Sunny Leeds, Sunny London

As you may have guessed, I have now returned to Leeds as Easter draws to a close, and have just finished my first week back – and what a week it’s been! It was lovely to see everyone again, and we kicked things off with a feedback session on our briefs.

My tutor suggested that I refine my target audience for my cookbook design brief, and I thought that the best way to do this was to pay the client’s restaurant a visit – which meant a trip down to London! I got straight onto National Express and booked myself a ticket for Thursday – but more on that in just a sec…

After the feedback session I had forgotten my laptop charger, but the glorious sunshine outside made the round trip back home less daunting, and also allowed me the chance to take a quick wander round campus snapping some photos.

On Monday, after talks from returning students on their year in industry placement experiences (which included a free lunch, which had no bearing on my decision to attend at all), I had signed up to a one-off workshop on Wednesday with Bruce Usher. It was a refreshing and enjoyable workshop, where we were set a day-long brief of developing General Election political posters, a welcome break from the same two briefs I have been working on since the new year.

After the workshop I had to be sure to get an early night in, ready for a 5:30am start to grab a cab down to Leeds Coach Station for the 4½ hour trip down to Victoria Coach Station. After taking the opportunity to read some design literature, and after an hour stuck in stationary London rush hour traffic, I finally found myself wandering the streets of our surprisingly sunny capital.

I first headed to the location where I wanted to do some visual research, and spent a while looking around the area and snapping as many photos as I could. Then, after getting lost on the tube, I managed to find my way down to the Tower Of London, whereby I decided to make like a tourist and grab an ice cream and sit by Tower Bridge for a while.

I then made my way over Tower Bridge, snapping plenty of photos on the way. Wandering round London alone was admittedly quite strange, but it was good to get the research done and then allowed me to wander round at my own pace and do what I want. Izzy’s local knowledge wouldn’t have gone amiss though, as once I found myself on the other side of the Thames I managed to get lost again…

After I found my bearings, I headed off to Camden for a snoop around the markets, and grabbed myself some poffertjes (delicious Dutch style baby pancakes) smothered in Nutella. Needless to say they didn’t last long, and I was soon back on the tube to Victoria to kill an hour or so before I had to head back to the coach station.

And so what to do? For me, no trip to London is complete without a trip to Buckingham Palace, so I wandered down the aptly named Buckingham Palace Road and sat on the Queen Victoria Memorial for half an hour or so, soaking up the last rays of the rare English sun, sipping on some Oasis and offering to take photos for tourists passing through.

After a while though, it was time to head back and board the coach back to Leeds. After a huge holdup on the M1 and locking myself out of the coach toilet (don’t ask), I landed back in Leeds just after 1am, when needless to say I hailed the first cab home and crashed straight into bed.

So all in all quite an action-packed first week back, with no sign of giving up with our hand-in deadlines fast approaching. My summer is looking pretty packed too – with a trip with Rhea lined up to visit Luisa and co. in Germany for a week, the family holiday booked to Lagos in Portugal, more scholarship work to complete, and plenty of placement searching to be done.