Concrete and play...

Normal life resumes. Drove 17-year-old daughter to Leeds for the first of several university interviews she's heading to. A nice day and a reminder that I'm not as young as my inner child would have me believe. Lots of hanging around the upper floors of Leeds Met's School of Architecture, Landscape and Design tower block. The view through the glass was The Plaza - not the fancy hotel it sounds like but another addition to the student accommodation around these fancy parts. The interview went well. Tomorrow, she's heading to the Leeds College of Art & Design. Seems like five minutes ago she was leaning over a colouring book and frantically sribbling away with some chunky Crayolas. Amazing. And frightening. We - daughter, her current beau and lil me - went for some food then I headed for home, leaving them to enjoy this city of a thousand tower cranes.

The play? There were a few final nips and tucks to the script. The cast are flying now. Me? I'm overwhelmed, dizzy, wandering around in a daze. The temptation to head to the theatre every night is very high. But that would be weird and incredibly vain. So, tonight at least, I'm here instead. And, of course, I just sit here, unstaring at the TV screen, all of life out of focus, wondering how it's going. I feel rather peculiar. If anyone stumbles across my sanity can you let me have it back?

I'm into wide open spaces...

This is my view, yesterday lunch. At least when the opera gets too much, I can sit in a big wide open space just up the road - Millennium Square, Leeds. Harry Gratian was on the big screen, whittering on about the history of Leeds and, given what was on the Hull screen the other day, I guess there's some big "you've never had it so good" propaganda at work right across the country. 20 minutes in to Harry's very exciting film and I got a call from a lifeboat coxswain. As much as I've been putting it off, I guess the ride of a lifetime on a Severn Class lifeboat can't be avoided forever, can it?