Last day in Leeds

We plan to move tomorrow, so first thing this morning we walked into the city centre to get provisions for the next few days. These included prawns for today's dinner of prawns in spicy tomato sauce with pasta, and pork and veg for a two-day stew.

Denise's relations come to see us

Mid-morning, visitors arrived and we spent a pleasant few hours together on the boat, lunching, chatting and walking around Clarence Dock and the nearby lock.

Clarence Dock

As this is our last day here, I thought it is time to say something about Clarence Dock. It was a major dock for Leeds but recently since the disappearance of commercial canal traffic has been redeveloped into a leisure and residential centre. Taking advantage of the attractive waterside setting, there are a large number of flats, shops and the massive Royal Armouries Museum in addition to the moorings for perhaps 30-40 visiting boats as well as private moorings. It all looks very impressive and has obviously cost a vast amount of money.

Unfortunately many of the shop premises are unused, the expensive designer clothes outlets appear to have virtually no customers, and one of the few restaurants has gone out of business. I understand that the flats have proved difficult to let. Hopefully the place will become more successful once the housing market begins to move. However as itinerant boaters we have found the facilities, security, and relatively easy access to the city centre have made Clarence Dock to be an excellent place to stay.