 mins walk and the other about 10minutes. But Roundwood had the best uniform by far - none of this bottle green and tweed blaser nonsense! We wore black and grey....and red occasionally.

The people there are rather nice too I suppose. I have to say i prefer food shopping in Harpenden; everyone in Leeds seems to either plow at you with a trolley, stop in the middle of an aisle so no one else can move, or think they're out for a walk in the park and strol around so slowly you want to jump up and down behind them and scream.

There seems to be a general concensus that people are friendlier "up north". I personally don't agree; granted no one in London speaks to each other, even if you're strap hanging on the tube and squashed into someone elses arm pit. At home its not too bad, though granted I do know a lot more people in Harpenden than I do in Leeds, which is possible why I haven't noticed the difference yet.

If you're still not convinced these links are to websites proving how nice Harpenden really is, so feel free to explore and tell if I'm wrong about anything else!

http://www.harpenden.gov.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpenden
http://www.harpendenvillage.com/

Flat Pack Penguins

On the request of a friend I produce the following piece of work. He asked for a penguin, I then promised to make him a penguin and post it to him. For obvious reasons the penguin had to be flat so that it would fit in the post box...the rest is pretty self explanatory...

Finished photographs to follow...

If anyone wants a Flat Pack Penguin please leave me a comment and include your email address, Thanks!

UPDATE

Photos of finished penguins...

How to live my life

This is a random piece of work I did on a rather grey saturday. The entire piece is based around things I like, images that caught my eye in magazines and generally nice stuff. I would like to think of it as maybe a visual guide to being me...im not totally sure if it's just right though....

Leeds Vs Harpenden

I've just finished my breakfast. It was quite yummy. For as long as i can remember I've been one of those really undecided breakfast people. Some people don't eat breakfast, I have no idea how they get through the day, I can hardly function without breakfast. But I'm never very good at deciding what it is exactly i want.Today I had Special K (I'm not really sure what it is that makes it special though), but it was the only thing I had in the kitchen, so i really had no option. Sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays my Mum would make me pancakes for breakfast. I love pancakes, and they pretty much make a meal at any time of the day. I sadly dont really have time to make pancakes in the morning here.

I dont think I'm missing home too much yet. I thought i would be really home sick, but obviously I'm enjoying myself too much! Thinking about it, home and here are completely different. Harpenden is pretty much the anti-leeds. There is almost nothing to do (for young people anyway) there are however 21 hairdressers and 12 estate agents, more than enough for any town where the population is less than 30,000. I really do wonder how any of the hairdressers stay in bussiness, no town needs 21 hairdressing salons.

There is also a lot of common land in Harpenden, east, west, north, south, you name it, that bit of harpenden has some common and this includes 4 different public and private golf courses. The main open common area encompasses more than 238 acres, impressive huh!? Apparently the average house price is £400,902 (2006), and disproportionate to the rest of the country. It seems to be a town of dissproportions. There must be about 4 or 5 expensive ladies wear shops on the highstreet, yet there are no mens clothing shops. In comparison to Leeds which has more than enough shopping areas for the whole of Yorkshire it seems pretty pathetic and pretentious.

30th September 2007
UPDATE
My mother has informed me that apprently there are two mens clothing shops, so you can all be reassured that the men in Harpenden are not walking around naked. It would probably make the place a whole lot more interesting if they were though...